Printer Calabrations ?

[Andreas S]

I did a comparison and profiled an HP Photo paper both via a patch sheet with 96 patches and one with 283 patches,

That's not refining as you created two different profiles.
But as you can observe there are already some noticeable differences. This differences influences the accuracy. Try it out with 1500 patches and you will see a huge difference.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Yes, I used 96 patches, they fit nicely on a 4x6" sheet, that's about as much as 50 patches + 50 additional patches variable by the image I call up via the refinement process. Yes, there are small differences, but I think they are not discernible in actual prints, they are measurable as shown but you need an image with saturated colors close to the edge just in that range where the variances show up.

 

[palombian]

... Yes, there are small differences, but I think they are not discernible in actual prints, they are measurable as shown but you need an image with saturated colors close to the edge just in that range where the variances show up.

That's what I experienced too.
I was enamored by the wider gamut space of OEM (and a well known 3th party ink provider overseas ), but until now never had a print with such high requirements that this advantage was visible.
As I understand, custom profiling an inkset with slightly less gamut will correct this in most situations.
Hey, it's 3th party ink.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

Thank you both for adding that information on all the Pro models.

Adding to the difficulty of buying one of them, in the U.S. I didn't see a single e-bay seller that would accept returns. Imagine running into some software nightmare, or finding that it was not configured the way you though.

 

[Andreas S]

Adding to the difficulty of buying one of them, in the U.S. I didn't see a single e-bay seller that would accept returns.

Some of the sellers knows that there is an issue regarding the software because they tried to use the device. The others even don't know what they are selling. They picked up the device at a whole sale, had a look at the internet to get some informations, see phantasie prices and try to sell at the dame price.
Efi branded devices mostly comes from printing units out of service. In this case the software from Efi only will work in combination with this printer as this are special bundles.
They can't give a warranty as every spectrophotometer looses certification after one year. To obtain a new certification you must send the device to Xrite or an official maintenance service. There they will check everything and replace faulty pieces. Cost = €600. The cost of production of an i1Pro2 is $100 (they are produced in China)…

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I have seen a notice by a registered X-Rite service provider that the i1Pro is out of service by them, and repair or certification is not possible anymore. They asked all their customers to submit their i1Pro's for certification before year end 2019. That kills the device for commerical use when you need to maintain an actual certification/calibration status of your equipment. The device itself comes with its own calibration tile which should still be o.k. for private use. The i1Pro can act as a software dongle for X-Rite software, and I remember a XRITE routine to read out that license data; I can imagine that some other companies are using that function as well linking a specific spectro to some software or other hardware - printer etc.

I didn't see a single e-bay seller that would accept returns.

If the description does not match the item you are getting you have a reason for return - e.g. it does not work with the bundled software although specifically stated in the description it does - or you get a UV cut model which is not stated in the description , and that's even more a reason to get as much info beforehand - like this i1 diags test report, and if a supplier is not willing /able to give that info rather forget it.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Try it out with 1500 patches and you will see a huge difference.

I did - not with 1500 patches but 1440 - they just fit nicely on 2 A4 sheets ; I'm always scanning twice, these diagrams are an overlay of the profile gamuts created with 96, 283 and 1440 patches, and the profiles calculated for the M2 measurement mode since I remember that the ColorMunki comes with an UV filter as well;

L=25

L=50

L=85

The gamuts overall fit quite nicely , I don't think there is much of a benefit to go for 1440 patches for private
use in this case.
These profiles are all created with an i1Pro2 and the i1Profiler software and show how much a profile outline depends on the number of patches. I'm starting with 96 patches here, but I'm not using actually a ColorMunki to compare with, I don't have one. The ColorMinki uses 5x50 patches.

 

[Andreas S]

@Ink stained Fingers Please send the profiles to me.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

...The OBA's transform some of the UV - non visible - light into a blueish/violet light via the fluorescence effect . You effectively would need different color profiles for all these different conditions. But the eyes can make quite big compromises in this respect so as long as you are not in the commercial printing business you can run some tests for yourself when you create profiles on your own - like D50 or D65 as the typical settings and different measuring settings like M1 or M2 - with or w/o inclusion of the OBA effect.
Let me show you the differences, this is the spectrum of the white point of a typical glossy photo paper, with lots of OBA's

View attachment 9739

I have a calendar that I had printed, which shows very strong blue-violet fluorescence from the ink! (It was supposedly printed by a wet photo process.) The fluorescence is especially obvious in direct sunlight, and much less obvious as you move away from the window.

I can't tell if it's fluorescing from UV or violet. The window is double-coated, low-E glass, so I thought all the UV would be absorbed. But on-line spectra of that kind of glass shows a bit of near UV (UV-A). And usually my prints are shown behind UV-absorbing glass. I'm wondering how that affect the appearance, or if it affects it at all.

So I'm wondering how much UV affects fluorescence by ink, as opposed to paper. I've ordered a UV light to start looking at prints. Did you ever test the inks for fluorescence?

I also wonder how UV is handled. Is the UV a measured or assumed part of the incident light that is used to calculate the profile? Or what? I'm not sure how to handle this, especially if we're talking about supposedly UV-filtered daylight. At this point I have many more questions than answers.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

so I thought all the UV would be absorbed.

Most of it - it always depends , you would need to get the spectral transmission curves from the glass manufacturer. Sure you can measure the spectral distribution of UV light , and just remember the issues with UV radiation around health subjects - the risks of UV A or B or C, long term exposure, cumulating effects and all that, UV radiation in this general term has a much wider spectrum spread than visible light, everything from about 350nm to a few nm is considered UV , just look to the latest generation of chips with 7nm structure width, it is done with eUV - extreme UV. And yes, there are flourescent colors, inks, as well available for inkjet printers. You would need to get the data sheet to see at which wavelengths they become active, 'black light' is low frequency UV just above visible light, the visible light is filtered with a coating in the black light tubes.