Should I "upgrade" to i1 Pro or keep my Colormunki

[crwoo]

my temperature is stable on my press and my heat time is as close as i can...within a second i suppose.

I do realize that this is more complicated than regular papers. any tips are welcome.

[bill t.]

I believe some of the bamboo and rice inkjet papers have rather sparing ink usage and modest profiles.

From the looks of that profile, the range of colors available on that media is restricted to colors brighter than medium bright.  Your best approach may be to adjust your post processing to realize the image in only rather bright tones, and forget the dark ones.

The default printer dialogue for my 8300 offers the ability to adjust individual color levels in the "Main" tab, where you can find Color Settings->Color Adjustment.  Playing with those sliders will defeat the significance of the profile, but might give you better prints.  You could do testing on any cheap paper to get into the ballpark, before trying your problem media.

[crwoo]

I made another profile with using a paper type that uses much less inks, do you see anything weird with it? on my test samples the colors are faded ...especially the greens. seems like the yellows are blotching a bit.

I still have the ink load all the ways to -50,
If there is nothing weird about the profile I will try to improve it with more patches and maybe bump up the ink load.

Thanks

[bill t.]

Much better profile!  At least it's not reversing on itself.  It's still very odd to see the maximum density occuring so far from the center of the Luminance axis, but I can imagine this would make a better print, although with a blue bias in the dark areas.

[bill t.]

Here's why the greens and yellows are not coming through.  The wireframe is for Epson Cold Press Natural, which is itself of moderate gamut.  I doubt if you will be able to get those greens and yellows much better on your media when using a profile.

You can try printing unprofiled and without color management which may give you stronger saturation in many colors, but at a loss of tonality.  You'd need to try a lot of test prints.

[Lundberg02]

Is there an English version of    iccview.de   /  there's no translated version alternative on the page and the links I got from google return a Nt Found error.

[torger]

Here's a tutorial I just made of how to use Colormunki with Argyll. That's a cheap way of "upgrading" the instrument, as the instrument is much more capable than the bundled software makes it.

http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/argyll-print.html

The main weaknesses of the Colormunki instrument seems to be that 1) it nees larger patches than i1Pro so you need to waste more ink/paper for the same patch count 2) it's more tedious to scan as you have no ruler and it's better to scan a bit slower as the instrument is a bit more noisy and gain from averaging and 3) it's UV cut so you cannot do OBA correction

The value of OBA correction can be debated though (as you lock down your print for a specific UV content in the viewing light and viewing light may not be that constant in real conditions), and if you use OBA-free paper like Hahnemühle Baryta for example it makes no difference at all of course.

If you make lots of profiling with many different papers I think it can be worthwhile to upgrade to get a more efficient workflow. If you're not interested in OBA correction and only profile occasionally I think "upgrading" by using Argyll (which is free) is a good choice. Although I haven't been able to make an A/B comparison between the instruments I have no reason to believe that a Colormunki+Argyll profile would be noticeably less accurate than a profile made with i1Pro and bundled software, unless we talk about OBA correction which the Colormunki can't do.

From tests I've made using Argyll instead of the bundled software will make measurably more accurate profiles, even if you just scan a single A4 sheet, but I think four sheets (840 patches) is about the ideal to get "as good as it gets" without overkill when using a modern inkjet. The bundled software may have say DE2000 3.7 as max and 1.2 as average, while a 840 patch argyll profile will have say 1.8 max and 0.5 average.

I'm keeping my Colormunki.

[alain]

Here's a tutorial I just made of how to use Colormunki with Argyll. That's a cheap way of "upgrading" the instrument, as the instrument is much more capable than the bundled software makes it.

http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/argyll-print.html

The main weaknesses of the Colormunki instrument seems to be that 1) it nees larger patches than i1Pro so you need to waste more ink/paper for the same patch count 2) it's more tedious to scan as you have no ruler and it's better to scan a bit slower as the instrument is a bit more noisy and gain from averaging and 3) it's UV cut so you cannot do OBA correction

The value of OBA correction can be debated though (as you lock down your print for a specific UV content in the viewing light and viewing light may not be that constant in real conditions), and if you use OBA-free paper like Hahnemühle Baryta for example it makes no difference at all of course.

If you make lots of profiling with many different papers I think it can be worthwhile to upgrade to get a more efficient workflow. If you're not interested in OBA correction and only profile occasionally I think "upgrading" by using Argyll (which is free) is a good choice. Although I haven't been able to make an A/B comparison between the instruments I have no reason to believe that a Colormunki+Argyll profile would be noticeably less accurate than a profile made with i1Pro and bundled software, unless we talk about OBA correction which the Colormunki can't do.

From tests I've made using Argyll instead of the bundled software will make measurably more accurate profiles, even if you just scan a single A4 sheet, but I think four sheets (840 patches) is about the ideal to get "as good as it gets" without overkill when using a modern inkjet. The bundled software may have say DE2000 3.7 as max and 1.2 as average, while a 840 patch argyll profile will have say 1.8 max and 0.5 average.

I'm keeping my Colormunki.

Does the Colormunki photo stays good, also after a few years or does it need recalibration from time to time?  (I can use an old colormunki.)

[howardm]

I suppose you could get it re-cal'd but considering that they charge $350 or so to re-cal and re-certify an i1Pro, it seems hardly worth it.

WRT i1Pro, it's not obvious to me at least exactly how bad the lamp aging can be and how much of a function it is of # of seconds of usage vs. something like drift even if it's not in use. 

Do any of the resident color gurus have experience w/ that (esp. in a non-professional environment)?

