Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: keithcooper on October 26, 2017, 12:30:39 pm
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After quite a wait, X-Rite have completely re-vamped the ColorMunki Photo software with their new i1Studio product
https://xritephoto.com/i1Studio
It's very similar in style to i1Profiler and the good thing is that it still works just fine with my 2008 vintage ColorMunki spectrophotometer.
I just downloaded the software and it's ready to go (needs no registration)
It adds scanner profiling (as in i1Profiler) and includes several B&W printing options in its paper profiling.
I'm waiting for one of the new devices to test for a review, but I'm told that they are interchangeable with the old CM spectro.
The old chevron targets are gone, and in some initial testing, it reads patches very efficiently.
--
bye for now
Keith Cooper
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I wonder how much of this is marketing hype and how much solid technical improvement. And I'd get even angrier with X-Rite than I usually am if they didn't issue a version of i1Profiler that had AT LEAST the B&W profiling capability claimed for this software.
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Interesting, too bad I sold my ColorMunki when I upgraded to an i1 Pro. The B/W feature sounds interesting but I can already do that with ArgyllCMS.
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After quite a wait, X-Rite have completely re-vamped the ColorMunki Photo software with their new i1Studio product
Completely re-vamped in specifically what way? What makes you believe the hardware is anything new?
Meanwhile, they haven't ever completely re-vamped i1Profiler which is very, very old in software years. Sad.
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It adds scanner profiling (as in i1Profiler) and includes several B&W printing options in its paper profiling.
Bizarre that it offers B&W profiling when Profiler doesn't.
Also curious to brand it as i1Studio using the i1 brand when it doesn't support i1Pros.
Let's hope that it means there more coming soon to Profiler.
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Let's hope that it means there more coming soon to Profiler.
This company still hasn’t fully figured out it’s a hardware company and not so hot at software. Why should we have expected the one high end package, still incomplete compared to it's two predecessors years and years ago, to get the upgrade first. IF at all. >:(
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Interesting, too bad I sold my ColorMunki when I upgraded to an i1 Pro. The B/W feature sounds interesting but I can already do that with ArgyllCMS.
Owners of high-end X-Rite software shouldn't have to revert to command-line software to get what X-Rite's cheaper products offer.
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Bizarre that it offers B&W profiling when Profiler doesn't.
Also curious to brand it as i1Studio using the i1 brand when it doesn't support i1Pros.
Let's hope that it means there more coming soon to Profiler.
Remember this is X-Rite we're dealing with. Nothing is bizarre and one can always hope.
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The older ColorMunki spectrophotometer does appear to work with the i1Studio software.
But, I'm not sure if it's supposed to.
Clicking on the register button in the software brings up the dialog: "Please connect your i1Studio sensor to USB port in order to register".
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The older ColorMunki spectrophotometer does appear to work with the i1Studio software.
But, I'm not sure if it's supposed to.
Clicking on the register button in the software brings up the dialog: "Please connect your i1Studio sensor to USB port in order to register".
Winner: First publicly discovered bug. ;D
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I should note that whilst I've tested a beta version of this, I'm waiting to see how the V1.0 release works before any detailed comment.
The B&W profiling is essentially a customised normal profiling workflow.
I use i1Profiler, do a lot of B&W printing and have no urge to switch to i1Studio. The i1Studio product is aimed at a different market IMHO
I don't know of changes in the hardware, other than to note that it works fine with my CM that dates from when it first came out (2008) - the hardware looks slightly different, but AFAIK, the innards are the same. I've no idea what the register function does - I'm told that a new device is on its way to me, so I'll look at it when it turns up.
The software looks like a version of i1Profiler - how much inside it has changed is something I'm not party too
...no need to go off on one without looking at it (yet) ;-)
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I use i1Profiler, do a lot of B&W printing and have no urge to switch to i1Studio. The i1Studio product is aimed at a different market IMHO
So it doesn't do as good a job?
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...no need to go off on one without looking at it (yet) ;-)
Well my experience with modern X-rite software is new versions of even existing products introduce as many bugs as get fixed. I downloaded the product. Might play with it unless I find that dreadful XRDD software which has no reason to exist other than hose the host X-rite software from recognizing a device. Some of us have production to do and can't afford to have some new software product with questionable usability. I assume my iSis XL will be of little use there. IF I can even import a CGATs or similar file from one X-rite product (i1P) to this new product, I'll be shocked with joy.
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So it doesn't do as good a job?
As I said, I'm waiting to try the released software... It doesn't support my i1Pro2 / i1iO2 / IsisXL for starters
I beta tested it on my Mac laptop - that still works fine with i1profiler (and likewise on my Mac Pro)
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As I said, I'm waiting to try the released software... It doesn't support my i1Pro2 / i1iO2 / IsisXL for starters
I beta tested it on my Mac laptop - that still works fine with i1profiler (and likewise on my Mac Pro)
It is released, it's working on this end with my old ColorMunki.
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Owners of high-end X-Rite software shouldn't have to revert to command-line software to get what X-Rite's cheaper products offer.
Actually, Argyll supports ColorMunkis and there are a number of very adept people who use it for profiling. The problem is that the patch size is much larger than that for the i1 and hence the amount of paper use is quite high. Anders Torger who developed the new camera profiling software used the ColorMunki and has a nice web page on how to set up and use Argyll. That being said, I agree with your point if the person is naive about the command line.
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if the person is naive about the command line.
CLIs are twentieth century working methods. It's just lazy not to give something worthwhile a GUI now.
