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Author Topic: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler  (Read 2915 times)

RobWignell

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How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« on: July 12, 2018, 07:47:45 am »

I joined LULA a few months ago and have learnt a lot from the contributions in this forum.  I have been using X-Rite ColorPort and an X-Rite DTP70 to create and read patch targets.  I then process the resulting CGATS text files using ArgyllCMS (txt2ti3 and colprof) to create icc profiles for my Epson 7880. 

I have recently purchased a copy of X-Rite's i1Photo Pro V2 but I have not been able to work out how to use any of the ColorPort output files as a source file for i1Profiler. 
There are numerous possible output formats from ColorPort but I normally choose to create a CGATS file converted to XRGA.  I also use the value scale 0-1.0 and the spectral range 380nm-720nm.  These don't seem to be critical in creating icc profiles using ArgyllCMS.  I don't know if they are critical for i1Profiler.

I understand that the XRGA conversion was created to enable legacy hardware to produce files that can be used in i1Profiler but I have not found any documentation on how to do this.

This is my first LULA post and I would be grateful for any guidance on using the ColorPort/DTP70 output as an input file for i1Profiler.

Thanks

Rob Wignell
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Jeff-Grant

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2018, 08:09:56 am »

Hi Rob, the good news is that I have a DTP70 and i1Profiler. The bad news is that I am away for a week in the morning. I haven’t used the DTP in ages but you should be able to load measurement files in the measurement step in i1P. The challenge is to get reference files that match what i1P expects.

If noone else can help PM me and I will help you when I’m back.
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Cheers,
 Jeff  www.jeff-grant.com

drgonzo

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2018, 12:21:38 pm »

Hi Rob,
I used a dtp70 with i1Profiler until last week when my dtp70 broke. This post explained how to do it with Colorport, dtp70 and i1 Profiler.

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=54304.0
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RobWignell

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2018, 08:53:15 pm »

Thanks to Jeff-Grant and drgonzo for encouraging responses and sorry to hear about the dead DTP70. 

I am not at all familiar with the way that i1Profiler works but the link provided by drgonzo will get me started on using the CGATS xrga text file output from the ColorPort/DTP70 patch reading. 

I also noticed the drgonzo comment on patch size having an effect on DeltaE results in the link provided.  I have experimented a little with this but would welcome advice on an optimum patch size for the DTP70 to read.  Also interested in hearing if there is an optimum patch size for the i1Photo Pro V2?

To Jeff, I am going on a skiing holiday at the end of your week away (it is mid winter in Australia) but if I haven't had any success in the meantime, I will follow you up on my return.

Thanks, Rob
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Rhossydd

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2018, 06:27:58 am »

What problems or error messages are you seeing ?

I haven't used my DTP70 for a few months now, but as far as I remember the CGATS defaults from Colorport were acceptable to i1Profiler. Just drag and drop worked fine.

Are you sure your copy of i1Profiler is licenced for printer profiling ?
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Jeff-Grant

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2018, 08:47:40 pm »

Rob,

I'm in Sydney so that should simplify matters. I just dug out my notes from last year when I was first working with the DTP70. I did some work on repeatability and found that:

1. gloss is more problematic for repeatability
2. a patch size of 9.5mm is good for matte
3. a patch size of 10mm is good for gloss
4. I was outputting a PM5 XRDA file for input into i1p. I need to be back in Sydney to be more specific
5. a black patch as the first always gives a bad reading, or does on mine, I suspect that it is to do with the guide patches

For averaging, I used Patch Tool.

I'll be back in Sydney next weekend if you need more info. Enjoy the snow.
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Cheers,
 Jeff  www.jeff-grant.com

RobWignell

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2018, 06:27:01 am »

Partial success. 

I scanned and saved a set of patches using four different combinations of CGATS/PM5 and file format out of ColorPort.  The CGATS-XRGA and CGATS-None format files both had 44 fields including Lab_R, Lab_G and Lab_B measurements.   The PM5-Gretag and PM5-XRGA formats had 41 fields because the three Lab measurements weren't included.

My i1Photo ProV2 is licensed and registered with X-Rite for producing RGB profiles but not CMYK profiles (which don't concern me anyway).  Attachment 1 shows amongst other things, an active i1Profiler system.

In the i1Profiler Printer Profiling Workflow at the bottom of Attachment 1, all four of the different file structures could be successfully dropped onto the Patch Set icon, the Test Chart icon and the Measurement icon. 

In each case this action generated a dialog asking to specify a measurement condition.

The CGATS-None and the PM5-Gretag combinations generated a second dialog that recommended converting the files to XRGA format. 

Dropping a ColorPort/DTP70 file on the Measurement icon ingested the file and turned off the Measurement icon question mark. This can be seen in Attachment 2... which also shows the Profile Settings options.  My only change on the Profile Settings page is to set the ICC version to V2 instead of the default V4 with the aim of looking at the profile using tools in ArgyllCMS.

The ICC Profile icon still retained its question mark.  See Attachment 03...  When I pressed the Create and save profile button another dialog stating Error creating profile appeared, Attachment 4...  Apart from pressing OK which gets me back to the Attachment 3 screen, I don't know what else to do.

