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David R. Gurtcheff

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PrintFIX PRO
« on: July 06, 2006, 03:31:47 pm »

I just read a very favorable review of PrintFIX PRO in the August Shutterbug magazine. Has anyone tried it? I presently use an epson 2200 for my 13"x19" and smaller prints, and a 7600 for 16"x24" and 20"x30" and larger prints. Using strictly Epson papers and inks, I am very satisified using the Epson profiles for the 2200 and the Bill Atkinson profiles for my 7600. There has been a lot of interest among fine art photographers for some of the newer third party papers, which I have not as yet tried. I was thinking of trying some of these new papers, but had no way of profiling my printer to match these papers. At a list price of $549, the PrintFIX PRO may be the answer. I have NO previous experience profiling printers; I do profile my moniter using the Spyder. Thanks in advance for any input. The type of work i do (seascapes, mostly) is here:
www.modernpictorials.com
Thanks  
Dave Gurtcheff in NJ
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colourperfect

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PrintFIX PRO
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2006, 05:48:20 pm »

Views on Colorvision products seem very polarised, with some bad reports about PrintFix ( any earlier product). I did do a comparison of some profiles generated with PrintFix Pro against those I made with my Gretag i1Pro. They seemed to have a yellow cast. Some claim PrintFix Pro offers good value for money, as its much cheaper. This may be so but it doesn't mean they are better than those from Gretag or X-rite.

The other side of profiling is the experience needed to do the job well. You may find that if you dont anticipate using many types of paper that you are better off getting profiles made by one of the existing services.

You should then have backup to help you with any problems.

On the other hand if you have lots of time to spare and are prepared to learn then go for it.

Ian

http://www.colourperfect.co.uk
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digitaldog

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« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2006, 08:33:49 pm »

Do a search (ugh) on the DP Review forums. Lots of posts (most pretty good, some not). I know from playing with it at a show, ergonomically it's not going to win any awards. But in its defence, there is something like a 30 day money back offer if you hate it. The marketing is a bit on the suspicious side and it seems a far cry from an EyeOne Spectrophotometer or PULSE but heck, it is a lot less expensive. Like most things in life, you get what you pay for.
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Slaughter

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« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2006, 05:14:56 am »

I had PrintFix and it was terrible. Then eventually upgraded to PrintFix-Pro and it works quite OK for me. I contacted several times ColorVision and I had good replies and good support from them.  I'am very glad.

As for Gretag, I wanted to buy Gretag stuff in the past, send them several emails BUT _never_ got any answers. IMHO, that's a bad way to treat potential future clients.

I have been reported from people that had contact with some people in Gretag that this company consider "small" clients as crap (= if you don't buy their $$$$ equipment for 4000$ and up, then you're "nothing" for them). Hmmm... seems to me like this company smells like Ferrari car company where you are crap (and are possibly not even authorized to buy a car) if you're not wealthy, rich and famous. Personnally, I really don't like to be treated like that. Sorry! In our company (we sell software), we are respectfull with any of our clients, even those that bought the simple/small edition.

Also, if I remember right, was Gretag company not in "good" financial condition some times ago? Were they not acquired by another company recently? I don't remember exactly, but are Gretag and Colorvision not part of the same company group today?

For the one that wrote "you get what you pay for", seems like listening to commercial or marketing advertisements to me. Personally, I got Casio/Swatch swatches and they give me the time better than any Rollex... with more functions and it's less expensive. A swatch is meant to give the time, right? Labelling anything with the "Pro" label will pop up the prices to 3-10 times in niche markets (what's the price for a simple "screw" for large format cameras, are they made in platinum?). PC's are nowadays quite cheap unlike several years before and they are still even better. Electronic technology is quickly evolving in such a way that you're getting things at a lower cost with better features (to some extents). I thank companies like Canon that broke prices for making things affordable (remember EOS300D).  Color control was a niche market... in the past. Now, it's turning into a mass market. The old commercial actors of this market will not lower their prices until newcomers will break them. I think that this is happening with Colorvision. Printfix was really bad but I think that their hit something with Printfix-Pro. For use, poor buyers, that's good where there is commercial competitions because prices are lowered.