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The old ColorMunki Spectrophotometer runs fine in this product! I built a B&W profile since we're told this is 'new'. It worked using one original page then two iterations. I output my color test file after converting it to "B&W" using Photoshop's default B&W conversion (adjustments) just to make a quick and dirty conversion. Between this new profile and my color profile built with an iSis, 1700 then 2368, the two are similar in neutrality. The dMax from the iSis profile looks a tad better. The software is again a GUI mess! When you go to build a profile for B&W you have a dropdown and one option you can actually pick to build the profile is None.
Then there's the weirdness in Photoshop's Print dialog where no Rendering Intent can be selected! But it can be in Convert to Profile. Weird.
Lastly I printed a color image using the new B&W profile, it's not too bad but not optimal. So with i1P, I can build a profile that's equally effective for color or B&W. As for the display module, not impressive whatsoever. I think this is just a rehack of software, a single (?) new feature and a color target. Nothing that should have taken this many years to produce while ignoring i1Profiler IMHO.
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........... naive about the command line.
For a great many intents and purposes went out with the dodo bird. My time would be much better spent learning Mandarin or Cantonese and operating software with user-friendly GUIs.
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For a great many intents and purposes went out with the dodo bird. My time would be much better spent learning Mandarin or Cantonese and operating software with user-friendly GUIs.
ANYTHING to make color management harder is a good thing. For some.... ;D
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CLIs are twentieth century working methods. It's just lazy not to give something worthwhile a GUI now.
If it's so easy, why haven't you contributed a GUI ?
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Graeme, as the author of the software you have made a huge contribution, it's open source, and many people have been very supportive in numerous ways. I don't take any of that away from you. At the same time, however, as a user of software I have to make cogent decisions about how to spend my time, and learning CLI isn't a pursuit that I think worthwhile. Obviously other people such as Alan and indeed your whole user base think differently. That's fine, each to his/her own. I'm really taking aim at the professional, commercial corporation who charges dearly for their products, puts out poorly designed, poorly documented sloppy stuff and doesn't build in some features that your open source program allows for - and I don't want to have to learn CLI to get those features, especially having paid the price for the commercial product. That's where I'm coming from. And if someone with the right skills did design a nice GUI for your application, that would be a huge contribution to the industry, opening it up to some badly needed competition.
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Mark,
I concur. Graeme's work is invaluable.
I'm pretty comfortable with both command line and gui. There are many areas I prefer command line apps. But then I spent decades with Unix systems so it's pretty ingrained. In Matlab I rarely use the available gui apps preferring to use functions I've written.
For instance this one liner converts any image from Lab to a colorimetric version of an image as printed using Perceptual Intent.
proofImage=ProfileConvert(image, 'profile name', 'f', 0, 'r', 3)
It converts the image in Lab to the RGB printer device space using Perceptual Intent then back to Lab. Those colors match what's printed if I spot check a color with the I1Pro. A 10 megapixel image takes just a few seconds. I used to do that with Photoshop. Edit->Convert then select the profile and Perceptual. Then Edit->Convert Lab.
But in Matlab I can examine analytically all sorts of effects like the change in color due to, for instance, gamut compression.
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If it's so easy, why haven't you contributed a GUI ?
Why should bother ? I've got three other profiling packages that work well and are simple to use.
I haven't needed to write my own software for anything for twenty years now.
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Why should bother ? I've got three other profiling packages that work well and are simple to use.
I haven't needed to write my own software for anything for twenty years now.
Nobody is asking you to use Argyll and nobody is asking you to write software. If you are happy with what you have that's fine but don't harp on a product that the others find invaluable.
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Nobody is asking you to use Argyll and nobody is asking you to write software. If you are happy with what you have that's fine but don't harp on a product that the others find invaluable.
I don't really think he is... and so what anyway?
I fully share Mark's views on the software outlined earlier, except his learning Chinese is my keeping up with piano practice :-)
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I don't really think he is... and so what anyway?
I fully share Mark's views on the software outlined earlier, except his learning Chinese is my keeping up with piano practice :-)
I didn't say I was actually learning it Keith, it was a hypothetical, but ya know, these days it may just be a great idea to do so! :-)
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I didn't say I was actually learning it Keith, it was a hypothetical, but ya know, these days it may just be a great idea to do so! :-)
Hypothetical, in a similar way to my daily piano practice... ;-)
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nobody is asking you to write software.
Actually that just what he did, the quote from GWGill was "why haven't you contributed a GUI ?" I just answered.
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Why should bother ?
Oh, I see - just laziness then.
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Oh, I see - just laziness then.
No probably the same reason that I'd not take it on either.
I've not written any serious code for or done any interface design this century.
Please accept that we appreciate your efforts, but have no interest in CLI software
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Oh, I see - just laziness then.
You think I'm lazy because I don't write you a sensible interface for your software that I don't use ? A curious notion.
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Do I understand correctly that ColorMunki Photo is now superseded by this Studio product. And I can download the Studio software and use it on my recently purchased ColorMunki Photo and do things like calibrating a scanner - a capability that is not included with Photo.
:Niranjan.
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And I can download the Studio software and use it on my recently purchased ColorMunki Photo and do things like calibrating a scanner - a capability that is not included with Photo.
Yes! You need a scanner target for one. It supports the Macbeth 24 patch but I have no idea how well that would work; not a target I'd use for that process!
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Yes! You need a scanner target for one. It supports the Macbeth 24 patch but I have no idea how well that would work; not a target I'd use for that process!
Done lots of scanner profiling, and I agree. If we're talking about profiling it for film scanning it requires at least an IT.8 or better still a Hutchcolor. SilverFast Auto IT.8 does a much faster and more elegant job than X-Rite's processes, and the profiles are good.
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Done lots of scanner profiling, and I agree. If we're talking about profiling it for film scanning it requires at least an IT.8 or better still a Hutchcolor. SilverFast Auto IT.8 does a much faster and more elegant job than X-Rite's processes, and the profiles are good.
