i1Pro spot measurement

[yannb]

Hello,

I have sent this question to X-Rite: "Hello. We are a dealer of X-Rite products, and I was wondering how this can be done with the current line-up of i1 solutions: do two spot measurements with an i1 Pro, display L*a*b* or LCH values, and calculate delta E between them. This could be done with Eye One Share or Measuretool very easily, but how do you do it with either i1Profiler or Pantone Color Manager?"

Can't wait to get their response 

Regards,
Yann

[Mark D Segal]

Please let us know if you hear back from them and what they say. There have been a number of messages posted on these boards lately indicating that X-Rite is largely unresponsive. I'm interested because I need to update my profiling environment and I want to be satisfied that what I buy is (a) appropriate and (b) properly supported.

[yannb]

Please let us know if you hear back from them and what they say. There have been a number of messages posted on these boards lately indicating that X-Rite is largely unresponsive. I'm interested because I need to update my profiling environment and I want to be satisfied that what I buy is (a) appropriate and (b) properly supported.

No problem.

Regards,
Yann

[Scott Martin]

This was a question of mine during pre-release testing. They responded that while this feature wasn't a priority for 1.0 it's a likely candidate for a future version update. More complete ambient light measurements would be nice too. Both spot and ambient measurement would require a lot less development than, say, scanner profiling or profile editing which we're much less likely to see as soon.

In the meantime consider using ColorPort (or MeasureTool) for simple measurement and number readout. No delta E calculation though (in CP).

[Mark D Segal]

This was a question of mine during pre-release testing. They responded that while this feature wasn't a priority for 1.0 it's a likely candidate for a future version update. More complete ambient light measurements would be nice too. Both spot and ambient measurement would require a lot less development than, say, scanner profiling or profile editing which we're much less likely to see as soon.

In the meantime consider using ColorPort (or MeasureTool) for simple measurement and number readout. No delta E calculation though (in CP).

Uhuh, they come out with a shiny new application that make basic measurements, so you need to resort to one of these other pieces of software to do that, but then you get there and you find it that it can measure, but it can't calculate. And on it goes, as one deficiency in the toolset after the next turns up in what XRite is producing. One wonders why this company can't get its act together and produce one stellar, fully featured, up-to-date application that really caters to the broadest set of user requirements, which surely by now they must know something about if their heads aren't completely in the sand.

[Scott Martin]

I know Mark, you're speaking to the choir. :-] i1Profiler is a whole new platform written with a modern code base and new technologies like XRGA. It may not seem like much to us but there's some impressive stuff under the hood and it's a great platform upon which for them to grow. It's also a challenging economy and there's not a huge market for pro tools. The price of i1P is pretty low considering what PMP and MP were. But I don't want to be the XRite apologist! I hear you and have fingers crossed.

For now, those that are "pro" enough to make their way through all of this can make custom targets and measure them in CP and look at numbers there. They can also bring these into i1P for analysis.

I kinda feel the same way about Lightroom as I do about i1P. I want to be able to combine HDR frames and panoramic without Photoshop. I'd like more extensive retouching. Click and drag spot tool functionality. Seems like we've been waiting forever for these things! But in both cases (Adobe's and XRites) they've had a paradigm shift and have had to do a lot of "hard work" developing new platforms upon which they can develop new tools (even if they look like old tools) and it's hard to wait for all goodies to arrive.

[Mark D Segal]

Scott, based on what I know is happening elsewhere in the world of digital imaging software facing the same under-the-hood redevelopment issues, I am thoroughly unconvinced and unsympathetic. X-Rite needs serious competition. It would change a whole lot that's wrong with them. Unfortunately they've jut about monopolized this market, and that's probably happened because barriers to entry and sustainability are high relative to the size of the market.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Maybe X-Rite should hire Graeme Gill who created ArgyllCMS to do this for them.  You can do this (though not easily since ArgyllCMS is a command line set of tools) with his tool set.

