Brian,
Aaaargh!
There was this thread a while back:
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1831

Hope that helps!
Matt

Dex,
Personally I'd go with the Pentax. It's a lovely flash (in fact, I wouldn't mind another!).
It's available new at £149:
http://www.microglobe.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1570

The Sigma is the same price. It does have swivel head, and more power. Not sure if there are any other differences.

However, with wireless the swivel is not relevant, and personally I haven't had any power issues using the AF360. All the usual modes are there, plus a whole heap of other stuff you may or may not use

Matt

You always use the embedded profile. So, that should be either sRGB or AdobeRGB (in general at least).

One very quick test is to have the browser open, copy an image from the web, and paste as sRGB into Photoshop (Ctrl-N, ensure sRGB is chosen, OK, then Ctrl-V to paste). The browser and Photoshop should look identical

Hope that helps!

Don: the following mini review might be useful, I'm not sure:
http://www.thedigitalstory.com/blog/2006/03/huey_screen_calibrat.html

I still think you need a fairly controlled ambient lighting to do proper colour workflow... but I'm open to being convinced otherwise

Matt

Don - WiziWYG's available for the Mac too Might be worth trying first.

Personally I would disagree. Often the drivers' controls are designed for gamers, not photographers The best thing is to reset ALL the driver settings and leave them at defaults (otherwise you can introduce all kinds of other errors) - you're better off with a clean path between PS & the display.

Then, get the actual monitor brightness and contrast as close as you can. On some displays (like my tablet PC) there's no setting for contrast. So, I have to leave that stage in WiziWYG. The most important settings are the gamma settings and the choice of curve type.

Later I'll post a thread about how to setup WiziWYG
Matt

Erm...

Your image does have a huge red colourcast - on my Spyder 2 calibrated LCDs (and on the WiziWYG calibrated ones).

I've not seen WiziWYG get it that wrong, unless you don't do the gamma setup correctly, or pick the wrong curve type (you should be using "Generic LCD", and pick D65, and 2.2gamma).

I suggest you get hold of a test print (from somewhere like Photobox.co.uk) and compare the print with an onscreen/online version.

From where I'm sitting your images are out of balance... a long way. Your image: http://i.pbase.com/o4/82/642882/1/57259495.IMGP0631.JPG is red, red, red. And my correction: http://www.pbase.com/image/57265288 is not far off - the skin tones have some hints of green, but some of that is down to the sensor noise and a good clean up will take a little more time. But the stripy shirt is balanced.

If you don't believe me, check the colour picker tool in PS. What looks like a white or grey stripe on the shirt is R:178, G:137, B:91. That's red in anyone's book (my version is 232,220,20

Matt

You need WiziWYG (it's free) from www.praxisoft.com
With it you can calibrate an LCD fairly accurately by eye.

I have Spyder 2 calibrated LCDs at work, and your images definitely need work

Matt

Here's a very quick correction:
http://www.pbase.com/image/57265288

1) Added a curves adjustment layer. Brought up the RGB channel to lighten, then went into Red (first) and brought down, then corrected G and B channels to roughly colour balance

2) Added a Colour Balance adjustment layer and brought the colour balance more in line.

3) Noise reduced the image (PS-CS2 Reduce Noise, but would have used NeatImage on an original full size JPG)

4) Added a further curves adjustment layer to improve the lighting.

I'm not 100% happy with it, but it took about 5 min, and you should always take a break before double checking colour work

Matt

I'll look forward to it

Here's the tutorial I was thinking of:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/17164.html
Definitely worth reading!!

and this one turned up too:
http://www.bairarteditions.com/pages/tutorials/photoshop/cblevels.html

Hope that helps!
Matt

Yes, I can tell you how to fix the colour balance in a JPG in PS.
I'll try and dig out a tutorial link or two

It'd be better still if you could email me a JPG and I'll verify the results for you (doesn't have to be large, say 500pixels).

Matt