Seeking Experience Input: Do I need a colorimeter or more for accurate prints?

[nobodyhome]

I was wondering, from the designers who've the expertise in such matters, if a colorimeter or are any other peripherals needed for getting colors next to accurate when making prints? I'm not looking for absolute perfection, but I'd like to print something that's remotely similar to what I see on my screen.

I'm thinking of doing a massive upgrade from a broken down Windows laptop (i want to launch it into the sun...) to a MacBook after they're announced, but I don't know if True Tone works in place of needing a colorimeter, if I need a colorimeter and turn off True Tone, or whatever combination or settings work the best. I'm trying to estimate costs for everything I might need and a colorimeter is a big one besides the MacBook itself.

True Tone from what I can tell sounds like it does what a colorimeter in that it adjusts for the ambient light to make sure colors appear "nicely", but I don't know if that means "accurately". Honestly, I'm not well versed and I don't know the jargon to find the answers online that I'm looking for.

Colorimeters are expensive by my budget which is why I'm wondering if I need one. I'm not a professional who needs all the gadgets, but I'd like to take my artistic and designs skills up a notch and getting some prints out that actually look like they're suppose to would be a huge step for me. I've mediocre standards right now.😅

 

[now i see it]

A colorimeter will likely not help the situation. A better monitor would. At professional hi-end print shops I used to deal with, they had pricey reference monitors they’d use for eyeballing the color. After enough test prints they could pretty much nail the print to look like the monitor.
Also an inexpensive printer isn’t going to output accurate color.

 

[nobodyhome]

So a MacBook screen isn't going to cut it? Pity, but makes sense too. I'll try researching what kind of monitors and see if anything is in my price range.

It oddly makes me feel a little better that even professional print shops have trouble with getting colors right. Maybe it's not only because I'm unsure what I'm doing.

Thanks.

 

[suburbia]

What you see on your display will never be exactly what’s printed— even with a professional display and even color-calibration.

Accuracy of print matching as closely as possible to display comes down to a combination of your own experience with color-correction and prepress files, quality of your display, as-close-to-your-preferred-tone color-calibration and the printer you’ve chosen to work with.

 

[AppleSmack]

What you see on your display will never be exactly what’s printed— even with a professional display and even color-calibration.

Yes, this is worth emphasising! Understanding colour workflow will get you 60% accuracy. Spend all you can on your own equipment, and you still might attain only 70% accuracy. Reach 90% accuracy by having a client who values print quality AND has the budget to work with a good printer and doing print tests. Reach 95% if you're willing to be at the printing company to do a press-pass before they run thousands of copies.

That said, 60% accuracy is a huge improvement and lower risk to your pocket and reputation than NOT understanding colour workflow.

After all that, the client and users will just view your lovely print under standard office lighting!

 

[organicCPU]

1.) Especially for smaller budgets, I can recommend working with color guides instead of exactly calibrated hardware. There are many different color guides and bools, like the ones from Pantone, HKS or DCS, etc. An example shop link, that I'm not affiliated to: https://colorconfidence.com/collections/colour-guides

2.) Then I can recommend to open  > System Preferences > Display > Colors and calibrate your display visually. Save the color profile with a describing name containing device, date and time. Repeat that step with different light situations on different daytimes. Repeat the calibration from time to time, like you'd do with a hardware calibration tool, too.

Those two simple steps won't give you a better display output, but they can give you a high accuracy of your print products and a deeper understanding of color in general. Additionally a professionally hardware calibrated display and printer, the calibrator itself, a special normed light setup at D50 or D65, a spectrophotometer, densitometer, linen tester and other tools for measuring prints can give you more safety and accuracy for your work and help you refining your skills, but they aren't absolutely necessary for most tasks of prepress for print publishing.

 

[Rupp]

I work far more with photographs than I do with design applications, so take my comment accordingly.

I have been using a pair of NEC monitors with Spectraview II software and an (NEC labeled) x-Rite colorimeter (purchased together). In lieu of calibrating my printer, I have used Colorbyte Software's ImagePrint software for printing. This combination has worked for me for years (the colorimeter is relatively inexpensive). As has been said, you never get 100% of what you see, but you get al lot closer.

I assume that a good colorimeter will work on a MacBookPro display, but I would recommend getting a monitor made with color accuracy in mind.

Caveat: My NECs have just about reached their "sell by" date, and I plan on using a 2021 MacBook Pro with a new external monitor. NEC does not seem to support some colorimeters with OS12. I wonder if other calibration software will have the same problem.