[Mark D Segal]

Probably good for the imaging community, but not sure what you are wishing on Graeme :-)

[rdmyers]

Until, or unless, X-Rite releases a replacement for MeasureTool, you might check out SpectraShop 4 (http://rmimaging.com/spectrashop.html). It can take measurements from the i1Pro or Spectrolino and generate differences for either a list of measurements against a single reference or it can calculate the differences between two sets of measurements.

[Rhossydd]

Maybe X-Rite should hire Graeme Gill who created ArgyllCMS to do this for them.  You can do this (though not easily since ArgyllCMS is a command line set of tools) with his tool set.

The last thing X-Rite need is a CLI author.

The real problem is not the under lying code, but it's interface, feature set and reliability.

I'd guess that the number of beta(&alpha) testers has been too small, too knowledgeable and disproportionately Mac centric.

[Mark D Segal]

The real problem is not the under lying code, but it's interface, feature set and reliability.
 

When you look at the whole range of issues  - version and feature packaging confusion, arbitrary termination of highly satisfactory products,  quality issues with some of their hardware and software, upgrade confusion, ludicrous legal restrictions on use of the software, widely reported service deficiencies, etc., the conclusion I've come to is that the real problem is a mixture of greed and managerial incompetence. I am faced with growing risk to the convenient usability of my current colour management gear, good as it is, so unfortunately, I do need to consider current XRite offerings, but I'm also actively exploring non-XRite solutions to my colour management needs, because much of what I'm reading from respectable people on serious forums gives me very little confidence in sustained reliance on this company. Nobody should be expecting perfection, but when you invest thousands in time and money in a software and hardware set-up, you are also investing in a relationship with the providers for adequate quality and support to that the investment on a medium to long term basis; this shouldn't be forgotten. I don't see evidence of any "vision" in XRite recognizing this reality.

[Scott Martin]

The real problem is not the under lying code, but it's interface, feature set and reliability.

The underlying math is certainly not a problem - it's stuff that's worth celebrating. Go ahead and say what you will about the interface, feature set, etc, but let's keep the under-the-hood tech in perspective.

I'd guess that the number of beta(&alpha) testers has been too small, too knowledgeable and disproportionately Mac centric.

Or perhaps the amble number of Windows testers weren't good about providing feedback. Perhaps the company was looking for bug reports, not feature suggestions. Perhaps the testers wanted to be more involved in creating a kick-ass product. Perhaps a lot of the work put in will show in a future release.

Now that we've gotten the "lead out" as far as frustration goes, I wonder how we can keep this conversation constructive.

[rasworth]

One way to keep these threads constructive is for XRite to invest some employee time, have key engineers participate in the forum.  The Adobe ACR forum is very fruitful in this regard, not only provides answers from the experts but also gives assurance to the users that the company is listening and involved.

Richard Southworth

[Mark D Segal]

One way to keep these threads constructive is for XRite to invest some employee time, have key engineers participate in the forum.  The Adobe ACR forum is very fruitful in this regard, not only provides answers from the experts but also gives assurance to the users that the company is listening and involved.

Richard Southworth

I agree.

Furthermore, one needs to be mindful about the meaning of the word "constructive". It is often used to deflect and denigrate the legitimate role of diagnosis and criticism. Problems get solved by diagnosis and delineation of underlying causes. Seen in this light it is a totally constructive process in respect of its ultimate objective, which is to push for improvement - not only of what goes on under-the-hood - which may well be less of an issue, but at least as important, all that needs to happen "over-the-hood".

[Alan Goldhammer]

Two issues  for printer calibration come up here:  hardware and software.  On the hardware side there are only two solutions that I can find (would love to be proved wrong) - X-Rite and Spyder.  Spyder only offer a colorimeter, X-Rite, two spectrometers (though one, ColorMunki, is an entry level instrument).  Things are a little better on the hardware side for monitor calibration with several other vendors (though the price varies considerably and one ideally would like to have one instrument to do both tasks).  On the software side things are a little better with a number of solutions (and it's easier to compete with software compared to hardware).  For software a lot of the price is for convenience since ArgyllCMS is available for free (and there is a GUI for monitory calibration to ease things but not one for printer calibration).  According to Ethan's work there is a considerable degree of variation on the hardware side.  I find this most disturbing since we rely on quality control/assurance at the manufacturing stage to insure that those of us who use this equipment can be confident in results.  My background is in the pharmaceutical industry and I can tell you that the variation seen by Ethan would not be tolerated by either the company or the regulatory authorities since it would put patients at risk of sub-standard product.  Until there are other hardware vendors who take pride in manufacturing quality instrumentation I don't see much hope here.

