iMatch not allowing me to select file

[adamlogan]

I'm doing a side project in a school lab setting to profile three Epson wide format printers using an i1 Pro spectrometer. I have already profiled the monitors. Right now I am following along Eric Chan's excellent tutorials Using Large Profile Targets with Eye-One Match and Perceptual Gamut Mapping Options in Eye-One Match. I have already successfully reproduced these tutorials on my personal computer at home, but discovered the OSX Leopard's Colorsync interfering with non tagged test target image to print rendering my initial efforts useless.

With the workaround/tutorial featured on this site Solving Recent Profiling Issues With Apple Computers
Epson Printers and Photoshop I decided to try again. I printed and measured Bill Atkinson's rgb 1278 test targets. The problem is when I go to use iMatch to create the icc profiles it will not give me the opportunity to choose the measurement file containing the spectral values. In iMatch, you are supposed to change the "Choose Your Printer" to Other RGB which allows you to choose the spectral values file, and the "Choose Your Chart" is linked to a file which has been overwritten with Bill Atkinson's 1278 test target reference data. In case you are confused, the problem I am facing is the second portion of Eric Chan's tutorial Using Large Profile Targets with Eye-One Match Go to the bottom of the page, the second image from the bottom is the part I am struggling with.

 I specifically asked the administrator of the lab to uninstall the old version (can't recall version) of iMatch and install the latest version V 363 on one workstation, tried it, no difference. Tried rebooting too. All the macs in that lab are mac g5s I believe, using Leopard 10.5 but I imagine they shipped with Tiger.

I tried doing this with 5 different computers in the lab. I asked if I could borrow the i1 pro and take it home with me since iMatch1 will not even function without the spectrometer plugged in as a sort of dongle. The caretaker said no, it is against policy. It's frustrating being so close to outputting the final profiles. I saved the spectral values normally, and exported the measurements in LAB just in case. So theoretically I should be able to use other software to create the final profiles since I have the exported LAB values.

I did some research to see if there was another hopefully free and open source program that would allow me to create the profiles and apply different gamut mappings. So far I have found LittleCMS and argyllcms Unfortunately I am no whiz when it comes to shells or the command line. I saw that there was a gui frontend to LCMS called LProf and downloaded that, and ironically it requires that you build it from source!

I was able to get a virtual machine with the latest version of Fedora up and running on my personal computer with VirtualBox, I have virtual additions and sharing setup. Was kind of hoping that I'd be able to install both lcms and frontend easily via apt-get but no such luck.

This coming Monday I'm considering hauling my computer to the lab, just so I can make the profiles and possibly talking to the department chairperson about allowing me to borrow the i1pro. I'm really new to color management, so I thought I would ask and see if anyone could offer a solution.

[Ryan Grayley]

1. Which X-rite package did the school lab buy with their i1 Pro? It may be that their i1 Pro firmware does not include RGB printer profiling.

2. Otherwise could you provide a screen grab of the offending step in Match?

[Doug Fisher]

Ionaca is right.  I am guessing your i1 only has the Easy RGB module.  I had the same situation.  Once I upgraded to the full RGB module, that same problem you are having went away.  There was a coupon in my box for a $99 upgrade to the full RGB module.  Use it if you have it (mine was expired).  Be aware that many people find their i1 Pro has trouble reading the Atkinson 1728 targets because the patch size is too small.

Doug

[adamlogan]

Sorry for taking so long to respond, Finals week is here. The behavior of iMatch and the i1 Pro is very strange, I was able to select the file on my personal computer, and on a workstation at the lab several times. In both situations like after say 10 profiles had been made, it would just not allow me to select the spectral data file anymore. It reminds me of very much of trialware/freeware. There were no pop ups or anything of the sort, it just simply stopped. One of my teachers has a USB dongle that unlocks the advanced features, it's a big hassle to get him to borrow it to me but we can try it and see if that is the issue and double check that it is not just a software glitch. I think you two are probably right though, the i1 pro units are not able to do anything larger than the easy RGB test charts without a dongle, which is why I was excited about the Bill Atkinson test targets and Eric Chan's tutorial.

Thanks for the heads up about the patch sizes. So far I've been fine with matte paper, but I did have difficulty measuring the patches on Epson canvas paper. I had to be very precise about lining up the strips. I placed the holder 90 degrees clockwise and moved the spectrometer by leaning backwards with my body and keeping my arms taut. I had to read the measure the test target a second time because of some bad measurements.

Which test target would you recommend?