Spyder3 Print V3.5

[keith_cooper]

I need a printer profiler solution for my Epson R2400 soon to be upgraded to a larger Epson.  I want to spend around $500.

Given from what you say, if that is your budget, the the first one will just cost you more to do anything useful... as to the i0, oh yes it's nice to use, but hardly in the stated budget is it :-)

The second is the most flexible and complex in terms of what the software does - it offers lot's of features, and if you have the desire you can print lots of big targets and average readings.

The third may be a good instrument, but I think anyone who wanted to tinker or experiment with profile building would exhaust the capabilities of the software pretty quickly.  It has been directed at a specific market, and I suspect you are not in it. I've been using it this afternoon and some of its 'features' certainly irritated the hell out of me. BUT, as I always point out, I'm not in its target market ;-) so YMMV

One other alternative for the true experimenter (and you will learn a lot of colour management in the process) would be to get the basic i1 LT and use it with a package like the Argyll CMS
www.argyllcms.com

Argyll is an open source, ICC compatible color management system. It supports accurate ICC profile creation for scanners, CMYK printers, film recorders and calibration and profiling of displays. Spectral sample data is supported, allowing a selection of illuminants observer types, and paper fluorescent whitener additive compensation. Profiles can also incorporate source specific gamut mappings for perceptual and saturation intents. Gamut mapping and profile linking uses the CIECAM02 appearance model, a unique gamut mapping algorithm, and a wide selection of rendering intents. It also includes code for the fastest portable 8 bit raster color conversion engine available anywhere, as well as support for fast, fully accurate 16 bit conversion. Device color gamuts can also be viewed and compared using a VRML viewer. Comprehensive documentation is provided for each utility, and a general guide to using the tools for typical color management tasks is also available. A mailing list provides support for more advanced usage.

[BruceHouston]

Thank you for your input, Andrew and Keith; very helpful.

Keith, two questions relative to your comments:

"Given from what you say, if that is your budget, the the first one will just cost you more to do anything useful..."

(1) I don't quite follow what you mean by this.  Do you mean that profiles created with the Xrite Eye-One PhotoLT Color Calibration System will be essentially useless?  Or do you mean that the profiles will not be as good as those obtained with the ColorVision Spyder3 Printer Calibration System because the PhotoLT has a dumbed-down version of software?

(2) I like your idea of a migration path involving the Argyll CMS and the Eye-One spectro.  But can the Argyll software do profiles for an RGB printer like the Epson R2400, 3800, 4880, etc.?  My confusion here lies in that the Argyll write-up cites its capability with CMYK printers, not RGB printers.  Could you please clarify that for me?

Thanks!
Bruce

[keith_cooper]

The LT only offers small patch count profiling, which works for some well behaved papers on some well behaved printers, but it doesn't do much else in the printer profiling stakes.

See i1 LT review and other linked articles on the site to see just what you can do with the different i1 versions.

Ah yes, Argyll - you will need quite a lot of tinkering and colour management experience to go with this, not to mention more software to drive the printer (look to Gutenprint amongst others) This really is the find some land, grow your own, make your own cigarette papers and roll your own approach :-)  Not practical for most, but I mentioned it to show there are alternatives in which you can swap a lot of work for spending money ;-) Once you have the i1 there are quite a few software packages that support it, but that sort of goes out of your budget zone...

[BruceHouston]

The LT only offers small patch count profiling, which works for some well behaved papers on some well behaved printers, but it doesn't do much else in the printer profiling stakes.

See i1 LT review and other linked articles on the site to see just what you can do with the different i1 versions.

Ah yes, Argyll - you will need quite a lot of tinkering and colour management experience to go with this, not to mention more software to drive the printer (look to Gutenprint amongst others) This really is the find some land, grow your own, make your own cigarette papers and roll your own approach :-)  Not practical for most, but I mentioned it to show there are alternatives in which you can swap a lot of work for spending money ;-) Once you have the i1 there are quite a few software packages that support it, but that sort of goes out of your budget zone...
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Keith,

Thank you for the link to your articles and reviews; very helpful.  (I am beginning to get the idea.)  It sounds like Argyll might keep me tinkering to the exclusion of shooting and printing; so that would not be good.

If I bought i1 LT mainly for the good spectro, is there some commercial profiling software at a cost point that, when combined with the cost of the i1 spectro, is less than the i1 Photo bundle and gives better results than the i1 Match software?  

