i1 Publish/Profiler Insights and Questions

[Kirk at ManageColor]

I like the program and I think the results are better that what I was able to get with Monaco Profiler or Profile Maker.

I haven't read a report from anyone with an i1 iO or ISIS- I suppose if you had one of those specific devices you could be in really good shape.

I have an i1 Pro and a DTP 70. For serious profiling the i1 Pro is painful and prone to errors (and from what I have read, particularly with the new package.) For anyone with good legacy equipment, like my DTP 70, Xrite has left us with a cludgy mess of a profiling workflow. Here are some things that have worked for me:

1. I have had good success working with Colorport 2.01 in conjunction with i1 Profiler/Publish as opposed to Profile Maker's Measure Tool. I define a patch set in i1 and save it and then I am able to open it (the .txt file) in Colorport under target-"new". It builds the target(s) for the measuring device I specifiy (.tif).
2. Once printed I can measure in Colorport and if I can save as CGATS, XRGA- and specify a spectral range of 380 to 730 nm or 400 to 700 nm (i1 pro UV cut filter devices have difficulty with spectral data between 380-400 nm so you might not want to include that.)
3. Colorport saves this file as a txt file- you can load this directly into the measure tab of i1 profiler. One important thing I want to mention- in i1 profiler you can go directly from definging patches to measuring- skip right over targets. You do not have to try and set up a target in i1 profiler like the one you use in Measure Tool or ColorPort. The data rows in the patches file are sequential- the data rows in the measure file are sequential- no need to worry about having a target representation in i1 profiler.
4. Question- Colorport's save says that I am exporting xrga - CGATS measured data. i1 Profiler does not recognize it as xrga- if you look at the txt header info the two lines that would specify it as xrga data are missing- Does anyone know if it is or isn't xrga- I can add the header lines and get i1 profiler to accept it as xrga but...?

[Rhossydd]

If you're insistent on using the DTP 70, or any other unsupported instrument, yes workflow is likely to be somewhat tortuous.

For serious profiling the i1 Pro is painful and prone to errors (and from what I have read, particularly with the new package.

It's up to you if you think the DTP70 is significantly better than the i1Pro, but there is a fix for the problems some people have had with the i1Pro having difficulties reading charts in i! Pofiler. Just contact X-Rite for the information and file needed.

[Kirk at ManageColor]

Many think the DTP 70 is still the best instrument around; what's more it is an auto scan spectro. I can measure a 2500 patch target set twice in the time it takes to measure 1000 patches with the i1 pro.

I personally believe that manual scanning with the i1 pro introduces measurement anomalies- I sometimes find craters and troughs when viewing the profiles I build with the i1pro. Given the stability of automated measurement with an instrument like the dtp 70 and the redundancy of multiple measurement sets, I have a much higher degree of confidence with the DTP 70 (and it is borne out by the full and smooth profiles I view with profiles made with dtp data.)

It would have been a beautiful thing if this instrument and some others were supported in the new sofware. For those of you working with the i1 pro- I have got to hand it to you, it certainly requires your presence of mind. The good news is- you can operate directly and fully out of the new package.

[shewhorn]

I'm sure some folks will laugh at this but here goes, when I need a profile fast (usually when I'm researching and testing papers) I'll use my Eye One Pro. Once I have an idea of what I want to do I use the Spectroscan table and Colorport to scan in charts. I haven't had any issues myself with the i1P and i1Profiler although I usually set the patch size to at least 10mm which I believe gives the system a little more leeway in determining where the edges of each patch are thus resulting in a more reliable scan. I think someone did some tests to that effect a few weeks ago and found that increasing the patch size resulted in a lower ∆E error.

The Spectroscan can certainly be a bit tedious but it sure does produce some nice results.

Cheers, Joe

[Doyle Yoder]

If you're insistent on using the DTP 70, or any other unsupported instrument, yes workflow is likely to be somewhat tortuous.It's up to you if you think the DTP70 is significantly better than the i1Pro, but there is a fix for the problems some people have had with the i1Pro having difficulties reading charts in i! Pofiler. Just contact X-Rite for the information and file needed.

I just got off the phone with X-Rite and they know of no fix for this problem. If your going to post that "there is a fix for the problems some people have had with the i1Pro having difficulties reading charts in i! Pofiler" then provide specifics.

[Rhossydd]

That's a pretty uncalled for tone in that message Doyle.
I'm just trying to help the community here by telling you there IS a fix somewhere and you should demand it from X-Rite. Just because your local support office or rep doesn't know of the fix doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's not my job to fix this stuff, I'm just another annoyed customer fed up with having spent a lot of money on some software that doesn't work as it should and I can't use commercially because of the daft EULA.

provide specifics.

X-Rite support in the UK supplied me with a replacement dll file and instructions for editing the .ini for i1Profiler. I doubt they'd want me to start posting the dll around without their permission, as for editing the .ini go and have a look, you might work out what to edit by just looking, that might be enough by itself.

Just keep giving X-Rite feedback on the problems, if they don't know how many people are seeing them, or annoyed by them, they won't bother fixing them.