Yes! You need a scanner target for one. It supports the Macbeth 24 patch but I have no idea how well that would work; not a target I'd use for that process!
Thanks...
Found this on X-Rite site:
>>>>
Scanner Calibration and Profiling:
Scanner profiling is super easy. Simply scan and crop your target to generate a high quality ICC profile. Supports these targets: ColorChecker Classic (Standard and Mini sizes), ColorChecker Digital SG, Reflective IT 8.7/2, Transmissive 4x5 and 35mm IT8.7/1.
<<<<
I have it8.7/2 target, but profiling using VueScan was not satisfactory. Also have the ColorChecker Classic Mini that came with Photo, so a couple of options to comapre. I will see if this is a good way or not.
On the other hand, I wonder why one can not use a target printed for paper profiling (apart from software not written for it.)
:Niranjan.
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You think I'm lazy because I don't write you a sensible interface for your software that I don't use ? A curious notion.
But yet you still think it was sensible then to make a similar statement about someone else?
It's just lazy not to give something worthwhile a GUI now.
A curious notion indeed
I do wonder if people who blab about UI here have ever coded any UI in practice at all. Had they done it or were exposed to any UI development then any reasons for questioning Graeme or anyone else's motives for CLI interfaces would go away. UI coding takes extraordinary amount of time to fiddle with things that have nothing to do with application functionality and this takes a lot of time away from the developing main functionality. CLI interfaces on the other hand are fairly simple to write and the main effort there goes into application functionality rather than CLI interfaces. This is probably one of the reason people still do write them. For users all it takes is a little extra effort to learn what to run and parameters used. Nothing really extraordinary comparing to using various UI settings and clicking buttons and menus. Argyll CMS unlike some even UI applications is very well documented including workflows which makes it really easy to learn.
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I do wonder if people who blab about UI here have ever coded any UI in practice at all.
Some of us have yes.
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Some of us have yes.
You didn't blab about that though ;)
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You didn't blab about that though ;)
Indeed I did. Notice the screen capture I provided with 'none' on the dropdown menu? That's really a bad design! The dropdown is populated with names of the kinds of B&W profiles to be created. You can't create a none setting B&W profile.
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Indeed I did. Notice the screen capture I provided with 'none' on the dropdown menu? That's really a bad design! The dropdown is populated with names of the kinds of B&W profiles to be crated. You can't create a none setting B&W profile.
Indeed you did. I should constrain my statement to the CLI bashing folks then :-\
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UI coding takes extraordinary amount of time to fiddle with things that have nothing to do with application functionality and this takes a lot of time away from the developing main functionality.
Exactly. It's certainly not from lack of wanting a GUI, that ArgyllCMS doesn't have one.
i.e. anyone assuming that the lack of a GUI has something to do with a deliberate policy of making it difficult to use, or to some lack of effort on my part, has widely missed the mark, and just seems like an attempt to rub salt into a wound.
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+1
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Exactly. It's certainly not from lack of wanting a GUI, that ArgyllCMS doesn't have one.
Agree with this and it's important to remember that ArgyllCMS has a whole bunch more functionality than many commercial offerings. I have a Notepad file that contains all the major command line arguments that I use and I just have to do some small substitutions when I have a new paper to profile. A simple copy from the Notepad file and paste into the command line saves me a lot of frustration brought about by mistyping something. There are also some batch file commands HERE (https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/a-basic-guide-see-post-1-to-setting-up-argyll-cms-profiling-on-your-computer.8570/) that will help automate some of the more common uses (I've not tried this approach).
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Another point is the complexity metric (sorry for marketing speak).
Consider the GUI complexity of displaycalGUI and the amount of buttons, options and TIME (=money) just to do a reasonably complete display calibration.
I think a GUI for the print profiling and much of the rest of the toolkit would be an unholy mess.
Even w/ Mac's, you want to do something 'complex' or off-beat? Guess what, you're going to be using Terminal.
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Another factor to consider is that supplying a gui would invite many less sophisticated users. While that seems like a good thing, color management is a complex subject and printer ICCs in particular involve a lot of complex options and tradeoffs. People using CLIs are more likely to study the different utilities and delve into the details of ICC profiles on their own. It's free software and really can't be expected to provide the level of customer support expected from commercial products.
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I appreciate all the conversation about GUI’s and command line operations but I would be interested in what the original poster presented. That being the just released iStudio from X-Rite. Has anyone received the hardware and run some profiles and got a review of that?
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I appreciate all the conversation about GUI’s and command line operations but I would be interested in what the original poster presented. That being the just released iStudio from X-Rite. Has anyone received the hardware and run some profiles and got a review of that?
With the old hardware (which I suspect is identical to new in terms of the profiles), yes. Here's a massive bug; doesn't appear you can build a V2 ICC profile, only V4. Not good, not good at all unless someone can find the magic V2 switch in this new and mostly unnecessary software.
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With the old hardware (which I suspect is identical to new in terms of the profiles), yes. Here's a massive bug; doesn't appear you can build a V2 ICC profile, only V4. Not good, not good at all unless someone can find the magic V2 switch in this new and mostly unnecessary software.
Andrew - by now has the industry not resolved the issues around V4? If not, what remaining defects would you highlight?
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Andrew - by now has the industry not resolved the issues around V4? If not, what remaining defects would you highlight?
Nope and worse, and again, V4 profiles provide nothing at all useful without (in part) support for PRMG in that profile.
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Nope and worse, and again, V4 profiles provide nothing at all useful without (in part) support for PRMG in that profile.
Yep, currently.