[yannb]

Two issues  for printer calibration come up here:  hardware and software.  On the hardware side there are only two solutions that I can find (would love to be proved wrong) - X-Rite and Spyder. 

For printer calibration and profiling the instruments from Barbieri Electronic are another option, though expensive. Check out http://www.barbieri-electronic.com/

Regards,
Yann

[digitaldog]

The real problem is not the under lying code, but it's interface, feature set and reliability.

Agreed! The color science is sound. The UI design etc needs a bit of work.

Also agree that SpectraShop 4 is worth a look although it too needs a bit of UI work. The good news is the author is quite receptive of comments and is generally interested in supporting his users.

[Alan Goldhammer]

For printer calibration and profiling the instruments from Barbieri Electronic are another option, though expensive. Check out http://www.barbieri-electronic.com/

Regards,
Yann

Yes, $4500 is a little too rich for me!  :-)

[Rhossydd]

Or perhaps the amble number of Windows testers weren't good about providing feedback.

Potentially unfair.
Testing multi platform software is never going to be an easy task.
Macs present less of a challenge as there are far less hardware variables that might give problems, especially if as X-Rite have done they’ve limited the specifications to just two very recent variants of the operating system (10.5.8 august 2009 & 10.6).
PCs on the other hand have massively more variables and X-Rite are supporting it on three different versions of Windows, XP going back nearly ten years now, each of which can be either 32 or 64 bit. A massively bigger potential customer base.
Given that, the Windows versions really ought to be far more widely tested than the Mac versions.

Then comes a particular difficulty for X-Rite, most of the people who have really long standing, in-depth knowledge of colour management are the veterans of the very early days of digital imaging when Macs were really the only choice and they have stuck with Apple over the years. So we end up with all the influential, trusted ‘experts’ (who are likely to be the people most wanted for feedback and testing) mainly running Macs. Every review I’ve seen so far by those given early review copies has been on a Mac.
So I’d hazard a guess that testing wasn’t sufficiently widespread on PCs. Unfortunately for X-Rite the world has now moved on and probably the majority of potential purchasers are running Windows.

Obviously only a few people in X-Rite know how the testing was carried out and whether there was enough variety in testers to really drill down and sort out the major bugs. It goes without saying they’ll never admit they didn’t get that testing phase right.
It’s doesn’t bode well that even with the tiny number of users here so far (have a dozen purchasers commented here yet ?), two us have been unable to measure some Epson x800 output despite this being a very, very popular series of printers.(OK I got the fix for that last week, but why wasn't it spotted and sorted before release ?)

Perhaps the company was looking for bug reports, not feature suggestions.

Back at alpha stage feature omissions ought to have been sought and evaluated. X-Rite will admit that the gamut graphing module isn’t much use until it can handle comparisons, was this never mentioned ? and if it was, why wasn’t it implemented ? They have the code to do it available from PMP.
Surely testers like Andrew and Jeff must have complained about the lack of batch processing ?
I’ll bet they did, I’d also guess they’re tied with on-going NDAs that forbid commenting on the testing process too. That just leaves us real purchasers free to comment on what we’re experiencing. Then there’s the EULA mess…..

Perhaps a lot of the work put in will show in a future release.

Profiler 1 could/should be great, but there are just too many silly little errors, (along with dirty great big ones too) and the more obvious omissions right now to even consider it good.
It’s not impossible to get version 1 software right, look at Lightroom or Gamutvision for software that worked well from day 1.

Paul