SpyderPro5 with Retina screen?

I’m trying to color calibrate my my 27" iMac 2017 Retina 5 screen to make the prints I send to Costco come out better. colorMunki doesn’t work properly with retina screens. Someone recommended SpyderPro5. Anyone have experience with this combination?

Have you tried Apple’s built in ColorSync for Macs? You can save as many color profiles as you want:

https://support.apple.com/guide/colorsync-utility/welcome/mac

Yes, but my problem is that the images that look great on my screen are getting printed too dark and too yellow on the Costco printer. They claim my screen may be miscalibrated. Here’s the image I’m struggling with. On my screen the greens are natural-looking, but on Costco’s printer some of the lime-green ones, like the large one at lower left touching the log, come out a harsh yellow. A friend says the image looks too yellow on his screen too. What does it look like to you? Everything I send to Costco prints too dark, so I think my screen may be set too bright. But on my iPhone the same photo has the identical color balance to what I see on my iMac, which makes me suspect my color calibration is not really off.

Also when I’ve downloaded the profile for the particular target printer at Costco (https://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/) and tried to install it, but the app says this:

/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Costco-WA-Silverdale-Gls.icc

Header padding is not null.

~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/iMac_Easy_D65.icc

Header message digest (MD5) is not correct.

Verify done. Found 2 bad profiles.

PaulBrians

    April 7

Yes, but my problem is that the images that look great on my screen are getting printed too dark and too yellow on the Costco printer. They claim my screen may be miscalibrated. Here’s the image I’m struggling with. On my screen the greens are natural-looking, but on Costco’s printer some of the lime-green ones, like the large one at lower left touching the log, come out a harsh yellow. A friend says the image looks too yellow on his screen too. What does it look like to you?

It doesn’t look too yellow to me on my retina iPad. I think it looks fine.

Everything I send to Costco prints too dark, so I think my screen may be set too bright. But on my iPhone the same photo has the identical color balance to what I see on my iMac, which makes me suspect my color calibration is not really off.

Have you tried taking your prints to Costco and telling them what’s wrong with the color? They should be able to work with you and make adjustments that will work with your equipment right there, or to give you a profile. If not, any quick printer, like Sir Speedy, Alpha Graphics, Minuteman, or any small local shop, certainly will, and it should be at least as cost effective as buying an app that might or might not work.

I’m a more than terrible proofreader…I should have said "that would work with their equipment right there. Mea culpa.

I send in my photo files online and pick the prints up at Costco and check them there. They have been willing to reprint for free in the past to fix color problems. But their old employee retired and the new ones are not as expert. They have seldom or never made such color adjustments and are not expert. I worked with one of them for almost an hour, making six bad prints altogether. The screen they view is not calibrated with the printer it talks to, so all adjustments are just blind guesses. It’s driving me crazy. I just want to make sure that my output is not flawed by what I’m seeing on my screen before I pursue corrections on the print end.

But on my iPhone the same photo has the identical color balance to what I see on my iMac, which makes me suspect my color calibration is not really off.

Looks beautiful on my retina iPhone. Most mass-production printers like Costco do not hire color experts by any means. I’m sure the problem is on their end.

As for fixing it, the simplest test is to try some other printers. Either a different Costco, a Walmart, print shop, online place — anyone else. I’ve found there’s a wide variety even among the same chains.

My experience is that trying to get one shop to “fix” their equipment for you is a battle you’ll never win.

You could ask when their equipment is calibrated/maintained and try right after that happens, as it might be better right after maintenance has been conducted, but that’s a lot of effort, too.

Yes, looks nicely verdant on my Retina screen too, I would suggest that Costco is the problem not you, especially if you haven’t changed anything on your end since the last time you printed. Are you using Photoshop? And if so, are you embedding a color profile into the file?

Edited to add: this sounds like a long-standing problem with Costco- having the right technician seems like it is essential
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/1508116

On Sun, Apr 7, 2019, at 8:51 AM, PaulBrians wrote about poor Costco print calibration,

Along with the others, do try a different print service, preferably not a chain store. That lovely PNW forest floor deserves much better than that!

Consumer Reports has an article rating a few services:

https://www.consumerreports.org/digital-cameras-photography/choose-the-best-photo-printing-services/

I’d probably try AdoramaPix, since they’re usually my first choice photo gear vendor.

https://www.adoramapix.com/photo-prints/

As an extreme calibration example, Bill Atkinson wanted to print a photo book (“Within the Stone”), and did back flips working with a commercial printer to get a calibration that worked the way he wanted. The results are amazing–true deep blacks and a huge gamut.

http://www.billatkinson.com/Pages/SpecialOffers.html

‘Within the Stone’: The Backstory:

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2007/06/within_the_ston.html

(Be sure to read at least the featured comments too; more of the story appears.)

xdev
Marc Z

    April 7

But on my iPhone the same photo has the identical color balance to what I see on my iMac, which makes me suspect my color calibration is not really off.

Looks beautiful on my retina iPhone. Most mass-production printers like Costco do not hire color experts by any means. I’m sure the problem is on their end.

This is 100% true. Another problem is that the color gamut on any display, and most especially on a Retina Display, is going to be much, much higher on the display than print. Even allowing for differences, green should not look yellow.

As for fixing it, the simplest test is to try some other printers. Either a different Costco, a Walmart, print shop, online place — anyone else. I’ve found there’s a wide variety even among the same chains.

I just asked someone who is an expert on the printing business, and he suggests Staples. They do a lot of 4 color printing for individuals as well as large to small business, and have sophisticated equipment and trained staff in their stores.

My experience is that trying to get one shop to “fix” their equipment for you is a battle you’ll never win.

This is also 100% true.

I have had no trouble using my ColorMunki with the retina display on my laptop, and a quick Google search of ColorMunki’s web site shows an FAQ on retina displays. But note that the product and software are now named i1 Studio. Recent software updates under under that name.

In my experience Apple’s colour profiles are excellent for looking at pictures but no matter what their tint, I have found all of them too brilliant for printing. One of the minor nuisances of my life is needing to use in layouts photos that other people have adjusted with Apple’s profiles.

Before complaining about uncalibrated photo printers, do remember that the colours of a photo will vary with its size as well as the room’s lighting, and under no circumstance will the colours of a photo look the same on print and screen. The goal of calibration is not accuracy of colour, it is engineering consistency. Colours are perceptual phenomena with no physical existence, perceptual phenomena that are formed fully as much by circumstance as by wavelengths of light. Physical calibration is useful not because it creates accurate colour–there is no such thing–but because calibrated systems remove some variables and, hence, are easier to compare.

Fifteen years ago I wrote an article on this subject for TidBITS. Toward the end of the piece I mentioned printers and software that no longer exist but the basic information has not changed.

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When I complain about Costco’s lack of calibration, I’m referring to the fact that the clerk let me stand beside him as he tried to tweak my photo, and that what we saw on HIS screen did not remotely match the colors that came out of the attached printer. His screen was not calibrated to his printer.

I also suspect the new Costco guys are ignoring my “do not adjust” requests and allowing the printer to do its programmed “improvements.” Lately they’ve been routinely cropping off the thin black border I put around my photos and enlarging the image to fill the area, printing them darker than they used to, introducing random color shifts. I actually phone them after uploading my files and at their suggestion tell them to print my photos “as is.” The new guys working there don’t seem to get it. I miss the guy that retired. He made great prints for me.

Paul Brians