Eye One Printer profiling

What do you get?

I've looked at several basic methods of printer profiling, including Photoshop curves to correct for printer 'errors' and the PrintFIX system from ColorVision.

The Eye One spectrophotometer is a very sophisticated instrument with which you can build very high quality printer profiles -- if you have the appropriate software.

The profiling I'm going to cover here can be found as part of the Eye One Photo package. For details of what you get in each package, there is more info on the GretagMacbeth web site.

Feb 06 -- The ruler design has been updated and the equipment now comes in a new carrying bag - we've got a short review covering the changes.

If you are completely new to colour management I'd suggest you might like to have a look over my Introduction to colour management article and Spyder 2 Pro review on this site before going too much further into this review. However, I have added links to articles and information on this site and others explaining some of the concepts mentioned here.

Profiling

The basic principle of making a printer profile is to print out a series of known colours and then measure what is printed. This allows you to create a profile, which in effect acts as a 'translation' document between the colours in your image and those that the printer can produce.

The more colours that you print and measure, the more accurate your results are likely to be. There is far more to it than that (as you'd expect) and with a suitable choice of colours, suitable software can produce profiles from fairly limited sets of colours (or patches as they are known)

I've covered generating profiles with the small patch set in the Eye One Design review, where I profiled my HP K80 all-in-one printer/fax/copier/scanner/tea maker. The printer is not supported on Macs and the profiles produced very reasonable prints (a bit dark, but much better than without a profile). I'll not go into quite so much detail on the profiling process here, so you might wish to give that review a look as well as this one.

Using the Eye One Match software, you select Printer profiling and then select the target you want to print.

	The 45 patch 'Easy RGB' target. This is what you get to use with the Eye One Design package
	The 918 patch TC9.18 target. This prints on two pages.
	The huge CMYK target (1485). This is not available in the Eye One Photo package (it just includes the 'Easy' version). This prints on four pages.

The examples below are using the 288 patch target. Since all my printer drivers are RGB ones (even if the inks are CMYK) I'll just cover RGB profiling here (there is some info on CMYK in the summary)

You can print the target from within the application or from another package (such as Photoshop). If you use another package, be sure to print without applying any colour management or printer profiles. Make a note of all the settings you use for later -- you will forget some if you don't!

After letting the print dry (this is important).

I placed the guide template over the print and followed the instructions on the screen.

The software prompts you to make measurements, and will complain if a strip is not scanned correctly, so you can do it again.

The plastic guide ensures that you scan a single row of the target at a time.

Each row should be scanned in 4-5 seconds. It is important that you start and end each scan on plain paper.

This example shows the 45 patch block.

This is all printed on a single page.

There are clear instructions on how to do the measurements.

There are even video clips that make it even easier...

Before long, I had a file containing the patch data, which I saved with a suitable meaningful name (do remember this, and also to write down paper, ink and printer details). The patch data file is a simple text file.

It really is easy, and only takes a few minutes to read a page. In case you were wondering, the colours are arranged the way they are so that the sensor can more accurately distinguish one patch from the next.

Next I loaded the data from this file into the application to create a profile. By having the measurements in files you can create the profiles at any time.

The profile is then constructed. Despite the food and drink and newspaper, it does not take long for a profile to be generated. If the data is not of good enough quality you will be alerted to the fact ... although this has never actually happened when I've been making profiles.

You now have a profile for your printer/paper/ink combination. As ever, save it with a meaningful name.

Results

It was quite tricky to show the results of profiling in the Eye One Design review, with photographs of prints, converted to sRGB and compressed for web use. I tried to take some photos for this review, but by the time they were processed, any differences would only just show up on my own (calibrated) monitor and how they would look on your monitor is anybody's guess... So, I'll give some subjective comments on what papers I tried, and what I thought of the results. As ever please feel free to drop me a line if you want some more details.

Glossy photo paper(unbranded) - HP K80

This is the same paper I tried in the Eye One Design review. The test prints showed better shadow and highlight details. The best match was obtained with a slight gamma adjustment using a Photoshop 'levels' adjustment to lighten the midpoint slightly. The greys were neutral and free of colour banding, much better than the cold greys of the unprofiled printer.

