Re: maclife.de
Re: maclife.de
- Subject: Re: maclife.de
- From: Uli Zappe <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:54:40 +0200
Am 03.05.2008 um 03:13 schrieb Uli Zappe:
Am 22.04.2008 um 10:06 schrieb Uli Zappe:
Part 1: http://www.maclife.de/index.php?module=pdfarchive&func=download&pid=1800
Part 2: http://www.maclife.de/index.php?module=pdfarchive&func=download&pid=1862
Part 1 deals with hardware devices for display calibration &
profiling, part 2 with the corresponding software. Part 3 will be
published early May and deal with projector calibration & profiling
(plus review the ColorMunki as far as display calibration is
concerned).
Part 3 (well, actually part "2.5", as it is mostly an appendix to
parts 1 & 2) is now published:
http://www.maclife.de/index.php?module=pdfarchive&func=download&pid=1867
This is a relatively short part (6 pages) that shortly talks about
the newest developments of ColorEyes Display and iColor Display,
adds the infamous ;-)) review of the ColorMunki and deals with
projector calibration and profiling.
Part 3 (the "real" part 3 ;-) ) has now been published (again, German
only):
http://www.maclife.de/index.php?module=pdfarchive&func=download&pid=1998
This part deals with hardware and software for printer profiling. The
test turned out to be very expensive to produce meaningful results; I
ended up writing my own test program (besides making use of ColorLab)
and printing lots of test prints.
The test was performed with both an RGB inkjet and a CMYK laser
printer; each possible printer/spectrophotometer/software combination
was evaluated by 3 test runs measuring a specifically constructed
target with 900 color patches (which partly differed from the "usual
ones" to prevent a "home run" for any specific software using a
specific target to build its profile). Additionally, for each possible
printer/spectrophotometer/software combination 32 test images were
printed and evaluated visually according to 6 criteria (hue,
saturation, brightness, details in highlights/shadows, banding, other).
Visual evaluation is necessary for printer profiles as even the best
measurement procedures do not necessarily reveal the complete quality
of a profile (though I luckily managed to get a high correlation).
However, with visual evaluation, there's always the problem of
subjectivity. I hope to have alleviated this issue by performing such
a large number of discrete visual evaluation steps (32 x 6 = 192 per
printer/spectrophotometer/software combination) and averaging them.
Again, I cannot list all the details here, but let me at least list
the summary grades for profile quality (metrologically & visually,
CMYK & RGB) for all the tested software (averaging the results from
all possible hardware combinations). 6 = very good, 1 = unusable, best
= first.
CMYKick/dropRGB 5
basICColor print 5
iColorPrint 4.5
i1Match 4.5
ProfileMaker 4.5
PrintProfiler Pro 4.5
MonacoProfiler 4
ColorMunki 4
PrintProfiler 3.5
Spyder3Print 4.5 (RGB only)
SilverFast Profiler 4 (RGB only, only usable with SilverFast
scanning software, using a scanner as measurement device)
EZColor 3 (RGB only, using a scanner as measurement
device)
i1Match Easy 1
Some interesting tidbits:
- The i1 Pro turned out to be the best measurement device in precision
and handling.
- All tested measurement hardware (i1 Pro, ColorMunki, DTP20,
Datacolor 1005 (best = first)) as such was precise enough in
comparison with the printer color deviations to be 100% usable; if
anything, the DTP20 tended to produce a slightly greenish color cast.
- Quato's iColorPrint, which can use all tested hardware except for
the ColorMunki, produced the (visually) best results for our CMYK test
printer with the Datacolor 1005, though measuring an ECI2002 target
with the Datacolor 1005 was extremely tedious. Note, however, that the
targets were printed on neutral paper (ab=(0,0)), avoiding metamerism.
- The ColorMunki hardware is excellent (close to the i1 Pro), but the
software limitation of 100 color patches makes metrologically correct
CMYK profiles impossible. The ColorMunki software is an excellent
"bluffer", though, as the prints mostly "look" right, especially skin
tones. Details in highlights were lost, and in one case, ColorMunki
chose a color that was completely "off" (brown instead of green), but
mostly you could not see any big faults at first glance. But clearly,
the ColorMunki hardware could be so much more without the hefty
limitations of the software. Seems that X-Rite uses the software as a
"lock" to prevent the ColorMunki from eating into i1 Pro sales. (But
note that there's no ruler for the ColorMunki, so it needs these big
color patches, and more of them would probably mean using a lot of
paper and ink/toner.)
- In stark contrast to the ColorMunki, the "i1Match Easy" printer
modules that limit the number of color patches to 45 are a disaster;
the result is actually *worse* than using the respective printer
without any color correction whatsoever. IMHO it's inacceptable that X-
Rite actually sells these things and thereby basically forces their
customers to upgrade to the much more expensive full featured modules
after their initial purchase. This is no way to treat a customer.
- The MonacoProfiler is advertised to work with the i1 Pro, but
doesn't (at least on Leopard) because of a driver issue. X-Rite has
published a driver update that actually makes things *worse*. Hard to
understand for a software in this price range. One can only hope that
ProfileMaker and MonacoProfiler have long been abandoned inside of X-
Rite, and X-Rite is just working on the finishing touches of a Cocoa
successor that will blow us all away.
- Again, apart from ColorMunki, not a single software managed to stick
to Mac OS X GUI and file layout guidelines. (And even ColorMunki had
to "go black" instead of just using the Aqua look&feel.) What is it
with software vendors that they just cannot seem to produce a decent,
up-to-date Cocoa app with a usable GUI? It's not as if color
management apps had overly complex GUIs that are difficult to program.
Bye
Uli
________________________________________________________
Uli Zappe, Solmsstraße 5, D-65189 Wiesbaden, Germany
http://www.ritual.org
Fon: +49-700-ULIZAPPE
Fax: +49-700-ZAPPEFAX
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