Monitor Calibration Software That Supports Spectro Profiling

[mike_n]

Hi,

so far I've been using an i1 Display Pro either with Color Navigator 6 (for an Eizo CG275W) or basICColor 5 (for my 3 other computer monitors).

I just purchased an i1 Pro spectro, which I want to profile the i1 Display Pro against to improve color accuracy.

I have looked in Color Navigator and basICColor and I cannot find any options for this... is this possible with these calibration packages ?

Other TV set calibration packages (Calman, Chromapure etc.) support spectro profiling, which also eliminates the drift of the colorimeter over time...

If profiling is not possible in basICColor 5 or CN 6, are there any other commercial monitor calibration packages that do support it ?

If not, is there a workflow in BC 5 or CN 6 to modify / update just the gamut with the spectro on a finsihed calibration ?

Thanks for your input.

- M

[Czornyj]

Both of these profilers support i1Pro spectrophotometer. Check if the drivers are installed (in Windows), and disable i1profiler tray. In basICColor display 5 you also have to choose i1pro from sensor list.

[Scott Martin]

I just purchased an i1 Pro spectro, which I want to profile the i1 Display Pro against to improve color accuracy.

Perhaps you should tell us more precisely what you mean here. Are you intending to profile a display with both of them and compare the results? Or are you wanting to build a compensation profile like DispCal allows you to do?

Or are you wanting to analytically compare the colorimeter to the spectro and use the results to compensate for colorimeter drift? If so, this is too tricky to do outside of a lab with more sophisticated devices. Everything drifts, even your display during calibration. If you trust a spectro more than a colorimeter then just use the spectro for display calibration. Personally, from everything we've seen so far I don't think you have reason to worry about the i1DisplayPro. Granted the i1D2 was a POS from the start...

FWIW, if you haven't already, get into i1Profiler. It has a number of capabilities that have lead me to ditch the other options when it comes to "regular" display profiling (aside from displays with internal calibration hardware). For example it already has compensation profiles built-in for the i1DisplayPro for several types of display light sources.

Check it out, calibrate the same display with both devices and do some real world evaluative testing. I think you'll find either device will work surprisingly well...

[Czornyj]

FWIW, if you haven't already, get into i1Profiler. It has a number of capabilities that have lead me to ditch the other options when it comes to "regular" display profiling (aside from displays with internal calibration hardware). For example it already has compensation profiles built-in for the i1DisplayPro for several types of display light sources.

All 3rd party profiler that support i1D3 also have built-in spectral calibration for various display types, it's a part of SDK for this colorimeter.

[mike_n]

Perhaps you should tell us more precisely what you mean here. Are you intending to profile a display with both of them and compare the results? Or are you wanting to build a compensation profile like DispCal allows you to do?

that is exactly what I want to do - same thing you do in calibration for TV sets (with Calman or Chromapure)... the colorimeter is much better at low light (therefore great for grayscale and gamma work) and the spectro has much higher color accuracy (therefore great for gamut work) but very funky in low light scenarios.

By profiling the colorimeter (iD3) to the spectro (i1Pro) you accommodate for the color drift of the colorimeter and still get the great advantage of it's low light capabilities and it's speed. You get the best of both worlds. sophisticated calibration software (calman etc.) has these options - I just haven't seen it yet on dedicated software for computer screen calibration...

basICColor just got back to me, they don't support it. My Eizo contact got back to me as well, it seems it is not supported in CN.

I checked out i1Profiler about 5 months ago... all calibrations using just an iD3 were inferior to calibrations with basICColor... But I saw that there was a recent update, maybe the new version has improvements - I really like basICColor though...

[uwitberg]

If you really wan't to try this out, you could check out the combination of
dispcalGUI - http://dispcalgui.hoech.net
Argyll CMS, needed as foundation for dispcalGUI - http://www.argyllcms.com
In dispcalGUI you can choose a custom correction matrix or download an existing one submitted by Argyll users to a database.

I'm quite sure that you can build your own correction matrices with Argyll, but you could also have a look at
BabelColor PatchTool - http://www.babelcolor.com/#PatchTool
Might be a bit more convenient than Argyll's CLI ...

[mike_n]

@ uwitberg: thank you for the suggestion.

I was already looking into Argyll CMS since last week, and I have to say, this is BY FAR the best calibration software for computer screens. MUCH more control than basICColor or i1Profiler...

Very pleased with the results and the endless tweaking possibilities... highly recommended.

I have to find out if the 3D LUT profile that you can create out of a finished calibration can be imported and used in Color Navigator for my Eizo. On all other screens, Argyll is the only software needed.

- M

[Scott Martin]

Well, there are different solutions for different mindsets. Some love to have a jagillion controls while other favor simplicity. Regardless, I'd urge everyone to place the greatest weight on the actual, real world results, visually analyzing real print-to-screen comparisons and not simply artificial targets, graphs, statistical results etc.