Profiling software is different! Ugh!!!

[W. Fisher]

Trying to make a profile for the new dye inks in a 3880.

1. Using a Colormunki Photo and their new iStudio software, the prints looked bluish.

2. Pulled out the i1 PhotoPro 2 and made one using the iProfiler and pretty much the same thing happened.

3. Frustrated, I fired up BasICColor Catch 5 and it said a new update. Got it. Checked their dropRGB 2, which makes the profile from Catch 5, and it was current and no update was needed. Made a profile using the i1 PhotoPro 2 head as above.

Wow! They are different! The old bluish of the x-rite software is gone, and the BasICColor is better. Same i1PhotoPro 2 head in both, same paper, ink, printer using Qimage Ultimate to make the following side-by-side print, computer, but much different in looks. Different color and contrast both.

I HATE COLOR MANAGEMENT!!!

W.F.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I HATE COLOR MANAGEMENT!!!

rather consider it a challenge........... there are probably some variables causing such wide differences - a different spectro/instrument - different driver settings to print the patch sheets . different software settings to calculate the profile and probably more - did you specifically control the settings to create V2 icc-profiles with all your software ? Different version settings can cause such colour casts.

 

[W. Fisher]

rather consider it a challenge........... there are probably some variables causing such wide differences - a different spectro/instrument - different driver settings to print the patch sheets . different software settings to calculate the profile and probably more - did you specifically control the settings to create V2 icc-profiles with all your software ?

Same i1 PhotoPro 2 spectro head used on both softwares. Same V2 setting in all too.

Only thing different was X-rite i1Profiler prints their four pages of color calibration charts from within their software, whereas BasICColor Catch 5 does not print the charts within it, but instead I have to use Qimage Ultimate to print that one page color chart (Out of their Catch 5 software) which is my normal printing method.

Has to be something different there perhaps...

I know with Catch 5 I can spot a low ink load percentage from the Epson on a given paper easier once the chart has been scanned with the i1 PhotoPro 2 head (The printed patches are lighter than their reference which means more ink is needed.). I upped the ink load by 20% and it seemed to like that better over the default 0% and 35% ink loading that I also tried.

W.F.

 

[Smile]

Well I can say that in niche market like color management problem is that software maker get away with mediocore software for premium price.

So since gretagmacbeth was bought by xrite. For those that don't know they were not able to make decent hardware so they bought their competitor gretagmacbeth. But since then no improvement came, quite the contrary. The XRGA came to life as means for instrument standardization because the former gretagmacbeth employers by accident mixed etalon whites they used for spectrophotometer manufacturing. So same model spectros made in different factories were reading wrong.

i1profiler i no doubt great compared to older generation software, that is under the hood. The interface is very bad, and no decent documentation even now. Xrite even can't explain why certain patch amount targets have many near grayscale patches while other don't.

Then there are players like basiccolor with "their" or better say copycat software from ColorLogic since they always update their software to previous version of ColorLogic software. Now they fed up with that and make same color server called zepra.

Then there alwancolor with their spectro tech called Hydra Profiling that is not mathematical but spectral ICC creation that needs few patches instead of thousands. But there is a problem here too, they do not give even trial version of their software. And if you inquire them about it they will ask such questions that are worse than your tax office. So I would recommend to not waste your time with this vendor.

 

[W. Fisher]

I played around a bit with the newer xrite i1Studio software and its new B&W profiling. Took three test pages just for B&W now, but it seemed to do a lot better in producing a neutral B&W image with the 3rd page being mostly B&W test patches and some rows with color added to null out any tint. Must be some method of neutralizing the PK (black ink to neutral as my PK black alone has a tinge of green by itself so they must be calling in some magenta ink to counteract that.

It seems to do better now so I removed the K7 inkset and went back to dye ink in that printer. I need to spend more time with the B&W photos out of it to see how they look. Add to the new Olympus-D E-1 mark II I bought and the sundry B&W filters in it, it should make for some printer fun-time and see how that operation goes if I lock the camera into "Monochrome only" mode along with the Wratten-type filters it comes with buried in their kitchen-sink (complex) menu. Plus, it allows for some curve altering in shadows, mids, and highlights much like the old A. Adams Zone System.

I wasn't fond of being locked into the K7 ink tints overall and really didn't see a huge increase in tonal range over the three OEMs blacks in the Epson with a decent image. It really was more of a "How much ink and paper can I waste, along with charting the curves in Excel, calculator stuff, head-scratching, etc." It was fun for a while, but egads!

Yeah, xrite does seem to gloss over a lot of material. I don't know if I should convert files from Adobe 1998 or sRGB into a Gray Gamma 2.2 profile (Or whatever Photoshop calls the B&W profile?) or leave the produced color profiles alone and just use the Epson B&W setting with the B&W profile made with the xrite i1Studio loaded. That and how the Olympus Monochrome files are taken into whatever printer software like Qimage.

W.F.