Re: maclife.de
Re: maclife.de
- Subject: Re: maclife.de
- From: Eldon <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:53:17 -0500
On 8/15/08, Uli Zappe <email@hidden> wrote:
> Am 11.08.2008 um 18:38 schrieb Eldon:
>
>> Thanks for posting this. If you do more scanner profile testing in
>> the future, I would like to see how this software compares as well:
>>
>> Argyll (open source command line)
>> http://www.argyllcms.com/
>
> I did not include this in package in my review as it's command line
> only, but I just performed the measurements, and results were on par
> with MonacoProfiler/EZColor at 3.5.
>
>> FujiFilm ColourKit
>> http://www.colorprofiling.com
>
> Is this package still alive? The time of the last software update
> seems to be 2003, which means "dead" by software standards. Still, I
> mailed them for a test license and never got a response.
>
>> inCamera (Photoshop plug-in)
>> http://www.pictocolor.com
>
> Since my test only deals with system-wide color management on Mac OS
> X, I cannot/will not test Photoshop plug-ins.
>
>> Perf-X
>> http://www.tglc.com
>
> This currently does not work on my Mac for whatever reason. I will
> review it once it is up and running.
>
>> Profile Mechanic - Scanner
>> http://www.dl-c.com
>
> Can't remember why I choose not to review this package. I'll try to
> get a test license.
I have evaluated some of these packages, although my procedures
weren't as rigorous as yours. I used Argyll's profcheck to calculate
the deltaE for all the profiles. Equipment included a Nikon film
scanner and an Epson flatbed. I came to the some of the same general
conclusions that you did about scanner gamma.
The inCamera plug-in from Pictocolor gave me a profile with the lowest
average and max deltaE of any of the packages I tried, but I was
disappointed in the smoothness of the profile, which was evident after
assigning it to a Granger rainbow and also in a number of real-world
images.
FujiFilm ColourKit was still giving out evaluation licenses when I
tried it a year or so ago, but it looks like they are no longer making
the software available for download. It gave decent results, although
it only accepts 8-bit files.
Overall, I was most pleased with the scanner profiles from Monaco
EZcolor and Argyll, with an edge to EZcolor. Both had a respectable
deltaE and were commendably smooth.
Profile Mechanic was okay for most real-world images, but I wasn't so
pleased with the film scanner profile it gave me. There were quite a
few oddities when applying the profiles to a Granger rainbow
(including a rather large hole, as I recall).
Incidentally, after searching the web and fooling around a bit, I
figured out how to convert a standard IT8 reference text file to the
.mrf format that EZcolor requires for flatbed scanning and printer
profiling. It turns out that .mrf files are just gzip archives. Here
are the steps I took:
1. Look in /Library/Application Support/Monaco/IT8 Targets for an .mrf
file. Add the .gz extension to the end of it, and double click on it
to unzip.
2. Open the resulting file by dragging it on top of the TextEdit icon
(or another text editor). Copy the headers (the first 8 lines before
"# NUMBER_OF_FIELDS). Open the IT8 reference file you want to covert
and paste the Monaco headers over the IT8 file's headers (everything
before NUMBER_OF_FIELDS). Save the changes to that file.
3. Gzip the modified IT8 file. I used a free program called Compress.
4. Rename the resulting file and add the .mrf extension to the end of
the filename.
5. Change the Type and Creator codes of the file to sMRF and LMAN,
respectively. A number of free utilities will do this. I used Quick
Change.
This reference file now should be visible to EZcolor for both flatbed
and printer profiling. For me, this was particularly important,
because the target and reference file supplied with the EZcolor
package was of poor quality and gave a green cast to everything.
After using a new Faust target, everything was fine.
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