Hello,

Could a person who has had no training for calibration other than reading a lot of posts and using calibration disks use the Datacolor colorfacts 7.5 software and hardware? I can get a Colorfacts 7.5 at a very good price. I want to calibrate my xbr9 and sxrd xbr1 using the 7.5. I also want to eventually get trained and certified for calibration but not for a while.

So would I be wasting my money on a Colorfacts 7.5 if I only paid around $1200.00 for it.

Any feedback is appreciated.

Colorfacts has been discountinued.... CalMAN has several options less than that price.

Greetings

but not for professional use. If you aspire to enter the pro world ... you can get the colorpro program from sencore (made by calman) ... the colorfacts program ... or the progressive labs program. ($1300)

no hardware associated with the programs at the cheapest price points.

Colorfacts is a nice program, but there is no more support for the program. But that does not mean that it just stops working ... it keeps plugging along and works nicely. I use it when I don't need to consider cms stuff.

regards

Thanks for the info. I have no training or equiptment so what would I need to get.

You would need a meter with the program. Colorfacts works with all the meters as far as I know. When you get ready to do it professionally if you decide to then you would need a pattern generator also.
By the way, Colorfacts is incredibly easy to use and very pleasant to get used to for a novice. It's what I used for about 6 years and I still use it occasionally.

Even at $1200, ColorFacts isn't much of a bargain since it's essentially "done" as a product. You can probably get the info you need to use CF through the various forums and published info for the program, but even after all this time, it can be a little buggy with some meters and signal generators causing you to have to exit the software, and power-cycle the meter or signal generator, then restart the software to get going. There's not much support for gamma in CF - you can get the data you need and enter the data manually into the Accupel calibration calculator to get gamma for each step from 10%-90%, but that gets old after a while. There's also not much support for color management controls in CF (as someone else pointed out) and if you use the Color measurement wizard 1 time, you have to quit CF and re-start it because subsequent uses of the Color wizard will produce incorrect results if you don't restart the software each time. So it can be a pain to use. But like Michael, I still use CF if I'm only calibrating grayscale because it is much easier to start and use than CalMAN.

If you can get a personal version of CalMAN now and have that purchase applied as a credit towards a Pro version later, that's probably your best bet. CalMAN has great support for gamma and color management, but the convoluted startup and lack of "memory" for various settings you have used in the past makes starting it up into your standard measurement configuration is not as simple as it could and should be. CalMAN has SO MANY options, it can be daunting for a novice (perhaps some of these are eliminated from the personal version, not sure, I've never seen the personal use version).

As others have pointed out, you need a meter for making measurements. It's pretty hard to sell yourself as a pro calibrator if you're using a meter that sells for less than $1000 but if your budget won't support a good meter, CalMAN has bundles that would be fine for a home calibrator with the C5 meter or even better, the i1-Pro. Keep in mind that many of the most "serious" and respected calibrators are using meters that sell for $7000 up to $25,000 - and there's a reason for that. Those are really "pro quality" instruments and there's no way to achieve their level of performance at lower prices (the i1-Pro is close, but slow and limited at measuring darker test patterns).

Once you get into the advanced mode, yes, you have a universe of options available to you. For a novice, if you use the more limited user profiles, the options are seriously constrained. The OP can always download a demo and check it out to see if how CalMAN works makes sense to him/her. Otherwise, there are definitely options available...

Bill

Well I am not sure what to do now. I have offers for Colorfacts 7.5 with I1 meters and have looked at the Calman bundle offers at the Calibration Forums site. I am going to download the Calman demo to see what it is like.

Any other thoughts are appreciated.

I see that Calman home can only be used for one TV, if I understand that correctly.

Can the Calman Enthusiast be used on multiple sets? if not I would definatly go with the colorfacts.

I see that Calman home can only be used for one TV, if I understand that correctly.

Can the Calman Enthusiast be used on multiple sets? if not I would definatly go with the colorfacts.

No, CalMAN Home can be used on all displays you own (personal use). :D

License Info here: http://www.spectracal.com/licensing.html

The Home license is valid only for personal use on your own displays.


CalMAN Home is restricted these Meter Types:

The Standard (colorimeter) Home license supports only the tristimulus colorimeters listed in the meter support matrix (http://www.spectracal.com/metersupport.html), and no other meters. (For example, it does not support the EyeOne Pro, the Chroma 5, or the Hubble.)

The EyeOne Pro Home license supports the EyeOne Pro spectrophotometer and no other meters.

The Chroma 5 Home license supports the Chroma 5 and no other meters.

If you switch meters, you must purchase a new license or upgrade to Enthusiast or Pro.



CalMAN Enthusiast
The Enthusiast License supports multiple meters.
The Enthusiast license supports all the meters supported by various home licenses, including the EyeOne Pro, the Chroma 5, the colorimeters listed in the meter support matrix, and the X-rite Hubble.