In short, I can't yet generate an icc profile with from the ColorPort output using i1Profiler.

Grateful for suggestions.

Rob


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Doug Gray

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #7 on: July 17, 2018, 11:05:58 am »

Post the CGATs file from colorport as an attachment and I'll take a look at it. There are various things that can prevent creation of a profile that I've seen but I can't tell from the screen shots. I can check the CGATs file against things I've seen in the past.
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RobWignell

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2018, 01:24:03 am »

To Doug Gray.  Thanks for offering to have a look at the CGATS file.  I have attached two: 1196N_CGATS_None.txt (I think that this uses the ColorPort default save settings) and 1196N_CGATS_XRGA.txt (this is the CGATS format with the XRGA option from ColorPort).

I am interested to hear your opinion on these.

Cheers

Rob
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Doug Gray

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2018, 10:41:03 am »

To Doug Gray.  Thanks for offering to have a look at the CGATS file.  I have attached two: 1196N_CGATS_None.txt (I think that this uses the ColorPort default save settings) and 1196N_CGATS_XRGA.txt (this is the CGATS format with the XRGA option from ColorPort).

I am interested to hear your opinion on these.

Cheers

Rob

The basic problem is the RGB set. It has white and black patches, which are essential for I1Profiler. However, it does not have patches at the gamut boundary. These would be patches with one or two R,G, or B's at 0 and/or 255. The I1 profiling software requires this.

For instance, if one looks at any printer patch set taking R=0, and G=255, there should be a set of at least 4  B's ranging from 0 to 255. Same for other combinations of one or two at the RGB limits (0 and 255). This is necessary to establish the printer gamut boundaries as they represent points on the outer surface of the printer gamut boundary.

It's possible to make a printer profile out of these using Argyll but, since they don't have RGB values at the gamut edge, they will produce poor results at the gamut boundaries. All patch sets designed for printer profiling should have RGB values at gamut limits and I1Profiler requires this.
Where did you get the original RGB patches?

I would just use I1Profiler's RGB patches in CGATs. And perhaps add additional patches for better neutral color rendition. Print targets and scan with ColorPort. The results would work just fine with I1Profiler.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2018, 11:18:18 am by Doug Gray »
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Doug Gray

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2018, 01:13:31 pm »

To Doug Gray.  Thanks for offering to have a look at the CGATS file.  I have attached two: 1196N_CGATS_None.txt (I think that this uses the ColorPort default save settings) and 1196N_CGATS_XRGA.txt (this is the CGATS format with the XRGA option from ColorPort).

I am interested to hear your opinion on these.

Cheers

Rob

Per my observations, I created an Argyll profile to convert RGB values to LAB. This allowed me to add gamut edge patches to your CGATs file. These contain the extrapolated LAB values in addition to your original RGB and LAB values. The additional RGB values containing gamut edge patches were in steps on 51.

The file was then saved as a CGATS file containing only RGB and LAB. No way to easily extrapolate the spectrum so that info is lost. However, for D50 profiles the spectral data is redundant and of use only in making profiles with different illuminants.

I loaded this file in I1Profiler and it easily makes a profile. I would expect the profile to not be quite as good if the patches had extended to the gamut boundary but it still looks quite good. The statistical data of the original patch set was excellent.

Attached is the RGBLAB CGATs file that now works in I1Profiler.

Updated:  New RGBLAB set with original and ONLY additional extrapolated, gamut edge values. There are 150 of them at the end of the data set.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2018, 01:45:18 pm by Doug Gray »
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RobWignell

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2018, 08:50:50 pm »

Doug, this will stretch my brain cells to take it all in.  The patch set I used was generated using Argyll - I could probably chase down the command set - but it was basically aimed at producing as many patches as I could fit on an A4 page after importing the data into ColorPort. (The targen generated ti1 file needs some internal scaling to get a 0-255 range needed by ColorPort before it can be imported).

I only have limited experience with making profiles with Argyll.  My gamut volumes have been disappointing compared to reported results from others on this forum but I have been very pleased with the neutrality of the profiles.

I am guessing that if I use one of the ColorPort default patch sets it should produce a CGATS/XRGA file that works seamlessly with i1Profiler.  Then, having imported the ColorPort patch set into i1Profiler I could print and measure this patch set with my i1Pro2 to get a comparison between the i1Pro2 and the much easier to use DTP70.

I am sure that your comments will generate lots more questions but, for the moment, I will work with the file you have sent back.

Thanks for all your work.
Rob



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Doug Gray

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2018, 11:28:55 pm »

Doug, this will stretch my brain cells to take it all in.  The patch set I used was generated using Argyll - I could probably chase down the command set - but it was basically aimed at producing as many patches as I could fit on an A4 page after importing the data into ColorPort. (The targen generated ti1 file needs some internal scaling to get a 0-255 range needed by ColorPort before it can be imported).

I only have limited experience with making profiles with Argyll.  My gamut volumes have been disappointing compared to reported results from others on this forum but I have been very pleased with the neutrality of the profiles.

