Printer Profiling Options???

[Garnick]

Hello All,

I know a lot of you are profiling your printers and I have finally decided, for various reasons, to start the process myself with the 9900. So far I've been using he canned profiles and they've been doing a very acceptable job. However, I've recently had a print head replacement and have seen some irregularities in the prints at 720dpi, which I use for some of the work I do. I've had another service call to complete ALL of the "mechanical alignment" adjustments that were NOT done when it was installed. Recently I had a conversation with a tech at Epson Canada after he had looked at my test prints, before and after the installation. He asked if I had profiled the printer since the new head was installed, but of course my answer was "NO". He then said that whenever a new board or print head is installed the printer generally has to be re-profiled. So it would seem that I now have no choice but to start this process.

My question for you folks pertains to the type of equipment and software you are using for profiling. I've done some research and have found that the Spyder3 Print SR package has some excellent reviews and is really quite reasonably priced, compared to most other packages. However, I am rather skeptical as to the quality of the profiles that can be produced by a package in this price range. I'd like to get some feedback from anyone using this combination and perhaps some comparisons as well if possible.

All replies will be helpful and much appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary

[Mark D Segal]

Gary, if you don't need many profiles made, one option is to get custom profiles made commercially. Andrew Rodney and a number of others provide this service. The advantage of it is that those guys use state-of-the-art hardware and software and know what they are doing.

I'm using an X-Rite Pulse Elite kit, but that is legacy hardware and software. Does an excellent job, but no longer available and for how long it will be usable on up-to-date operating systems is a pure crap shoot, because in their infinite non-wisdom XRite canned the product and all support for it. So far I'm lucky up to OSX 10.6.4., but I've kept an older WinXP laptop handy just in case it fails with the next OSX up-date. If I had to buy a new profiling set-up which does a professional quality job, it will be megabucks. Monaco Profiler, an excellent application for printer profiles from what I've seen of its performance, is also a discontinued product and XRite will not assure its functionality on new operating system versions. The new i1Profiler and a coherent spectro seems to be the most recent high quality profiling ensemble, and I did have one very successful profile made this way externally, but to buy the kit would be quite a financial jump from the Spyder or ColorMunki class of hardware/software.

[Sven W]

I agree with Mark; custom made or a ColorMunki.
Our print studio uses ImagePrint with their own profiles or the EyeOne Pro with an iO table, and ProfileMaker.

/Sven

[Garnick]

I agree with Mark; custom made or a ColorMunki.
Our print studio uses ImagePrint with their own profiles or the EyeOne Pro with an iO table, and ProfileMaker.

/Sven

Thanks Sven,

Well that's quite a range, custom to ColorMunki ;-). I understand that RIPs also included many profiles for the printer being used, but as I was told by the Epson Tech, they are really just generic profiles, as are the Epson profiles. In other words, they were not made for your printer in your environment. The ones that you create yourself are probably more reliable than the RIP versions, just a guess. However, this is exactly what I'm looking for, informed opinions.

Thank you,
Gary 

[Alan Goldhammer]

I've had a ColorMunki for some time and have profiled a number of papers.  It is easy to use and yields surprisingly good profiles.  One thing to watch for if you are on a Mac, the default is version 4 profiles which give the Mac trouble (I run a Win7 PC system and am unaffected) so you will have to change it to version 2 profiles.  It will not make profiles as good as a custom one (but it's very hard to tell visually; you can see the difference when viewing the profile in software that will measure the gamut) so the decision point is how many different papers you print on or expect to print on and what your budget is.

Alan

[Mac Mahon]

Gary
I am not in the commercial printing business.  I were I'd have been bankrupted now by the amount of time, ink, and paper I've used trying to get really good profiles with a Spyder Print 3 setup.  Recently I got a Colormunki and managed to make very good profiles immediately.  But others' experience seems to have been just the opposite.  It seems to me that the quality control in the manufacture of these devices is too poor to provide good enough guarantees if your living depends on it.  I'd be looking higher end (i1Pro or better), or having someone like Andrew Rodney build the profiles, if I were in your position.  Just my 2¢.
Tim

[Farmer]

I'm a little late to this conversation, but reading the OP I wanted to comment that replacing a print head or a main board requires that the printer be color calibrated at the firmware level by the technician.  This effectively baselines or linearises the printer - it's what gets done at the factory before they ship.  If that wasn't done, you're at a disadvantage and if you had some part replaced under warranty, you should speak to Epson about the printer being color calibrated.

If that was done, then fair enough, but the canned profiles should be consistent (at least visually, some variances when measured will obviously occur) once the printer is color calibrated at the firmware level.

[Mark D Segal]

I'm a little late to this conversation, but reading the OP I wanted to comment that replacing a print head or a main board requires that the printer be color calibrated at the firmware level by the technician.  This effectively baselines or linearises the printer - it's what gets done at the factory before they ship.  If that wasn't done, you're at a disadvantage and if you had some part replaced under warranty, you should speak to Epson about the printer being color calibrated.

If that was done, then fair enough, but the canned profiles should be consistent (at least visually, some variances when measured will obviously occur) once the printer is color calibrated at the firmware level.

Phil, on a 9900 is there not a linearization procedure the user can implement?

[Farmer]

Hi Mark,

Different thing - you're thinking of ColorBase, which allows a user to linearise their Epson printer.  If you already have a RIP, you wouldn't use it, but if you don't, then it can be worthwhile.  This information is driver level.

The technicians do it at a deeper level - firmware.  This should be done with certain hardware changes (such as mainboards, power supplies, print heads).

[Sven W]

Thanks Sven,

Well that's quite a range, custom to ColorMunki ;-). I understand that RIPs also included many profiles for the printer being used, but as I was told by the Epson Tech, they are really just generic profiles, as are the Epson profiles. In other words, they were not made for your printer in your environment. The ones that you create yourself are probably more reliable than the RIP versions, just a guess. However, this is exactly what I'm looking for, informed opinions.

Thank you,
Gary 

The History of generic profiles has changed quite a bit with current printers. Because they are (not all) extremely well calibrated
from factory and I think for fine art printing many generic profiles are acceptable. For press proofs, where you strive for
simulating an offset standard or profile, then you certainly need not only to make your own printer profile, but also linearization, and verifying a wedge with deltaE values. If that's the case, you have the option on the 9900 to have the SpectroProofer to do the job together with e.g. the Efi Colorproof FX RIP software.

/Sven

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Mark,

Different thing - you're thinking of ColorBase, which allows a user to linearise their Epson printer.  If you already have a RIP, you wouldn't use it, but if you don't, then it can be worthwhile.  This information is driver level.

The technicians do it at a deeper level - firmware.  This should be done with certain hardware changes (such as mainboards, power supplies, print heads).

Ah - thanks for the clarification.

Mark

[John Nollendorfs]

Garry:
I've done beta testing for DataColor for years, including the development of the Spyder3 print. Yes, it is "reasonably" priced and does an excellent job of creating profiles with lots of fine tuning options which competing systems lack. Profiling does require some "knack" in assuring accuracy that all patches are properly read. Earlier versions of the system were not as effective in reading the patches properly without re-reading some patches, but the newest system does quite a good job in this regard.

John Nollendorfs