"Transplanting" Color Profiles between versions of OS X

[bunnspecial]

I've found myself in a bit of a difficult situation.

The only calibrator to which I have access at the moment is a ColorPro Spyder 2. Since most of my DD work is done on PPC Macs(scanner compatibility) this hasn't been an issue-as far as I know ColorPro never released a version of software compatible with Intel Macs and also the Spyder 2.

I'm using Spyder2Pro 1.0, which is what came with my calibrator.

I'm trying to transition some of my work over to my Mac Pro with dual 23" aluminum Cinema Displays. Unfortunately, these were sourced separately and the colors are dramatically different(I believe that one was made before and the other after the backlight change).

I was able to boot into Snow Leopard and profile them without any trouble at all.

The problem is that-for various reasons-I need to be using Mavericks(or newer, although I want to stick with Mavericks for now) and can't generate a profile with the Spyder2 in Mavericks.

Is there any way to take the profiles I generated in Snow Leopard and transplant them to Mavericks to use there?

 

[chrfr]

Is there any way to take the profiles I generated in Snow Leopard and transplant them to Mavericks to use there?

You could just copy them over but there's no guarantee they'll be accurate in a different operating system.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I've found myself in a bit of a difficult situation.

The only calibrator to which I have access at the moment is a ColorPro Spyder 2. Since most of my DD work is done on PPC Macs(scanner compatibility) this hasn't been an issue-as far as I know ColorPro never released a version of software compatible with Intel Macs and also the Spyder 2.

I'm using Spyder2Pro 1.0, which is what came with my calibrator.

I'm trying to transition some of my work over to my Mac Pro with dual 23" aluminum Cinema Displays. Unfortunately, these were sourced separately and the colors are dramatically different(I believe that one was made before and the other after the backlight change).

I was able to boot into Snow Leopard and profile them without any trouble at all.

The problem is that-for various reasons-I need to be using Mavericks(or newer, although I want to stick with Mavericks for now) and can't generate a profile with the Spyder2 in Mavericks.

Is there any way to take the profiles I generated in Snow Leopard and transplant them to Mavericks to use there?

Given the age of your Spyder 2, I wouldn't think it was that reliable. The plastic part over the colorimeter is prone to deteriorating over time.
You could pick up a Spyder4Express or ColorMunki Smile for not a lot of money.

 

[bunnspecial]

Given the age of your Spyder 2, I wouldn't think it was that reliable. The plastic part over the colorimeter is prone to deteriorating over time.
You could pick up a Spyder4Express or ColorMunki Smile for not a lot of money.

Thanks-

I have to admit that I'm a bit sour on the Spyder products after I was playing around with my(legal) copy of the software last night and found that they'd time bombed it(it won't work if the system clock is set after 2004 or so).

In any case, looking at Amazon the Spyder5express is actually a fair bit less expensive than the 4-$99 vs $139. Is there are any particular reason to choose the older model over the newer one?

In addition, I noticed in the advertisement for the 4 it said "easy calibration for one monitor." Part of my reason for wanting to calibrate in the first place is so that my monitors match(of course also the whole seeing what I'm printing thing...) by if I'm not reading too much into that statement it tells me that I can't calibrate more than one monitor on the same system.

Does anyone have any personal experience on this?

 

[Apple fanboy]

I've not used the Express, but have used the ColorMunki Smile. It will do multiple monitors.

http://www.amazon.com/X-Rite-CMUNSML-ColorMunki-Smile/dp/B009APMNB0

Only $79 on Amazon.

 

[bunnspecial]

Thanks-just ordered one.

As I said, ColorVision is already on my "not good" list after finding out that they time bombed what(at the time) was an expensive piece of software.

 

[bunnspecial]

Alright, on the above suggestion I ordered the ColorMunki Smile and it arrived quickly from Amazon. I just did a quickie calibration on my Macbook Pro and it worked perfectly.

Thanks again for the suggestion!

 

[Apple fanboy]

Alright, on the above suggestion I ordered the ColorMunki Smile and it arrived quickly from Amazon. I just did a quickie calibration on my Macbook Pro and it worked perfectly.

Thanks again for the suggestion!

Glad it worked for you. Lots of people think calibration is a black art, but it's just about having the right tool for the job.

 

[bunnspecial]

Glad it worked for you. Lots of people think calibration is a black art, but it's just about having the right tool for the job.

In all honesty too, I was very pleasantly surprised at how "close" my MBP was. On the older fluorescent backlit Cinema and Studio displays I calibrated, there was a huge disparity between the calibrated and uncalibrated profile. I was playing with the Quicksilver last night where I do a lot of scanning and photo work. It has a 23" acrylic Apple Cinema display as the main display and a Dell Ultrasharp 17" 4:3 as the secondary display. The two would not match, although I think that the Cinema is likely closer.

The LED Matte screen on my 2012 MBP didn't look a lot different after calibration.