[digitaldog]

Does the Colormunki photo stays good, also after a few years or does it need recalibration from time to time?  (I can use an old colormunki.)

Save your money. If it calibrates to it's white reference, if the product produces profiles that appear OK, I'd not worry.

[WayneLarmon]

If it calibrates to it's white reference, if the product produces profiles that appear OK, I'd not worry.

I'm using my ColorMunki to learn more about color science.  Part of the process is using it with Argyll to profile a cheap HP Envy 7640 four color printer I got to print the odd web page that would benefit from being in color (I have a laser printer for any other utility printing.)  But my profiles aren't quite right.   I haven't posted about this yet because I am still checking my workflow to make sure that I'm not making a mistake somewhere.  (I also made profiles with the bundled XRite software and they aren't right either.)

One thing that makes me suspicious is that when I measure a ColorChecker chart (full size, about six months old that has been stored and handled very carefully, and also a several year old ColorChecker Passport) and the ColorMunki L*a*b* readings don't match other references:

Dry Creek Photo ColorChecker images
BabelColor ColorChecker page
Robin Myers Imaging Spectral Library

I mostly used ArgyllPro ColorMeter and Argyll spotread.  But also did a few readings with the bundled ColorMunki Design software (that is installed on a different computer.  My Win 7 desktop computer is set up for Argyll and my Win 8.1 laptop is set up for ColorMunki Design.)

Should I be suspicious of my ColorMunki?

Wayne

[digitaldog]

Could be your target.

[Some Guy]

....
Should I be suspicious of my ColorMunki?

Wayne

I would also be suspicious of their spectrometer and targets.

I don't think an exact standard exists since Kodak left the scene with their control strips.  They produced a set/control exposure strip, and you hoped your processing matched their standard strip plus whatever corrections they applied to it.  With inkjet processing, it's pretty much pot luck, imho.  Even x-rite in all their webinars mentioned no two monitors are exactly alike and no doubt same applies to their spectrometers.  I have a couple of their spectrometers, and one is warm and the other is cooler in their reading values just messing with them this AM in ink mixing.  Go figger!  No doubt their is a tolerance in their Colorchecker charts too.  Okay, I am also suspicious of the tolerance of the ink tints in various batches too.  From my mixing of inks this morning, one drop can really screw up a cart of ink and how much of that works into an ICC profile I don't know.

Best we can do is come up with our own standard and work from that, given our equipment.

SG

[WayneLarmon]

Could be your target.

If you are referring to my profiles, then yes; there could be a problem with the target.  As I said, I am still going over my profiling workflow.  But ColorMunki Design is full on auto--I can't change the target when I make a profile with ColorMunki Design.

But forget I said anything about printer profiling.  I'm not ready to report on this.  I'm talking about the ColorMunki itself.    Shouldn't I be able to measure official XRite ColorChecker charts??  And get values that are reasonably similar to the measurements from the sources I listed in my previous post?  

And a 2nd question about my 7640.   I measured the large pure black patch on the Digital Outback Photo Printer Evaluation Image and L is never below 20.   It is usually about 22.  I had this image printed at WalGreens and the black patch measures about 6.  I've also tried measuring the black patches from targets printed on my 7640 and they are always >= 20.    This is with any of my profiles (Argyll and ColorMunki Design.)  And also when I run the printer driver in "auto" mode (with Photoshop set to "Printer manages colors.")  

Wayne

[WayneLarmon]

I don't think an exact standard exists since Kodak left the scene with their control strips.

I'm beginning to suspect that "color science" is an oxymoron.   I'm not seeing much science anywhere.   Only cargo cultish circular logic.

"The name derives from the belief that various ritualistic acts will lead to a bestowing of material wealth."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

Wayne

[Some Guy]

I'm beginning to suspect that "color science" is an oxymoron.   I'm not seeing much science anywhere.   Only cargo cultish circular logic.

Wayne

You may be right.  Maybe "color art" since it seems more theoretical, or a WAG, at times.

If x-rite provided a "Standardized Colorchecker" target along with the numbers that they read off their reference spectrometer, one might get closer or at least interpolate a bit.  As it is, it really is a crap shoot with who says what it should be.  Might cost a small fortune to buy one though.

I've found the same nonsense trying to figure out whose white balance Kelvin is right among various software packages as well.  Some may report 1,000 Kelvin difference from another software brand.  So who is right?  Hopefully, the engineers who build these cameras know best (with their own software too) than the third parties software.

A recent visit to the body shop I had a talk with the paint mixer guru.  It really is a mess too in that paint dries down into a different color than their computerized mixer says it should be.  He thinks yellow is the hardest to mix up.  So he has to mix a batch up, spray it, and wait a day and re-anayize and then spectrometer says it's wrong on day two, but it is right on the car.  Go figger.  He doesn't think it's a science either.  Helpful to get close, but it still takes a bit of eyeball to get it there over what his $20K gizmo says it should be.

SG

[howardm]

interestingly, I tried to essentially print out a color chart today.  I had an actual paint sample, ran spotread on my i1Pro2 and created a PS document and filled it w/ that color (from the Lab space w/ integer rounding).  after printing it on some luster paper (fully color managed), I was surprised that the L was right, the 'a' was pretty close (within 1.5 units) but the b was off by 5-6 units.  it was 50/-1 / 40 approx. greenish yellowish grayish.

trying to figure out where my error is vs. color science/art.  I strongly doubt its out of gamut of my 3880 but I will go back and check that.

[alain]

Well my experience is different, I find colour management rather predictable.  Usually it's me that forgot something ;-)