V4 could provide more functionality with stuff that isn't part of the PRMG/Perc. For instance floating point and other LUT extensions that would substantially improve the gamut boundary issues with BtoA1 transforms. Right now I1Profiler produces identical Rel. Col. tables and transforms for V2 and V4 profiles and so still has the +/- 3 dE intrinsic boundary clipping errors with their highest quality (36^3 cube) settings.
Supposedly Photoshop fully supports V4 but since I don't know of any software that produces V4 utilizing these enhancements so V4 profiles at this point are more of a pain that makes no difference in most applications that support them while causing issues in some with poor support. In particular the clipping of L* below 3.1 with Perc. Intent.
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That being the just released iStudio from X-Rite. Has anyone received the hardware and run some profiles and got a review of that?
X-Rite seem to have a knack for creating product naming confusion (I'm sure their marketing folk are very pleased with themselves!), so it's unclear to me whether "i1 Studio" means the hardware, the software, or both.
The little information I have on the hardware hints that it is virtually identical to the ColorMunki spectro. Only obvious technical change is to the USB ID number, and the color and markings of the case. Certainly it seems backwards compatible enough to be able to run with existing software, even though no existing software will recognize the new USB ID's.
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Nope and worse, and again, V4 profiles provide nothing at all useful without (in part) support for PRMG in that profile.
There's no technical obstacle to creating V2 profiles that include the PRMG. All it is, is a tag to indicate it's being used, and then using it as the intermediate gamut in generating A2B and B2A tables.
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Right now I1Profiler produces identical Rel. Col. tables and transforms for V2 and V4 profiles and so still has the +/- 3 dE intrinsic boundary clipping errors with their highest quality (36^3 cube) settings.
I'm unconvinced - it's pretty fundamental to the idea of using a general cLUT transform from PCS to device values. Yes, I'm sure that having a fancier ways of expressing the transform can improve the precision, and reduce the gamut boundary errors, but it's always going to be there. That's why I don't recommend using this color management workflow if you want highest accuracy.
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I'm unconvinced - it's pretty fundamental to the idea of using a general cLUT transform from PCS to device values. Yes, I'm sure that having a fancier ways of expressing the transform can improve the precision, and reduce the gamut boundary errors, but it's always going to be there. That's why I don't recommend using this color management workflow if you want highest accuracy.
Yeah, Graeme, you're right. Gamut boundary issues are fundamental to BtoA1 (and BtoA3 in V4) transforms. Not sure what I was thinking. The change to allowing float32s in the grid points buys little. Increasing the grid resolution is the only way to significantly improve BtoA1 at gamut boundaries and that comes at a high cost. While storage is cheep these days, cache locality isn't though that shouldn't be an issue in printing.
While reverse interpolating the AtoB1 tables avoids the gamut boundary issue, or better,using the raw device Lab data, either one is going to be pretty slow and is outside any standard ICC color management engine I'm aware of.
Generally, the errors that are inside the gamut boundaries by at least one grid separation have quite low error. Perhaps a special CMM where near boundary colors are handled specially by AtoB1 interpolation to locate the best device values? Are you aware of products that do that?
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While reverse interpolating the AtoB1 tables avoids the gamut boundary issue, or better,using the raw device Lab data, either one is going to be pretty slow and is outside any standard ICC color management engine I'm aware of.
There's nothing that makes it non ICC, but yes, it's going to be noticeably slower. Fully threaded RGB on a modern machine with the aim of just more accurate clipping isn't going to be that slow though (I'm guessing a fraction of a second, even with an accuracy-at-all-costs type of algorithm that I use in ArgyllCMS).
Generally, the errors that are inside the gamut boundaries by at least one grid separation have quite low error. Perhaps a special CMM where near boundary colors are handled specially by AtoB1 interpolation to locate the best device values? Are you aware of products that do that?
An approach that might be faster would be to have two B2A tables, one that doesn't clip (although you'd have to scale the device values to allow for out of range output on grid values just outside the gamut boundary), and one that always clips, even for grid values just inside the gamut boundary. So you convert via the first, and if you get an out of gamut device value, you look up the second. The transition isn't likely to be seamless though, so there'd still have to be some sort of explicit transition region to smooth things over.
Of course all this is only a concern for colorimetric rendering. If you're doing perceptual, a rounded out compression near the gamut surface is probably what you are after anyway :-)
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Yep, currently.
Let's examine the date upon which V4 profile creation was possible. :o
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There's no technical obstacle to creating V2 profiles that include the PRMG. All it is, is a tag to indicate it's being used, and then using it as the intermediate gamut in generating A2B and B2A tables.
Then this begs the questions:
1. Without PRMG, what does a V4 profile offer today that a V2 doesn't and who's package provides those option? Specifics on X-rite's product would be ideal if available since that's the overall topic here.
2. If the structure (version) isn't an issue in what can build a profile with the PRMG, who does build profiles with it? If no one, does that mean it's not as useful as it's meant to sound?
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X-Rite seem to have a knack for creating product naming confusion (I'm sure their marketing folk are very pleased with themselves!), so it's unclear to me whether "i1 Studio" means the hardware, the software, or both.
IF it's the marketing people I used to work with, no. But then they didn't call such shots. Meaning much of the dysfunction inside of X-rite / GMB after the merger was from within the 'new' company itself. From upper levels in this case, thanks to said merger (IMHO).
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IF it's the marketing people I used to work with, no. But then they didn't call such shots. Meaning much of the dysfunction inside of X-rite / GMB after the merger was from within the 'new' company itself. From upper levels in this case, thanks to said merger (IMHO).
And since that merger, Danaher Corporation bought the merged company, so who knows in what ways they intervene on how X-Rite operates.
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Then this begs the questions:
1. Without PRMG, what does a V4 profile offer today that a V2 doesn't and who's package provides those option? Specifics on X-rite's product would be ideal if available since that's the overall topic here.
