Re: maclife.de
Re: maclife.de
- Subject: Re: maclife.de
- From: Roger Breton <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:19:53 -0400
Vielen danke for this most interesting account. I admire your tenacity.
So, 900 color patches, both CMYK and RGB.
What made you decide to use a color laser printer for the CMYK part? Knowing
the proverbial instability of this class of output device. Convenience?
Speed?
When you say you wrote your own test program, which software did you use for
that?
You don't say what version of basICColor print was used to make the test?
MfG,
Roger Breton
> 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
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