I don't want my Spectrocam and Colourblind software anymore
I don't want my Spectrocam and Colourblind software anymore
- Subject: I don't want my Spectrocam and Colourblind software anymore
- From: Udo <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 21:44:15 +0100
Hello to you all on the forum.
As I said, I do not want to use this package anymore since I don't use it at
the moment.
Bought it just more than one year ago hoping to be able to get decent ICC
Profiles for my Epson Pro 5500 running Epson pigmented inks and printing on
Epson media.
I had to do a lot of research in order to find out why it did not work for
me. The guy's from Itec / Colorblind blamed the model from Spectrostar: My
Spectrocam did not have a UV cut-off filter and so the measuring were faulty
since the pigmented inks seems to be fluorescent and so the device is seeing
the colours differently as how we perceive them with our own eyes in both
tungsten and daylight viewing conditions.
Spectrostar in the Netherlands blamed the software engine, which is
according to them not able to build proper ICC Profiles for inks with a
small colour gamut like the pigmented inks from Epson.
So, this all did not help me very much, having spend around # 2000 for such
a package and still getting profiles worse than the standard Epson Profiles
supplied with the printer driver on CD.
The supplier in the UK (Typemaker) told me just to spend even more (around #
500) on a colour management training because I myself might be the weak link
in the system. In response I emailed my workflow and I did get no answer at
all!
Fantastic all this help after having spend so much money.
So what did I do? Asking everybody on this forum ( around a year ago) who
was able to build good profiles for those pigmented inks.
Anybody (who answered my question) who was able to do that used
Gretagmacbeth hard- and software, usually the Spectrolino / SpectroscanT
table and ProfileMaker Pro. My next step? Guess what, I bought this kit as
well.
Results? Just brilliant with any kind of ink / paper / printer combination.
I did some test in which I compared 3 packages: ColorblindMatchbox software,
Praxisoft Compass profiler software using a measuring chart of around 1000
patches and ProfileMaker pro using a small test chart just containing 288
patches. With all software packages I used the same measuring device:
Gretag Spectrolino and Spectroscan T measuring table.
I have to be honest: All packages were able to produce good prints if I
profiled an Epson 1290 with standard OEM Epson inks (dyebased) and all
result came very close to one another, but Gretag just matched the proper
calibrated monitor a little bit better (having the print in a viewing booth
as well)
Profiling the pigmented inks from Epson was an extremely different story:
The ICC profiles from Colorblind produced extremely bad prints, for me only
good for the bin. Praxisoft was really a lot better and I think good for
most of us. Not seeing the output produced with the Gretag Profiles one
would think it is really good with no olive green cast in daylight viewing
conditions. But honestly, to my opinion the Gretag profiles produced
results absolutely topnotch both in terms of matching the monitor as well as
producing beautiful contrasts and colour saturation.
So, not only in terms of matching for which I think this colour matching
software should be for, but I liked the results also the most.
I really would like to see which package can do better, maybe Monaco?
Conclusion is very simple: The more we pay to more we get (since Gretag is
the most expensive)
Got another conclusion as well: I now was able to use the Colorblind
software in combination with the Spectrolino and UV cut-off filter. The
results were still very bad.
At this moment I am able to build Profiles for the pigmented inks with the
GretagMacbeth ProfileMaker Pro and the profiles made without using the UV
cut-off filter are even better than using this UV cut-off filter on the
Specrolino. So I guess that Ralp Brantenaar from Spectrostar in the
Netherlands was right! It is the software (Colorblind) which is not able to
build proper profiles for pigmented inks and not the lack of a UV cut-off
filter as what Tec / Colorblind suggested (at least that is what Marc from
Itec later suggested, see one of his replies:
>
"Sir,
>
May name is Marc Aguilera and I will solve your problem.
>
Pigment inks which have UV inhibitors require a UV spectrophotometer in order
>
to read properly. If your Spectrocam does not support uv then you will have to
>
have the unit upgraded.
>
Non UV spectros will cause the colors to phosphoresce when reading, this gives
>
false readings, a metamerism nightmare."
End conclusion: a pity that GretagMacbeth ProfileMaker does not support the
Spectrocam, because than I could really see how well the Spectrocam would
perform in comparison with the Spectrolino.
Anyway, I am now not having big difficulties anymore with profiling any
combo with using the GretagMacbeth stuff. If anybody would like to use my
package Matchbox (good for profiling only dye-based inks) and or Spectrocam
measuring device (probably also good with other software packages with
profiling pigmented inks) please send me an email.
This mail was just to share my experience with all off you.
Greetings to all of you,
Regards,
Udo J. Machiels
United Kingdom
(had to become colour management specialist since I had to solve my problems
myself)
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