McDowell's update from 2007 states:
>Why was a Version 4 revision of the specification
necessary? It had become apparent that the Version 2 specification gave rise to a number of problems. The main issue was that different color management systems could produce different results, depending on the particular vendor’s interpretation of the specification.
>This was particularly a problem with the perceptual rendering intent, where the specification was not clear on how to handle gamut differences between source and destination.
>There were also different interpretations of how to handle the PCS illuminant and media white point, particularly for display profiles. It was generally agreed that the specification also had a number of minor ambiguities which needed to be resolved.
2. If the structure (version) isn't an issue in what can build a profile with the PRMG, who does build profiles with it? If no one, does that mean it's not as useful as it's meant to sound?
Well, 10 years later essentially nothing has been done to utilize the PRMG concept with Perceptual Intent. Likely because virtually every application that used ICC profiles explicitly (Photoshop especially) was not willing to make the changes required to link source and destination through the PRMG. Quite possibly because doing so would have radically changed what people were already working around using wider gamut spaces and such. In any case Photoshop's usage of profiles still carries no information as to the source gamut so it would be rather hard for them to change that. Better is sometimes the enemy of the good.
OTOH, at least display profiles are being treated much more consistently and the Colorimetric printer intents have been clearly specified. Of course that was done in the last revisions to V2 profiles. Profiles that adhered to the last V2 specification are said to be V4 compliant.
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1. Without PRMG, what does a V4 profile offer today that a V2 doesn't and who's package provides those option? Specifics on X-rite's product would be ideal if available since that's the overall topic here.
Advantages are subtle, and mainly in terms of extra tags that allow a richer description of various transforms. Other changes were mostly gratuitous. ICC MAX is more interesting in the long run, but there's no particular reason to migrate in that direction if you are doing conventional things like print and display profiling.
2. If the structure (version) isn't an issue in what can build a profile with the PRMG, who does build profiles with it? If no one, does that mean it's not as useful as it's meant to sound?
It's a mixed bag in my view. Having a documented intermediate gamut is better than undocumented proprietary intermediate gamuts or nothing at all if you are randomly mixing and matching (sort of) perceptual transforms, but the fundamental illogic of attempting to do gamut mapping in two independent steps still applies - it can't be done for the general case. To do a nuanced, accurate and flexible gamut mapping requires the gamut mapping algorithm to be able to see both the source and destination gamuts.
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Well, 10 years later essentially nothing has been done to utilize the PRMG concept with Perceptual Intent. Likely because virtually every application that used ICC profiles explicitly (Photoshop especially) was not willing to make the changes required to link source and destination through the PRMG.
I don't think that's the case - using the PRMG doesn't change how the profiles are linked, it just describes a gamut that the A2B transforms to, and the B2A transforms from. So feed Photoshop V4 profiles that use the PRMG and Photoshop will happily use them.
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Thanks for the insight, good to know it's probably not going to happen and that it doesn't really need to ;D
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I don't think that's the case - using the PRMG doesn't change how the profiles are linked, it just describes a gamut that the A2B transforms to, and the B2A transforms from. So feed Photoshop V4 profiles that use the PRMG and Photoshop will happily use them.
That's my understanding too, but difficult to test since I have no such profiles with a PRMG.
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I don't think that's the case - using the PRMG doesn't change how the profiles are linked, it just describes a gamut that the A2B transforms to, and the B2A transforms from. So feed Photoshop V4 profiles that use the PRMG and Photoshop will happily use them.
And that's the problem. For instance if you have a wide gamut monitor and image in sRGB how are the colors displayed on the monitor? If you have two monitors, one a wide gamut and one sRGB do expect the image to appear the same on the two monitors? Photoshop users have a long history of expecting the images to appear the same. Or perhaps that's your point.
People are used to display profiles being colorimetric in Photoshop for all intents. They expect a set of RGB values in Adobe RGB that produce the same color as another set in sRGB to continue to produce the same color. What values should show up in Photoshop's info? Colorimetric, or PRMG mapped? What about Lab values? What happens when you copy layers from a different colorspace? Colorimetric is pretty baked in assumptions about display and working spaces in Photoshop.
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Having a documented intermediate gamut is better than undocumented proprietary intermediate gamuts or nothing at all if you are randomly mixing and matching (sort of) perceptual transforms, but the fundamental illogic of attempting to do gamut mapping independently in two independent steps still applies - it can't be done for the general case. To do a nuanced, accurate and flexible gamut mapping requires the gamut mapping algorithm to be able to see both the source and destination gamuts.
That's right and even for V4 profiles tagged for the optional PRMG 6.3.3.1 points out that Perceptual, V4 tagged PRMG is still proprietary and PRMG is a fuzzy target:
Perceptual rendering remains a proprietary art
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It is not practical or desirable to specify standard perceptual rendering algorithms. Consequently, it is also not practical or desirable to require that perceptual rendering intents match an exact perceptual intent reference medium gamut (PRMG).
So on top of the fact that the source gamut remains unknown to the destination profile there is no consistent representation. Just fuzzy goals and everyone's proprietary, secret sauce. Lot's of that going on in printer driver selected color management.
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For a great many intents and purposes went out with the dodo bird. My time would be much better spent learning Mandarin or Cantonese and operating software with user-friendly GUIs.
The thing is, in the case of Argyll, the CLI part does not that all that much time. There are well written tutorials available, from which you can copy the commands verbatim.
By (very) far, most of the time is spent measuring the targets, as I have an old Gretag Macbeth Eye-One. Now that I have a document with my ready-made commands, I think issuing the commands actually takes less time than using a GUI. And certainly much less time than writing about it on a forum ;)
And the software is really, really good. Totally reliable in its way of working as well as in the quality of the generated profiles. When I print or display test images with very long gradients, they display and print with no defect, no visible non-linearity, which is more than I can say of the profiles I got from the software that X-Rite bundles with the Eye-One.
