Re: Attack of the Spyders. Oh My!
Re: Attack of the Spyders. Oh My!
- Subject: Re: Attack of the Spyders. Oh My!
- From: Chris Murphy <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 08:38:45 -0700
On Monday, November 11, 2002, at 05:11 PM, "Andrew Rodney"
<email@hidden> writes:
That sucks! One of the beauties of Optical (a great software product)
was
that it supported so many devices. I'm going to be very hard pressed to
recommend that product if it will ONLY work with the Spyder.
What made it great was the support for multiple instruments, and for
diagnostic purposes (the curves and information windows were nice for
geeks). The ability to set a specific white point, instead of just 5000
K or 6500 K was nice for those people who really wanted to ensure their
monitor white matched a particular substrate - which amounts to very
few people practically speaking.
It seems that Color Vision has decided (finally) that it is a hardware
company (not a software company). Shame. They had pretty nice software
but
if it's only going to support one device after years of supporting
many, I'm
tossing it.
The LCD/CRT Spyder + PhotoCAL @ $288 retail (and less street price), is
still a very viable entry level product while providing a high end
result for CRT, and a reasonable result for LCD. To get into an Eye One
Monitor + basICColor Display is about a $700 initial investment in
comparison, with a user interface that can threaten a heart attack in
the most resolute of individuals. So $700 + the one hour on-site course
or two hour telephone course on how to use the thing (yes I'm
exaggerating, but only a little).
But when it comes to OptiCAL, I agree. They're basically killing the
need for the product. Essentially no one needs custom white point and
gamma or the diagnostic abilities of the program.
I'm not a fan of the user interface from nearly all of pCity's
offerings but
you can't knock their math! The products work very well. Considering
that
the DTP-92 is an excellent piece of hardware (some would argue much
better
than a Spyder), AND you are being forced into a position I think isn't
a
good one, I'd go with new software and keep your expensive X-Rite
device.
I would tentatively agree, but it depends on how many workstations, and
what kind of volume licensing is available for basICColor Display.
PhotoCAL volume licensing starts at 5-user licenses for $100. Hard to
beat that, except from Gretag Macbeth where you get a site license with
an Eye One.
Go with the EyeOne if you are tired of measuring a patch at a time and
I'd
even suggest using ICC Display with the EyeOne (a very good combo).
I'm not
sure how necessary the UV version is (the jury is still way out on this
one). I've used the non UV for months and months before the product
was even
announced (beta) and haven't seen any profile needs that for me,
warranted
the need of UV filters.
For use in process control it's not a bad idea because without the UV
filter the paper white readings affect calibration/linearization, which
you don't want. But when it comes to profiling, it's ignoring a reality
of the paper that needs to be taken into account. I'd be inclined to
stay away from UV filtering and ask for better math for dealing with it
in software than sticking fingers into our ears, closing our eyes, and
pretending that UV filtering is a good fix for a more complex problem.
Either that or easily removable UV filters like with the
Spectrolino/Spectroscan.
At least with the EyeOne, you can use EyeOne Match (free) which has
some of
the capabilities of ColorShop (but not enough).
Me thinks you mean Eye One Share. I *really* want a status-T density
plug-in for Eye One Share!! It would be even better if the plug-in
could do dot gain and print contrast computation automatically, but if
it could just do status-T I can compute the others easily.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (tm)
Boulder, CO
303-415-9932
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