I am guessing that if I use one of the ColorPort default patch sets it should produce a CGATS/XRGA file that works seamlessly with i1Profiler.  Then, having imported the ColorPort patch set into i1Profiler I could print and measure this patch set with my i1Pro2 to get a comparison between the i1Pro2 and the much easier to use DTP70.

I am sure that your comments will generate lots more questions but, for the moment, I will work with the file you have sent back.

Thanks for all your work.
Rob

Rob, that explains it. I believe targen defaults to creating rgb values from 0 to 100 and would need to be scaled by multiplying by 2.55. The defaults generate a reasonable number of gamut edge values but the only ones I saw in your CGATs file were 0,0,0 and 255,255,255.  It kind of looks like an optimized patch set created from the -c option as the colors were remarkably smoothly spaced but could be some other option since Argyll has a large option set. Not a problem for them since Argyll's colprof does not assume rgb values go to the gamut edge while I1Profiler does. Most default, or generated in the case of I1Profiler, RGB patches go to the gamut edge.

The patch values and scanned colors in your file are just fine and, with the added, extrapolated edge patches, should produce excellent results even though extrapolated since colors at the gamut boundary have more errors anyway because of the ICC LUT design.
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RobWignell

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Re: How to use DTP70 output with i1Profiler
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2018, 07:52:18 am »

Doug.  I have dragged and dropped the file you edited into i1Profiler and, in less than a minute, I had a profile.  So, I have achieved my first goal.

I checked the profile for gamut volume using Argyll's gamut command but, for the first time on an X-Rite Version 2 profile, I got an error message:
192-168-1-106:argyll rob$  iccgamut -v2  lula1_rgblab_cgats.txt
iccgamut: Error - 1, icmHeader_read: wrong magic number 0x20582d52

I also went back through my notes and found the original targen command to create this 1196 patch neutral target.  The number 1196 fell out when I found I could fit this many patches sized 9mm x 7mm on two sheets of A4.  I have since read that patches of 10mm square or more give better accuracy with the DTP70.  Not sure of best patch size for i1ProV2 yet.  As you can see I was also playing around with using a small input file (400a.icc).  I am not using an input file in my current experiments.

192-168-1-106:argyll rob$ targen -v2 -d2 -G -e8 -B8 -g64 -f1196 -q -A1.0  -c400a.icc -N1.0 -U -v -w -W 1196Neutral
iRGB test chart
White patches = 8
Black patches = 8
Compostie Grey steps = 64
Full spread patches = 1196

Added 1196/1196
Total number of patches = 1196
Execution time = 0.021062 seconds

The big picture is that I bought an Epson 7880 last year from a deceased estate.  It was half way through its second set of inks but hadn't been used for years.  I replaced the dampers  and used very warm water in a syringe to pump 15" of solidified Magenta ink out of the line that'd otherwise refused to budge.  It took me a couple of months to get the printer in good working order and this was worthwhile as it had printed less than 100metres of paper.  Once it was cleaned, I bought some cheap InkTec ink from a source in Germany to further test whether this printer was worth using (I didn't want to buy a full set of Epson inks when I wasn't yet sure that the printer was OK.  I believe that InkTec ink is made in Taiwan.  It had a tendency to pool on dark patches on glossy paper unless I reduced the colour density setting by 5%.

Since February I have been working my way through creating profiles, reading about colour management and stepping into the complexities of ArgyllCMS (I have only scratched the surface but can generate targets, convert them for import into ColorPort, read them using the DTP70 and then use colprof, profcheck and iccgamut to explore my results). 

I started profiling a few years ago using a DataColor Print 4 setup.  I was never happy with it because it was sticky to use and produced muddy shadows.  I used this initially on an Epson R800, but subsequently acquired an Epson 3880 which is still my main printer.  I also experimented with a ColorMunki from my Camera Club and although I liked the colormunki workflow I didn't get noticeably better results.

I bought the DTP70 when I read on the InjetMall site that they use one to create profiles and just drag and drop the results into i1Pro.  By chance I was able to buy one for a few hundred dollars and it seems to work well.   Purchasing the i1Photo Pro V2 was opportunistic when I saw one for sale on eBay at less than half price.  It turned out to be a good purchase as it had never been used. 

It looks like I will need to generate patch sets in ColorPort if I want to use them in i1Profiler without making the workflow too complex.

I started to run low on the InkTec ink last month.  With it, my best profiles were producing gamut volumes on Ilford Prestige papers in the 670K region.  This seemed low and was about 100K units less than profiles produced on my Epson 3880 with Epson ink and identical workflow.  After a lot of indecision, I bought a set of Jon Cone K3 inks and have recently loaded these into the 7880.  My initial test have been disappointing on the gamut volume front so I was hoping that the ColorPort/DTP70/i1Publish workflow might give me better results.

Obviously, gamut volumes aren't prints and there is a world of effort getting images ready so they print the best that they can.

I am going on holidays for a week from this coming weekend so I probably won't have time to do more testing until I get back.

Thank you so much for getting me on my way.

Rob

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