For printing, using a large numbers of grey patches in the targets gives profiles that work for B&W as well as for colour. It is spectacular.
Getting first class profiles is well worth writing down a few lines or keeping a bookmark to a tutorial in my opinion.
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You may be right Stephane - but one of these days it would be nice to see a well-designed results-oriented shoot-out between Argyll and i1Profiler. Any one game?
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You may be right Stephane - but one of these days it would be nice to see a well-designed results-oriented shoot-out between Argyll and i1Profiler. Any one game?
While interesting, it would require targets to be printed out from the same printer, measured with the identical spectro and then carried through with both software packages. I don't own iProfiler and would not be able to do this. I think that Ethan Hansen has done some comparisons and posted about this. However, I don't know whether it was a direct "shoot-out" Perhaps he can weigh in.
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While interesting, it would require targets to be printed out from the same printer, measured with the identical spectro and then carried through with both software packages.
Just share some CGATs data between the two applications, roll some profiles. What settings to use? Now the analysis, that's the real difficult part here considering so much of this is subjective, especially if you intend to test the Perceptual tables!
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Just share some CGATs data between the two applications, roll some profiles.
Charts are part of the equation though. A while back, in a different sphere (TV calibration/profiling) there was the situation where ArgyllCMS had noticeably better accuracy than a commercial product when each was using their own test charts (same number of samples of course), yet when the other product used an Argyll test chart, it's accuracy began to approached that of Argyll :-)
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Charts are part of the equation though. A while back, in a different sphere (TV calibration/profiling) there was the situation where ArgyllCMS had noticeably better accuracy than a commercial product when each was using their own test charts (same number of samples of course), yet when the other product used an Argyll test chart, it's accuracy began to approached that of Argyll :-)
I'm in the process of testing this now using charts with 15 equ spaced grid points made in Matlab. This spaces them at 255/14 intervals. Additionally I added grid points along and beside the neutral axis at 255/28 spacings. These were rounded and output to a CGATS file which was used with I1Profiler and Argyll.
I'm testing the profiles with a 9800 using a reference set of LAB colors that are in gamut and at intervals of 10 on the L*, a* and b* axis using Abs. Col. Additionally, a set of neutral patches are added from L*=5 to L*=95 in steps of 2.5 to analyze how well the neutral axis is rendered. Should be interesting.
Note that this only considers the BtoA1 profile table which is used for both Rel Col and Abs Col. It will also be restricted to in gamut colors so OOG mapping smoothness may or may not differ significantly. I may also look at Perceptual but that is highly subjective. However, on about half the profiles I've made with I1Profiler there are significant mapping anomalies in the Perceptual tables which I've posted images of elsewhere here. No idea if they will show up on any of these though they tended to be more prevalent on profiles made with patch sets that included extra neutrals and near neutrals.
My reference set of LAB colors described above consists of 426 LAB patches and additional neutral patches from L*=5:95 in steps of 2.5. Matlab creates a tiff file at 720 DPI in 16 bit ProPhoto RGB in i1iSiS readable format. I shall post that together with a CGATS RGB file for those that wish to run their own tests on any profile and have an i1iSiS. It fits nicely on the top half of a 8.5x11 letter page so you can test 2 profiles with just one sheet.
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Charts are part of the equation though.
So use Argyll chart for both.
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Preliminary results using Epson 9800 with Costco Glossy and M2 (uV cut) measurements.
I made an I1Profiler profile using defaults except for selecting V2 instead of V4 and max quality for the LUTS. This creates LUTs with 37 grid points. I also made 3 Argyll profiles. The default LUTs, "high" and "ultra." These have 17, 33, and 45 grid points respectively. Note that "ultra" is strongly discouraged. It's also very slow.
Argyll has numerous options for determining Perceptual and Saturation intent tables. The default, where no Perceptual mapping is selected, is to create identical tables to Colorimetric. I have not explored the Perceptual gamut options.
All profiles were correctly generated and didn't map paper black point to L=0. That is they did not incorporate BPC which, for instance, the canned profiles that came with my 9800 did.
All Argyll profiles produced better neutral tone tracking than the I1Profiler profile. However, the I1Profiler produced the lowest overall error for the 426 Lab patches which broadly cover the printer's gamut.
Ave dE00 for the 426 Lab patches
Argyll -qm: 0.6709
Argyll -qh: 0.5041
Argyll -qu: 0.5420
I1Profiler HighQual: 0.4815
Ave dE00 for the 37 neutral patches from L=5 to 95 in steps of 2.5
Argyll -qm: 0.6309
Argyll -qh: 0.4653
Argyll -qu: 0.4811
I1Profiler HighQual: 0.6708
Much of these errors, albeit small, are due to the 9800 printer itself. The i1iSiS is an exceptionally consistent instrument that contributes negligibly to the variance but the printer, and to a lesser degree the paper are larger intrinsic sources of error. Both programs have options, the Argyll one better described, to accommodate these errors but I have just used the defaults for this comparison.
It would appear the defaults result in better use of the additional neutral patches for the Argyll program while the I1Profiler's are better matched to the overall grid spacing.
I briefly looked at how OOG colors were mapped to the gamut surface for the two programs. They are radically different. Particularly at lower L* values. However, it isn't clear which would be preferable. There are likely big differences in how things like synthetic Grainger images would print. Significant OOG issues should always be handled by softproofing in any case.
One other oddity is that the L* tracking at low levels of L* (5 to 15) is significantly better (smoother) with the I1Profiler than Argyll. Even so, the Argyll L* tracking over the entire L* range more than made up, yielding significantly better neutral tracking.
