Colour management products can be divided into two broad groups - colorimeter based products (for measuring colour emmissive devices, i.e. monitors) and full spectrophotometers (which can measure the colour of both backlit and reflective objects, i.e. prints, monitors, fabrics, and pretty much anything else!).

Jump to:

• Monitor calibrators (Colourimeters)
• Complete workflow calibration systems (Spectrophotometers)

Colourimeters

Devices for calibrating monitors only

The first thing you should do before doing anything at all in digital imaging is to calibrate your monitor.

Calibrating your monitor is the most important step in any digital imaging workflow - how can you produce beautiful images if you can't see the images accurately on your screen?

It's true all monitors vary, but monitor calibration is not a subjective process - all digital imaging revolves around viewing images on a properly calibrated monitor. Calibrating your monitor with a hardware device is the only really accurate way of working with digital images.

99% of people working in digital imaging only need a colourimeter device. Ranging from about $150 to $500, these devices will calibrate and profile your monitor. They have an internal sensor that reads the colour coming out of your screen.

Once you have calibrated your monitor (a simple ten minute process), you will be looking at, and therefore making decisions based upon, accurate colour. This is absolutely the core aspect of a colour accurate workflow. The process needs to be repeated regularly as monitors drift over time, thus owning your own device is the only sensible long term solution (if you rent a device or hire someone to do this for you, you will very soon have spent more than buying your own in the first place!).

Combined with a high quality custom profile ICC service (if you're doing your own printing), you will be able to easily achieve accurate colour across your entire workflow.

Go to:

• The 4 methods of calibrating monitors
• Overview of monitor calibrators available
  (and great value Image Science packages that combine a calibrator with custom ICC profiles for your printer)

Spectrophotometers

Devices for measuring and calibrating just about anything!

People with a greater interest, or investment, in colour may find themselves in need of a full spectrophotometer. These devices can be used to calibrate and profile just about any colour device or system, including monitors, printers (both RGB driven and CMYK driven), projectors, scanners, and take spot colour measurements of just about anything from fabrics to packaging to skin tones!

Generally you should only consider one of these systems if you have a strong interest in colour and have several devices you wish to calibrate and profile, or use a great variety of media and want to make a significant number of your own custom profiles. If this is not the case, a custom profile service will often be a better value and quality option, as our custom profiles are made with the very best of equipment and techniques that are noticeably more sophisticated than the beginner systems.

Spectrophotometers start at about $1000 (with really good systems adequate for most people costing about $2500, and cream-of-the-crop systems costing $10000 or more).

Overview of complete workflow calibration and profiling solutions