iMatch vs iProfiler

[bwana]

I have a gretag mcBeth spectro before xrite bought them and it works well with Imatch (the software it came with) as well as iProfiler (iPublish) from xRite. Although I have been using it to my screen calibrated I am now going to try making some printer profiles. Unfortunately only iMatch will allow me to do this. IProfiler has the word 'demo' over all the functions and only allows me to profile my monitor. Has anyone any experience with iMatch to say whether its profiles are good or will an upgrade be necessary to get an iProfiler license?

BTW, I tried to use argyllCMS but it does not recognize the spectro. Even after adding the optional drivers, the displayCal UI does not show the iPro.

[howardm]

you might want to check and see if you can get either of the pieces of software to do the actual measuring and save it as a CGATS file.

Then you could use Argyll or perhaps DropRGB

[Doug Gray]

I have a gretag mcBeth spectro before xrite bought them and it works well with Imatch (the software it came with) as well as iProfiler (iPublish) from xRite. Although I have been using it to my screen calibrated I am now going to try making some printer profiles. Unfortunately only iMatch will allow me to do this. IProfiler has the word 'demo' over all the functions and only allows me to profile my monitor. Has anyone any experience with iMatch to say whether its profiles are good or will an upgrade be necessary to get an iProfiler license?

BTW, I tried to use argyllCMS but it does not recognize the spectro. Even after adding the optional drivers, the displayCal UI does not show the iPro.

I originally had an I1Pro with iMatch and when I upgraded to iPublish they supplied a dongle for Profile Maker 5. It works fine on I1Profiler as well. But even without a license you can still use I1Profiler to print and scan charts. Output the files as CGATs and use Argyll to make printer profiles.

[digitaldog]

I originally had an I1Pro with iMatch and when I upgraded to iPublish they supplied a dongle for Profile Maker 5. It works fine on I1Profiler as well.

It will if both are licensed in the dongle. Like you, I have one dongle for both but that's because of two licenses in the one dongle. Which with the next major Mac OS will cease to work unless there's a 64-bit upgrade.
Not holding my breath for that. 

[Rhossydd]

Has anyone any experience with iMatch to say whether its profiles are good or will an upgrade be necessary to get an iProfiler license?

iMatch delivers good profiles.
The differences between those made by both of them would be unlikely to be visible on most prints, except by the most critical of viewers. In isolation I doubt anyone would would be able to say which was made by which.

Profiler (or PMP) becomes important when you want to use autospectrophotometers and build profiles on a commercial scale.
The other advantage is being able to use custom sample sets to target any specific colour ranges* and refine some profiling aspects eg monochrome, but those uses really are the absolute finnesses of profiling.

iMatch really does a very good job for the majority of cases without having to spend silly money or learn arcane command line instructions. You don't always need to have the latest and most expensive kit or software to deliver good photos.


*I think if you trawl the web you may even find some hacks to allow iMatch to use different target sets. I'm not convinced it's really worth the effort though.

[Alan Goldhammer]

BTW, I tried to use argyllCMS but it does not recognize the spectro. Even after adding the optional drivers, the displayCal UI does not show the iPro.

You might want to double check that both the Argyll and native driver are not co-installed.  Configuration is a bit tricky and you need to carefully read the installation instructions on the Argyll site to insure the driver is selected otherwise it won't be detected.  I believe your spectro is supported.

[FabienP]

BTW, I tried to use argyllCMS but it does not recognize the spectro. Even after adding the optional drivers, the displayCal UI does not show the iPro.

The advantage of using ArgyllCMS over iMatch is the ability to use custom charts for printers with many patches of greys, thus ensuring better profile neutrality. This helps a lot for BW prints done outside of the advanced BW modes available on most printers. I'm not sure if the same can apply to display measurements, but you get some more flexibility in the definition of the colour patch set.

The i1Pro is supported by ArgyllCMS but the provided drivers aren't optional, you have to install those. You don't say if you are working on a Mac or a PC. If you are on a PC, make sure to disable driver signature enforcement, otherwise the required drivers provided by ArgyllCMS will not load. Doing this is becoming increasingly difficult with recent Windows 10 installations (starting with Ver. 1607), you might have to disable secure boot in your UEFI BIOS to make it work. This particular aspect is not mentioned in the ArgyllCMS installation instructions as it is a recently added restriction by the OS.

Cheers,

Fabien