Customer Testimonials

If you are having doubts about using our Calibration Service, please check out what some of our discerning customer's are saying.

"The most difficult part of digital printing is, without doubt, getting the printer and monitor to match. It is the number one question I get asked when I show my prints and until now I have not had an answer, but finally I have it cracked.

There is no short cut to it. If you want accurate colours each and every time instead of pot luck then the monitor and printer needs calibrating and profiles set up. I have just had mine done and am delighted. I can now scan and print without having to make any adjustment to colours and so far it is coming out perfect every time. What a pleasant change that is. The time and paper saved is well worth the cost.

You need a separate profile for each type of paper you use and there is a charge per paper profile. By measuring the screen colours and the paper output with an expensive device each colour can be made to come out exactly as it should.

I used Simon Clifford-Smith of SCS-Imaging. He comes to your home and was not expensive and appears to be prepared to travel long distances. I highly recommend him. See his web site and save yourself a lot of frustration."

Mike Lane FRPS

www.nature-photography.co.uk/

"It is perfectly possible to calibrate your system so that what you see on screen is what you get from your printer etc.

May I recommend the services of Simon Clifford-Smith who is a Digital Imaging Consultant. Simon comes to your home and sets up your system as above. He is very knowledgable in this field and uses an array of specialist equipment to fine tune everything. But best of all he is not at all expensive to use."

Steve Harratt LRPS

"Further to my post a few weeks ago under the topic Monitor Calibration, I write to update members as promised.

I have today had my monitor, scanner and printer calibrated by Simon Clifford-Smith.

What can I say but 'Wow!'

I have spent ages trying to get my screen and print to match, I have used an enormous amount of paper and ink and got extremely frustrated on the way.

Images have been OK but with a faint cast one way or the other. They have just not been 100%.

Simon arrived this morning in Hertford, having travelled from Sheffield, at 9-30 am as arranged. He spent c2 1/2 hours calibrating my monitor, Nikon Coolscan 4000 and Epson 2100. The latter having 3 papers specifically calibrated. He uses equipment costing £'000s and obtains perfection.

The results are true WYSIWYG.

His charges are most reasonable £95 for travel to Hertford, £25 for the Monitor,£30 per each specific paper (£50 for Enhanced) and £30 for the scanner. There is no VAT.

On top of that he is also a nice bloke!

If you have any calibration problems at all then he is your man. I cannot recommend him highly enough.

Thanks must also go to Steve Harratt who responded to my initial post and pointed me in the right direction."

Richard Long ARPS

www.richardlongphotos.com

"Just a big thank you for profiling all my bits and pieces on Wednesday. I've only had a chance to do a couple of prints so far, but it's fantastic !!!!!!!!! I'm getting quite cocky now - printing full frame A4 shots without first having to print far too many A6 tests."

Richard Brown

"Professional Profiling' Service

MIDIG member Noel Shaw reports as follows:

I have used the services of Simon Clifford-Smith of SCS-Imaging, Sheffield, to create profiles for Photoshop of my scanner, monitor and printer.

Simon takes about 2-1/2 hours, using about £2.5k of hardware and £2.5k of software to create quite precise profiles for a particular slide film, in my case Fuji and for a particular paper.

The cost was £90. Monitor £20, scanner £25, printer per paper £25, plus petrol. In my case, Sheffield to Stratford, Simon charged £20.

If you change papers, a new profile can be generated remote. Using the new paper you send a print to Simon of a retained test image. A new printer profile is returned by e-mail within 24-hours. Again £25.

I cannot recommend too strongly this service. For me, the results are startling! Full details on Simon's web site www.scs-imaging.co.uk

Noel Shaw

Information date: August 2002"

System calibration and profiling.

We all know that the only way to achieve WYSIWYG is through calibration and profiling, but, how many of us have the time, the experience the patience or, more importantly, the very expensive equipment and software to carry out this task. I certainly don't and, being severely colour blind, it would be an impossible task for me anyway.

Over the past few years I have tried to find a professional who would do the job for me but have had no luck and have had to rely on friends to get me somewhere close to WYSIWYG.

In a recent issue of the RPS journal I saw an advert for this service placed by a company named SCS-Imaging and was amazed at the prices advertised and so decided to get in touch with them. I got in touch and spoke to the man who runs the company, Simon Clifford-Smith (SCS), who assured me that his prices were as advertised without any catch.

Monitor calibration and profile £25.00

Scanner calibration and profile £30.00

Printer calibration and profile for one paper £30.00

Plus travel expenses, which for me were £20.00 ( He is based in Sheffield and I'm in Birmingham )

With this job done, and if in the future I decide to use a different paper, all I have to do is print out and send to him a copy of the colour test chart that he has left on my system, and he will e-mail the profile back to me.

He uses the Gretag Macbeth calibration system and various other bits of very expensive software to calibrate and produce profiles for your hardware and media and the results are truly amazing. At last, for what I consider to be a very reasonable fee, I have a fully calibrated system that is truly WYSIWYG. The only problem left for me is my colour blindness.

I have since had him back to calibrate another system and my laptop and have been so pleased with his attention to detail and his reasonable costs that I thought I would let you know of my experience. I'm not on commission but do believe in letting people know when I have received such good service.

Garry R James LRPS, LSWPP

www.garryjames.com

Profile safely received yesterday afternoon, many thanks for such a brilliantly fast service.

I made a couple of test prints last night, but have delayed a critical assessment until the prints have dried overnight. The monochromes look great in daylight with absolutely no colour cast at all, better than anything I had managed to achieve with Epson's grey balancer package. The colour printouts are also spot on. They showed up the drift in my monitor since it was last calibrated, so half an hours work with Optical+Spyder have got everything bang in line.

I think my main limitation now is quality of my monitor now (Iiyama 19" 1451), any recommendations for a 19" monitor that won't completely break the bank?

The quality of the profile is easy to see using Norman Koren's test spectrums. There is a smoothness to the profile that the DIY packages like Monaco and Profile Prism simply can't match. I'll definitely be recommending your services on my web site and hope to soon be getting you to make a couple more for me.

Paul Holman

www.paulholman.com

Many thanks for your highly professional work. I shall have no hesitation in recommending your services widely.

Ashley Franklin

www.ashleyfranklin.co.uk

Incidentally.... the lab that I take our photos to, said that the prints of the wedding that I took after you calibarated the monitor were easiest and best they had had to work on from any photographer since they opened. So thanks for that.

Darryl Everitt - Wedding Photographer

The results are fantastic and it is a real pleasure to go from slide to screen to print with no adjustments. I now wish I had you calibrate my flatbed scanner as well!

Mike Hems

Just a line to let you know that the profiling is working superbly, I am well chuffed.

Bob Underhill ARPS, AIPF

Hi Simon,

Just a quick note of thanks for the service you gave me recently with the monitor and printer calibration, as well as some good advice. I have got prints better than I ever thought possible from a £100 printer!! Also, I have recently sent some prints to Pro-Am and was impressed with the pictures and service (not to mention the cost!!).

If I ever get other monitors or printers in the future you will be sure to recieve a call!!

Best Regards,

Paul Simpson

Hi Simon,

have done a few test prints now and am very happy with the new profile. In fact, seeing the prints side by side with those from the bundled Epson profiles surprised me by the amount of difference as I'd previously thought the Epson setup was quite good. Very happy, just as I was with the profile you did for my old R800.

Thanks again

Paul Roberts

Specialists in Colour Management and Digital Imaging