Attached are the tif file that is i1iSiS ready and the CGATS file needed to initialize the chart reader. The CGATS file is not a target file, just a filler to initialize the patch locations. For those interested the RGB values are high resolution ProPhoto and are what produces the LAB values in the tiff image. Setup should be US letter Profile using i1iSiS defaults. The tif file should be printed just as any ordinary image using Photoshop manages color using Abs. Col., and selecting the profile/printer combo to test the accuracy of color reproduction.
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Wow! Thanks Doug!
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Much of these errors, albeit small, are due to the 9800 printer itself.
And invisible no?
However, it isn't clear which would be preferable
We're back where we started it seems.
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All Argyll profiles produced better neutral tone tracking than the I1Profiler profile.
This, for me, is important. I do not know enough to assess if that is what allows me to print great B&W with my Argyll profiles.
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Thank you for your review (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/i1studio-calibration-profiling-review/) Keith. Keep up the great work! You provide a great service to the photographic community with your reviews.
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Thank you for your review (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/i1studio-calibration-profiling-review/) Keith. Keep up the great work! You provide a great service to the photographic community with your reviews.
Thanks although I expect my lack of charts/graphs/more charts/analysis won't go down well in some quarters, but then it's not written for the gurus ;-) :-)
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Please no more responses on the subject of Argyll v I1Profiler on this thread. It's a diversion from the thread topic and really should be in a thread of its own. I'll start a new thread for comments and exploration.
Unfortunately, I don't have a Munki or I would be testing that as well. Since it, like the ISiS, uses a "white" led and intrinsically produces more stable, M2 measurements compared to tungsten lamps, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it doesn't produce excellent B&W prints. Perhaps someone with one can run comparisons.
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Please no more responses on the subject of Argyll v I1Profiler on this thread. It's a diversion from the thread topic and really should be in a thread of its own. I'll start a new thread for comments and exploration.
Unfortunately, I don't have a Munki or I would be testing that as well. Since it, like the ISiS, uses a "white" led and intrinsically produces more stable, M2 measurements compared to tungsten lamps, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it doesn't produce excellent B&W prints. Perhaps someone with one can run comparisons.
Tricky, in that the i1Studio software doesn't allow for the saving of any measurements... :-(
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Tricky, in that the i1Studio software doesn't allow for the saving of any measurements... :-(
True, major PITA. However I think Argyll can measure color values with a Munki so there is a way if tedious. :'(
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Look what happens when you drag and drop i1Studio profiles into i1Profiler and you're told a tale of two X-rite's:
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Look what happens when you drag and drop i1Studio profiles into i1Profiler and you're told a tale of two X-rite's:
;D
You might try Patchtool which has an option to extract patch profile and spectral info if it's stored in a profile. I'm guess it isn't but one never knows.
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Thanks although I expect my lack of charts/graphs/more charts/analysis won't go down well in some quarters, but then it's not written for the gurus ;-) :-)
I'm probably in the broad audience you were writing for in this instance. I don't need charts and graphs. But what I do need is the bigger picture stuff, which you give.
For instance, I really appreciated this observation: "remember that the best looking image on a screen does not always equate with the best looking print." I've been (re)learning that the hard way with recent print that includes a heavily saturated red girl's coat, combined with the girl and her friend having red cheeks from the cold (I'll attach it here to demonstrate what I'm talking about). Another version of the attached image that looks fantastic on my screen produced a terrible print on my Canon Pro 1000, probably because the reds are out of the printer's gamut (or at 6 months past their optimal use-by-date, my printer's original inks are breaking down!). To solve the problem of the red coat, I had to open the image in Canon's DPP (which I rarely do) and use the Faithful picture style, because anything else looks far too saturated for print. I then blended that coat with the LR / ACR rendering of the rest of the image in PS. I'm still not that happy with print. The transitions between reds in the coat are not as smooth as I'd like, and the girl's faces lack the liveliness and color differentiation in the print that is easily seen on screen.
I don't know that a custom profile of my printer (or fresher inks) would be of any help for this print. Maybe a custom profile would help. Or maybe it's more a matter of me learning how to better prepare an image for print. Anyway that point is that it's precisely because I don't know that articles of your kind are so helpful ;)
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Preliminary results using Epson 9800 with Costco Glossy and M2 (uV cut) measurements.
I made an I1Profiler profile using defaults except for selecting V2 instead of V4 and max quality for the LUTS. This creates LUTs with 37 grid points. I also made 3 Argyll profiles. The default LUTs, "high" and "ultra." These have 17, 33, and 45 grid points respectively. Note that "ultra" is strongly discouraged. It's also very slow.
Argyll has numerous options for determining Perceptual and Saturation intent tables. The default, where no Perceptual mapping is selected, is to create identical tables to Colorimetric. I have not explored the Perceptual gamut options.
All profiles were correctly generated and didn't map paper black point to L=0. That is they did not incorporate BPC which, for instance, the canned profiles that came with my 9800 did.
All Argyll profiles produced better neutral tone tracking than the I1Profiler profile. However, the I1Profiler produced the lowest overall error for the 426 Lab patches which broadly cover the printer's gamut.
Ave dE00 for the 426 Lab patches
Argyll -qm: 0.6709
Argyll -qh: 0.5041
Argyll -qu: 0.5420
I1Profiler HighQual: 0.4815
Ave dE00 for the 37 neutral patches from L=5 to 95 in steps of 2.5
Argyll -qm: 0.6309
Argyll -qh: 0.4653
Argyll -qu: 0.4811
I1Profiler HighQual: 0.6708
Much of these errors, albeit small, are due to the 9800 printer itself. The i1iSiS is an exceptionally consistent instrument that contributes negligibly to the variance but the printer, and to a lesser degree the paper are larger intrinsic sources of error. Both programs have options, the Argyll one better described, to accommodate these errors but I have just used the defaults for this comparison.