I ask this question for two reasons:

(1) To keep from spending as much as the i1 Photo bundle of ~ $1500 (if possible); and

(2) In your original review "Eye One Printer Profiling," you say:

"So, how good are the profiles I made? - good."
"Are they good enough for my own fine art prints? - not really."

I realize that the original review was from 2005 and that you later (March 2006?)updated it with a report of new features in i1 Match Vers. 3.6.  (From the X-rite website it appears that the current version is 3.6.2; so no radical revisions since your 2006 report?)  So, has some combination of the updated Match profiling software and/or newer Epson-family printers and drivers changed your assessment of the i1 spectro/Match combination, or would you continue to consider the combination insufficient for your own fine art prints?

I ask that because if I cannot buy a profiling solution that is adequate for the highest-quality fine art prints even if I spend $1500 then I probably need to rethink
the idea of doing my own profiling.  I do not mind scanning the patches by hand using the straight edge (versus the automated I1Sis page scanner), but I cannot imagine paying $1500 for a profiling solution and going to all the associated trouble to obtain anything less than than profiles adequate to support the highest-quality fine art prints.

Sorry for all the primitive questions, but could you please help me to tweak my understanding of this?

Thanks again,
Bruce

[keith_cooper]

I've left all the original reviews up since it can be quite confusing with all the different options available (thanks for noticing when it was written BTW ;-)

The 918 patch target in the i1 photo can actually give some very good profiles, particularly on newer printers. I think some of my concerns over profile quality at the time were from not properly testing media settings and getting optimal results -before- printing. That was fair, since Eye One Match really doesn't emphasise this at all - oh, and I've learnt an awful lot more about colour management in the three years since I wrote that review ;-)

So, thanks for asking... I'll go back through some of my older reviews (for current products) and add a few 'sideboxes' if I feel a point could do with clarification

The media settings issue is, I suspect, going to lead to less than optimal results for quite a few users of the ColorMunki. I tested a light artificial 'inkjet paper' yesterday with a 4880, and since it is a paper that I bought a pack of several years ago for testing, thought I'd print off A4 media test images for just about every media setting that the 4880 has. The variations are considerable and I wasn't able to predict the results at all.  It happens to be a paper that takes some time to dry, so the two stage profiling process is not overly conducive to testing multiple profiles in a hurry. You can print multiple first sheets, but each second sheet can only be produced from a scan of the first sheet. I've seen various attempts at a workaround mentioned (printing to PDFs and the like) but you are fighting what the software wants to do, to an extent that just asks for errors and problems. It does what it does, and that's it.

I don't have any third party software I regularly use, however you could get an idea of the sort of stuff available if you look at the BasICColor site They are bringing out some new products soon, and I hope to have a look at some of them, since I've been asked about 3rd party profiling solutions several times now.  BTW Don't hold your breath on this though, since I do have lots of 'real work' too and writing reviews of complex products is not a two hour job ;-)

[BruceHouston]

I've left all the original reviews up since it can be quite confusing with all the different options available (thanks for noticing when it was written BTW ;-)

The 918 patch target in the i1 photo can actually give some very good profiles, particularly on newer printers. I think some of my concerns over profile quality at the time were from not properly testing media settings and getting optimal results -before- printing. That was fair, since Eye One Match really doesn't emphasise this at all - oh, and I've learnt an awful lot more about colour management in the three years since I wrote that review ;-)

So, thanks for asking... I'll go back through some of my older reviews (for current products) and add a few 'sideboxes' if I feel a point could do with clarification

The media settings issue is, I suspect, going to lead to less than optimal results for quite a few users of the ColorMunki. I tested a light artificial 'inkjet paper' yesterday with a 4880, and since it is a paper that I bought a pack of several years ago for testing, thought I'd print off A4 media test images for just about every media setting that the 4880 has. The variations are considerable and I wasn't able to predict the results at all.  It happens to be a paper that takes some time to dry, so the two stage profiling process is not overly conducive to testing multiple profiles in a hurry. You can print multiple first sheets, but each second sheet can only be produced from a scan of the first sheet. I've seen various attempts at a workaround mentioned (printing to PDFs and the like) but you are fighting what the software wants to do, to an extent that just asks for errors and problems. It does what it does, and that's it.

I don't have any third party software I regularly use, however you could get an idea of the sort of stuff available if you look at the BasICColor site They are bringing out some new products soon, and I hope to have a look at some of them, since I've been asked about 3rd party profiling solutions several times now.  BTW Don't hold your breath on this though, since I do have lots of 'real work' too and writing reviews of complex products is not a two hour job ;-)
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Thank you for the clarification, Keith.  I will check back on your site periodically.

Bruce