Using ArgyllCMS + Colormunki to produce excellent printer profiles

[Emulator]

Hi pharmacist

This very interesting stream of yours seems to have faded into the background. How did the 1000+ profiles perform? Were they noticeably better than the 400+ patches? Have you produced any more innovations?

I think it is well worth keeping this alive, I am sure interest will grow.

Regards Ian

 

[crenedecotret]

Emulator, Ive done quite a few profiles since my last post in this thread.... one sheet of paper is enough if the printer/paper/ink combo was reasonably well behaved to begin with. If the results are not satisfying there are two things you can do...

1. you can redo a profile from scratch using more patches... if one page was no good, I would do something like 1500 to 2000 patches. Using the i1 patch size with the colormunki works well with a ruler and 4 letter sized patches will give you 1848 patches.

2. use the first profile as "pre-conditioning" for the second attempt. this is done by adding "-c profile.icc" in the targen command. What this will do is use your first profile to evaluate the printer/paper/ink range and generate patches that are more realistic for your printer. You might be able to get away with less than the 1500-2000 patches I mentioned above, maybe one-two additional pages.

One hint... always keep all your measurement data with your profiles. Argyll has many cool features you can explore... new versions might give you better profiles as well, which you can't generate without your measurement data.

 

[Emulator]

crenedecotret

Thanks for your comments.

The issue that I am interested in, is whether all the extra work involved in the large profiles makes any difference. The colormunki can inherently refine its profiles with supplementary image reading and the results are good. Has anyone really evaluated the comparison?

I have seen many comments relating to Spyder profiles, that changing from 4 sheets of 120 patches to 9 sheets of 120 patches makes very little, if any, difference.

Regards Ian

 

[crenedecotret]

For color prints, the munki will give better results on one page, most of the time (IMHO). You can run the two sets of patches + two optimizations on a single sheet if you play around with the scaling features in the printer driver. The one issue i've had with the colormunki is a greenish cast on black and white images. Argyll gives much better results there but I feel it needs more than one sheet of patches to really shine. Argyll with one sheet sometimes works perfectly, and sometimes it doesn't. on Kirkland paper I had a bit of a blue shifting to purple issue, which sometimes indicates more patches are needed.

Now some of you might say I'm taking this a bit too far, but I tried a bit of a hybrid method on the last profile I did (for Epson Heavyweight matte).

I used the colormunki to generate a profile. No optimizations. I then used the colormunki as a preliminary profile for argyll's targen

targen -v -c munkiprofile.icc -d2 -G -g128 argyllprofile

then proceeded to create the profile as usual. What I got was one of the best profiles Ive done so far. Just as good as using 4-5 sheets of paper but in total I only used two sheets.

This might not be easy for everyone as I think to use Argyll with the colormunki you need to replace the driver.

I'm using the colormunki software within Virtualbox on Windows, and Argyll within Linux, which is my primary OS so I don't need to swap drivers.

 

[AlteredCarbon]

Anyone reading this have any experience with Argyll with dispcalGUI and a Colormunki Display to do printer profiles?

edit: With Windows, not Linux.

 

[crenedecotret]

This might not be exactly the info you need, but I used to calibrate my monitor with a Spyder2 and the included software. I then tried Argyll with it, and the profile was a bit better (grays were more neutral). This was on Windows. When I switched to linux, the results were the same as with the windows version of Argyll.

When I bought the colormunki, I tried it with Argyll, and it was a bit better than the profile made with the Spyder2.

I'd say give it a shot and let your eyes be the judge.

 

[AlteredCarbon]

This might not be exactly the info you need, but I used to calibrate my monitor with a Spyder2 and the included software. I then tried Argyll with it, and the profile was a bit better (grays were more neutral). This was on Windows. When I switched to linux, the results were the same as with the windows version of Argyll.

When I bought the colormunki, I tried it with Argyll, and it was a bit better than the profile made with the Spyder2.

I'd say give it a shot and let your eyes be the judge.

Appreciate the info and impression, glad to hear you had positive results. I decided to pull the trigger on a Colormunki Display that was on sale; can't swing the cost of the i1Display Pro version just to get the software, so hoping that Argyll is as effective as I've been led to believe. (Not sure which version you have, but the Display is apparently the same hardware as the i1Display Pro under Argyll.) I'd really prefer a GUI though, so hoping dispcalGUI does what I need it to.

Should have it this weekend, so I'll report back once I muddle through...

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Need some help installing DispcalGUI and Argyll

Is there an easy instruction site anywhere on the web. I don`t miond struggling along, as long as I am following the correct information.

I think my problem is the USB driver for my colormunki is not being recognised by Argyll.

Have tried to follow the cryptic general instructions, but does not seem to work.

Hopefully, I have attached a screen shot to this post, showing what I get when I open the program. Seems OK except the bottom three selection boxes are greyed out.

If you don`t see the screenshot then I botched the upload.

Roy Sletcher

 

[crenedecotret]

I'm using Linux, but maybe this little piece of info will help you. Argyll needs it's own driver, it can't use the one that comes with the colormunki software. Maybe look in the device manager to see which driver is being used.

 

[Emulator]

Roy

Did you find this?

http://dispcalgui.hoech.net/#about