It would appear the defaults result in better use of the additional neutral patches for the Argyll program while the I1Profiler's are better matched to the overall grid spacing.
I briefly looked at how OOG colors were mapped to the gamut surface for the two programs. They are radically different. Particularly at lower L* values. However, it isn't clear which would be preferable. There are likely big differences in how things like synthetic Grainger images would print. Significant OOG issues should always be handled by softproofing in any case.
One other oddity is that the L* tracking at low levels of L* (5 to 15) is significantly better (smoother) with the I1Profiler than Argyll. Even so, the Argyll L* tracking over the entire L* range more than made up, yielding significantly better neutral tracking.
Attached are the tif file that is i1iSiS ready and the CGATS file needed to initialize the chart reader. The CGATS file is not a target file, just a filler to initialize the patch locations. For those interested the RGB values are high resolution ProPhoto and are what produces the LAB values in the tiff image. Setup should be US letter Profile using i1iSiS defaults. The tif file should be printed just as any ordinary image using Photoshop manages color using Abs. Col., and selecting the profile/printer combo to test the accuracy of color reproduction.
Very useful Doug. Two observations: dE (76, and '00 all the more so) differences of l more or less on any axis should be imperceptible. Problems with comparisons start with patch measurements themselves. The fact is that variances occur when you measure the same patch with the same instrument on different spots of the patch, and those differences can exceed the dE differences you are reporting, so the question becomes one of which dE values are significant. It is best to ignore small differences as they are likely meaningless for most practical purposes.
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I'm probably in the broad audience you were writing for in this instance. I don't need charts and graphs. But what I do need is the bigger picture stuff, which you give.
For instance, I really appreciated this observation: "remember that the best looking image on a screen does not always equate with the best looking print." I've been (re)learning that the hard way with recent print that includes a heavily saturated red girl's coat, combined with the girl and her friend having red cheeks from the cold (I'll attach it here to demonstrate what I'm talking about). Another version of the attached image that looks fantastic on my screen produced a terrible print on my Canon Pro 1000, probably because the reds are out of the printer's gamut (or at 6 months past their optimal use-by-date, my printer's original inks are breaking down!). To solve the problem of the red coat, I had to open the image in Canon's DPP (which I rarely do) and use the Faithful picture style, because anything else looks far too saturated for print. I then blended that coat with the LR / ACR rendering of the rest of the image in PS. I'm still not that happy with print. The transitions between reds in the coat are not as smooth as I'd like, and the girl's faces lack the liveliness and color differentiation in the print that is easily seen on screen.
I don't know that a custom profile of my printer (or fresher inks) would be of any help for this print. Maybe a custom profile would help. Or maybe it's more a matter of me learning how to better prepare an image for print. Anyway that point is that it's precisely because I don't know that articles of your kind are so helpful ;)
I see the usual magenta reds rendering. If you have any color target you can see for yourself. DDP and standard Adobe profiles do this. I bet the girl's coat was more scarlet.
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You might try Patchtool which has an option to extract patch profile and spectral info if it's stored in a profile. I'm guess it isn't but one never knows.
The data IS in the i1studio profile! What's so sad is it is not consistent in how X-rite must write the data in the i1P profiles so they two products don't work in tandem as they should and as they would if GMB were controlling this software design and execution.
Come on; how can X-rite build a new software host and not make it compatible internally such it's profiles are recognized in the high end product? It's just sloppy or a desire to lock the customer out of functionality they had.
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Very useful Doug. Two observations: dE (76, and '00 all the more so) differences of l more or less on any axis should be imperceptible. Problems with comparisons start with patch measurements themselves. The fact is that variances occur when you measure the same patch with the same instrument on different spots of the patch, and those differences can exceed the dE differences you are reporting, so the question becomes one of which dE values are significant. It is best to ignore small differences as they are likely meaningless for most practical purposes.
Hi Mark,
Note that the stats quoted are averages. All would be great if all the colors were printed at, or even within a factor of 2 of the averages. I posted histograms of the dE00 Lab crosscheck on the thread I started specifically to look at the differences between Argyll an I1P. Still not bad, Turns out 99% are 1 dE00 or less. Thus, it's unlikely any observable differences in the print output could be seen on random, in gamut images. Also, there is a post exploring the large differences in out of gamut mapping differences between the two. Check out the posts on that thread for much more detail than the preliminary results I posted here.
Further, I did reverse lookup on the profile target patchset for the two products. The results indicate I1P default does more less smoothing in modeling the data than Argyll. This has both costs and benefits as I will discuss more on that thread. I will be posting that data in that thread after I explore the impact of changing the "smooth" slider in I1P.
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The data IS in the i1studio profile! What's so sad is it is not consistent in how X-rite must write the data in the i1P profiles so they two products don't work in tandem as they should and as they would if GMB were controlling this software design and execution.
Come on; how can X-rite build a new software host and not make it compatible internally such it's profiles are recognized in the high end product? It's just sloppy or a desire to lock the customer out of functionality they had.
Cool! At least the data is recoverable. Patchtool is a great product from a lot of perspectives and worth the relatively small cost. It would be nice if there was a free program to extract that data but I'm not aware of any.
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Cool! At least the data is recoverable. Patchtool is a great product from a lot of perspectives and worth the relatively small cost. It would be nice if there was a free program to extract that data but I'm not aware of any.
Well, here's the CxF data field from opening one of my i1Studio profiles in the Mac ColorSync Utility
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It's just sloppy or a desire to lock the customer out of functionality they had.
Knowing X-Rite as we do, it's probably a combination of both.