I am absolutely not affialiated with ColorVision but I thank them for the good support they offered me.

Everything I said is purely IMHO and worth 1/1000 of Euro for sure.
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Nigelfrommanchester

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« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2006, 08:59:26 am »

I tried PrintFix and had very little joy with it. In fact it was so bad that I couldn't even sell it on Ebay!

There are now lots of folks offering to do profiles with good kit at reasonable prices. Once you can get a good profile for £30/ $50 you need to be trying lots of different papers (or have plenty of spare time) to justify doing your own.

Nigel
nigelatkinson.biz
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digitaldog

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« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2006, 09:52:02 am »

-->Also, if I remember right, was Gretag company not in "good" financial condition some times ago? Were they not acquired by another company recently? I don't remember exactly, but are Gretag and Colorvision not part of the same company group today?

Gretag Imaging, NOT GretagMacbeth. Different company. Now it's all X-Rite anyway. Moot point.
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David R. Gurtcheff

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PrintFIX PRO
« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2006, 11:13:31 am »

Thanks for the input. Possibly I should try several of the new papers with the free down-loadable profiles offered by some, and if I really fall in love with one , or several, then buy a professionally produced profile. One of the above posters is probably correct: unless I plan on using a bunch of different papers, I should leave profiling to a pro.
Thanks again guys, much appreciated.  
Dave
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Gary Damaskos

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PrintFIX PRO
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2006, 01:11:27 pm »

1)there is a colovision yahoo group for support for the  PrintFix and Spyder products and it is very good.
2)I have Colorvision PrintFixPro Suite for moniter and printer profiling. I print 16x20, have bought profiles before. I find it is doing an excellent job for me and I use it often even for seemingly minor paper changes or driver settings. I am sure there will be detractors, but I am saying I know a lot of us are happy as clams with it. And you need a monitor calibrator first, you do need it!
Gary


Quote
Thanks for the input. Possibly I should try several of the new papers with the free down-loadable profiles offered by some, and if I really fall in love with one , or several, then buy a professionally produced profile. One of the above posters is probably correct: unless I plan on using a bunch of different papers, I should leave profiling to a pro.
Thanks again guys, much appreciated.   
Dave
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GerardK

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« Reply #8 on: July 13, 2006, 08:47:27 am »

I just bought PrintFIX PRO and made three profiles for my HP Designjet 130:
one with a 225 patch target for HP Premium Plus Photo Satin, setting Best,
one with a 729 patch target for HP Premium Plus Photo Satin, setting Best,
one with a 729 patch target for HP Premium Plus Photo Satin, setting Max detail.

The result with the 225 patch target was terrible. Maybe I'll do it again someday and see if I did something wrong.

However, both 729 patch targets show a subtle but noticeable improvement over the standard HP supplied profiles. In particular, transitions in shadow areas from black to near-black are smoother.

Also, the test targets that the wizard offers you to print before you're actually going to make a profile are quite revealing; I never quite understood the difference between Best and Max detail on the HP Designjet 130, but the test images show marked differences. In 'Best' green tends to oversaturate - some ajacent shades of green are indistiguishable, where 'Max detail' shows clearly graduated steps. Also, in 'Best', the transition from black to near-black is less acccurate than in 'Max detail'. The good news is that the profiles I've produced correct these errors; greens are more neutral and transitions are smoother.

On the whole 'Max detail' would appear to be more accurate than 'Best', but in an actual print with the new PP-profiles, I see no difference between 'Max detail' and 'Best', while they are both visibly better than the HP-supplied standard profiles, standard 'Best' being the poorer (while, incidentally, the standard profiles are quite good).

It's a bit of a misnomer - I've yet to see a print that shows more detail in 'Max detail' than in 'Best'.

Ergonomically, I found the easiest thing to do is clamp the target vertically onto a board of some kind in order to measure the targets.

I've attached a small jpg of my 'real world' test print, a 4x5 scan of Velvia 50, one of my most difficult images to print well.

Gerard Kingma
www.kingma.nu
[attachment=815:attachment]
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