I was wondering the same and found this post while searching.

My choices (per my budget) are the ColorPlus at about $100, Adobe PS Gamma or nothing.

I'm looking to do "better" color correction in both Photoshop and Vegas. For Vegas I will be using a TV/monitor that I'm also looking to calibrate but for my LCD PS Gamma did not seem to do the trick.

Anyone else have experince with the ColorPlus or is it a waist of time/money.

smhontz, did you ever get one of these?

Thanks!

-Jason

I used the ColorPlus system for my digital still work, yes, and it works great. However, it is not for color correcting video--two different animals.

Jay

Thanks for the reply Jay.

Yes for color correcting video I am looking for something to help there but on the still side I was hoping to get accurate color representation on my LCD and printer.

Is there something specific you use for your printer?

- Jason

Jason, to do proper color correction for video (and some here will disagree, just wait and see) you need to use an NTSC broadcast monitor. Some will suggest a television, which is better than a computer monitor, but not nearly as good as a broadcast monitor.

The ColorPlus system will (should) do what you want for your still work. Some of it will depend on your photo editing software, too, i.e., Photoshop. I use ColorPlus, a CRT monitor, Photoshop CS, and the Epson R800 printer. The photos I'm printing have stunning color, and that's not just hype.

The Spyder has a special attachment for LCD screens. Make certain you use it 1) to keep from damaging your monitor, and 2) to get an accurate calibration.

Jay

I definitly agree about a broadcast quality monitor but given the $$$ choice between a good TV with some about of manual controls and nothing I went with the dedicated TV option.

Same with the calibration tool. Could not afford the Spyder so I went with the ColorPlust consumer version.

For video tv calibration I was shooting for something like this...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=617&item=6364869858&rd=1

-Jason

I've not tried that, but I've heard a few people that have found it to work well for setting up their televisions.

[EDIT] You're going to have ongoing problems between your PC and your friend's Mac. They use two different gammas.

Jay

I'll give it a try and report back here (got to be worth the $25 :).

Regarding the mac, fortunetly that is not me. smhontz?

Thanks again,

-j

I used "Video Essentials" (predecessor to Digital Video Essentials) to dial-in my TV that I use as test monitor thru the Vegas firewire configuration. Works great for me. Really lets me know what I'm going to see in the end-product and ALSO has boosted enjoyment of my movie viewing on that same TV. Most noticably, the blacks have a subtle and complete range. Highly recommended.

Dan

i have the spyder for photoshop stuff. Works well for stills. For my dual head monitor setup and nvidia fx5700 video card and XP, you can only have one monitor profile acitve. That is, you can't cal both monitors separately. Pick one and use that for color critical work.

Color managed workflow is complex and not easy to get right (if you don't know what you're doing you can have multiple corrections in your workflow, screwing it up). It will never be perfect. The color of the light in the environment and the different gamuts of the different media will never match.

Not all printers support ICC profiles and you need another device to generate those if your printer didn't come with one. Even if your printer came with a profile it's a generic one. Fine for most stuff, but if you're doing critical stuff you need a specific one for your printer, the set of printheads and inks your have in at that moment, and the specific media you're using.

I use wzywig with an expensive ($100) target to generate profiles for my scanner and printers.

I use AVIA's cal dvd and filters for calibrating my video monitor.

More on printers (I design inkjet printers for a living):

Consumer photo printers do LOTS of image processing to give the consumer a pleasing picture. Very few people want ACCURATE color, they want pleasing color. The real world is not as vivid as we'd like. Cheap printers mostly do not let you turn off all of this processing. It may include sharpening, gamma correction, color correction, saturation adjusts, shadow detail enhancements, all kinds of stuff. We spend a whole lot on engineering to do this for you. And of course it changes all of this based on the quality and media settings in the driver.

For accurate, color managed workflow you need to turn all of this off and set the driver for ICM color management. BEFORE generating your profiles. If you have a cheap (<$500) printer you may not be able to. I played with an Epson R200 the other day and at least I was able to set the color management to ICM. Dunno about all of the other stuff, didn't have much time to mess with it.