Portable Spectrophotometers
Portable Spectrophotometers
- Subject: Portable Spectrophotometers
- From: Tom Beckenham <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 11:50:58 +1100
Hi all, we're about to set up a new office, with all new equipment. Our
purchase list so far is thus:
X-Rite 530 densitometer
Gretag Spectrolino/Spectroscan
Gretag ProfileMaker 4.0
ColorBlind Edit
I assume most will agree, this is a pretty safe buy (but I'm also sure some
will argue otherwise). One thing that's missing, though, is a portable
spectrophotometer. We're still debating whether we need one. Our idea is to
go out on site, calibrate, calculate ink weight etc, print the test chart
then send it back to the office to stick on the Spectrolino. We've found so
far that we usually want to test, proof, and often tweak the profiles before
we show our clients the results. So we generally won't want to generate the
profile on site and hand it over. We also can't guarantee the press site
will have a decent proofing device to test on. So our thinking at the moment
is that we always take the chart off site, and come back later with the
profile.
However, if we needed to profile many presses, we could be on the road for
quite a while. In this case, we would have to courier the chart back to the
office, and get someone there to measure it. Then, possibly weeks later,
travel back to the office, and generate/tweak the profile, unless we had
someone on hand to do that. We were thinking that we may need an additional
spectrophotometer to take on the road with us, to either measure on-site or
take back to a hotel to measure the chart. This would be useful if we were
profiling proofing devices or other printers that wouldn't need too much
profile tweaking. I've noticed on this list that many consultants are
actually taking a DTP41, EyeOne, or Spectrocam out to sites to create
profiles. I'd really like to hear the experiences some of you have had
profiling presses on site.
We're currently using a DTP41, but have had real difficulty getting it to
read newspaper through its rollers. I really want to avoid glue and
scissors. The other two options were either the EyeOne or Spectrocam. I
still can't tell the difference between the two. One thing we were really
looking for was the option to read the same chart on either the portable
spectrophotometer or the Spectrolino. We could always print a different
chart if we knew before hand which instrument we were going to use. But it
would be nice to be able to use a single chart, and decide afterwards
whether we were going to send it back to the office or measure it on site.
As far as I can tell, neither the EyeOne or DTP41 allow you to read a chart
generated for a Spectrolino. I was told by an EyeOne dealer that the EyeOne
recognizes patches by the "difference" between adjacent patches. That is, it
requires that the patches be ordered so that the it goes something like
dark-light-dark. Does the Spectrocam work in the same way?
Has anyone had any experience using any two different spectrophotometers to
measure the same chart. Has this ever been an issue for anyone? I'm really
just trying to cover every possible angle.