Must Calibrate All The Things! - Or why the hell did you calibrate your scanner?!
Yeah... I go through life feeling like that sometimes. It can be annoying. But at least I have a yardstick to know exactly how annoying it is.Last week I posted a review of an ink. An awesome ink -- Iroshizuku Ku-jaku. I scanned in the paper I wrote the review on and was dismayed at the shittiness of how it looked on the screen. It was freakishly awful; the colors were drab and perhaps even made it to "so-so" instead of the vibrant awesomeness that was on my sheet of paper.I henceforth ordered up a scanner calibration target from B&H. My scanning software, VueScan is nice enough to be able to scan in the industry standard images and calibrate the scanner to that. It arrived today! I did a happy-dance.
It's nothing but a simple image on a piece of photographic paper:
The key is the file that you can download from the URL on the print. From there you can download the colors that are really on the card from a calibrated colorimeter. Every card is not calibrated, but the batch has enough consistency to ensure that it's still accurate.So, here's the before and after:
Ick. Limp. Dull. Blah. You don't get any of the cool green shading that is really on the paper. It looks like a flat blue ink with a tough of shading. If I wanted that I have inks that do exactly that.Now, post-calibration:
Awesomeness! The green shines through! The shading regains it's jewel-like colors!Holding the paper up to my calibrated monitor is almost creepy; it looks the same. Exactly the same.Here's the full pages before and after:
Yes, the paper has a bit of a cool hue to it. It's exactly the color that I see when I'm holding the paper in my hand. Hell, it's even the same brightness. It's what you expect from Rhodia papers.If you have a calibrated monitor, you'll see the exact color I have on my screen. If you don't, well, you'll still get a far better idea about the color than you would've otherwise.
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For some reason I really love calibrated things. Why do I geek out on metrology (not meteorology) I don't know. Traceable standards are cool.I might be one of the few people that think that.Why do you think I like my Fluke 87V? Mmmm... the sweet, sweet smell of calibration.