Advanced Editing in Spyder Print

We all know the importance of creating a calibrated display for an accurate view of your digital world. But a Color Managed Workflow includes more than display calibration – input and output steps can be Color Managed as well. Datacolor’s solution for output calibration is Spyder Print.

The Problem

One of the characteristics of a Color Managed workflow is consistent and accurate communication between devices. These devices (cameras, printer and displays to name a few), have their own characteristics and will change over time.

Spyder Print offers an affordable, easy-to-use and precise way to manage output calibration. To build a profile, characteristics of your printer and paper such as black and white points, color temperature of the paper and color accuracy are evaluated. A high-quality profile will yield a better separated tonal range and more faithful color agreement with a calibrated display.

Not every printer in the same model line prints the same, plus a printer’s color output will change over time. A custom profile can be made multiple times to account for these changes for the best possible results. Having a profile made for your specific printer also ensures that its unique ability will always produce optimal results.

A Flexible Solution

One of the great advantages of using Spyder Print is the flexibility to edit a profile. These features are found on the Spyder Proof screen under Advanced Editing. Advanced Editing allows for infinite control over the look and feel of a profile.

Features that are included in Advanced Editing are ones that are familiar to photographers and printmakers, including basic adjustments for Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and various color edits for the overall profile or targeted to Highlights. However, there are a few others to note that are pretty unique:

Soft Proof White and Black Compensation Adjustment

The White and Black compensation allow for a more natural soft proof. White Compensation reduces the artificial blue tone that can occur when artificial paper whiteners (which look blue to colorimetric reading devices) are present in paper. This makes the paper color viewed on screen in a print preview mode more natural and more similar to what the eye sees viewing the printed image.

Black Compensation darkens the preview black to account for the less than perfect black of the monitor. This makes the ink black viewed on screen in a print preview mode more natural, and more similar to what the eye sees viewing the printed image.

PreciseLight^TM Brightness & PreciseLight^TM Color Temperature

For proper display, a print should be illuminated with full spectrum light, generally in a color temperature between 5000K and 6500K. While this is not always possible, PreciseLight^TM adjustments will allow you to compensate for difficult lighting.

For instance, if a print is going to be displayed in a dim or overly bright environment, PreciseLight^TM Brightness can be used to compensate for these lighting variations. And, if a print is displayed in an overly warm or cool environment outside the normal 5000K and 6500K, PreciseLight^TM Color Temperature will improve results.

Absolute Grays

Are you serious about black and white printing? The Absolute Grays control is a very handy adjustment for black and white printing. This control is used to improve tonal transitions. Using Absolute Grays should offer more literal gray values and better ramping to white on media that use optical brighteners.

There are many ways to consume images in today’s digital world – print is perhaps the most impactful. Printmakers deserve the tools that will allow them to fully express their vision, and Spyder Print is the tool that brings more flexibility and precision to this pursuit.