Plain copier paper - Epson 9600 ImagePrint RIP

OK, A4 sheets of copier paper are not what I usually feed through my 9600. I tried this just to see what would happen. The results were quite surprising in that I never thought you could get such intense colours on plain paper. Not terribly good from a photo printing perspective (colours rather dull) but showing just how much difference a profile makes. I also tried this with the 45 patch target, where the profile produced a much more 'sludge like' effect. There was a much more noticeable difference between the two packages with this setup.

Permajet Textured Art Silk - Epson 9600 ImagePrint RIP

I've been looking at this paper as a potential semi-gloss paper for colour printing when I've got matt black ink in my 9600. It's an interesting paper which I've looked at in another review. The UltraChrome pigment inks in the 9600 are well known for their 'Gloss differential' on glossy paper which means I can get much better (if shorter lived) prints using Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper in my dye based 1290 than the 9600 (even with photo black ink).

One of the problems in taking an unknown paper and printing the test patches, is what paper settings to use in your printer driver or RIP. I tried a number of different settings (Keith's table of ImagePrint media settings for different paper thicknesses), created profiles and then did some test prints. All the test prints looked good, but on comparison you could see slight differences in shadow detail and gamut range. Now it happens that I'm currently doing a review of several Permajet products and the nice people at ColorByte Software (makers of the ImagePrint RIP that I use) have produced profiles using considerably more expensive (and complex) profiling kit than I have. So how did my Eye One Photo profiles stack up?

Note [2008] - some time after this original article I wrote an article specifically about the importance of media settings. If you take care with this, it can significantly improve your results.

I decided to print some pictures from some recent commercial work. I used some photos from a recent interior shoot, including this one of a new 'show flat'.

As I suspected, the deep reds and browns looked better when printed using the ColorByte profile. There was nothing much wrong with my own profile -- until you put the two prints next to each other, when my version just lacked as much impact. Blacks were less rich and there was very slight posterisation visible in the sofa cushions. I'm not sure whether a slight tweak of the Eye One profile would not have corrected this, but the profile editing capabilities of the software from GMB was not available at the time of writing this review ( added Dec 05 - profile editing review)

That all seemed fairly clear until I printed an image of a dark coloured racing car, taken at twilight with flash. Lots of dark blues and deep shadows. Suddenly the Eye One profile print looked slightly better -- I checked the original file. The ColorByte profile had produced a print that looked just like the image on my monitor, the profile I'd made was opening up the shadows a bit more. This was one of those times where a 'worse' print looked better :-) Now it happens that this is one of the reasons for getting soft proofing set up and working well, but I'm not going into that here...

There is also the matter of which targets you print out to make your profile. I initially used the 1 page 288 patch target which is good for printers that give good neutral greys 'out of the box'. The 918 patch targets gave profiles that ranged from pretty much the same to noticeably better -- you will just have to try it and see what works best -- but the 2 page targets only take a few more minutes to print and measure.

• So, how good are the profiles I made? - good.
• Are they good enough for my own fine art prints? - not really
• Are they good enough for small (A4/A3) prints and proofs for commercial clients, where I don't have a ColorByte profile for my 9600? - probably ;-)
• Are they good enough for your printer? - depends on how good your current set up is :-)

I should add that printing via the ImagePrint RIP does limit the profiling somewhat and that in a subsequent test using the Epson driver and the 9600, the quality of the results were slightly better for this paper. I mainly use the RIP for its black and white performance, and page layout capabilities.

Note [2008] I've printed many more images on many different printers since writing this, and have produced some excellent profiles from the 918 patch target. It's actually what a lot of remote profiling services use. I also didn't cover the choice of optimal media settings at the time - this makes a big difference. I've also learned a -lot- more about printing and colour management in the last 3 years!

June 2012 - X-Rite are shipping updated i1Pro 2 with i1Profiler 1.3
Reviews: i1Pro 2 Basic - i1Pro 2 Photo

April 2010 X-Rite ship V1.0 of i1 Profiler - Full i1 Profiler reviews and information

May 2010 X-Rite annouce new profiling software for Q4 2010 - i1 Match and ProfileMaker Pro will be superseded by i1Profiler later in 2010. We have some notes and press info in the X-rite information section of the Northlight blog. For purchases after April 1st 2010 here will be free upgrades, along with other offers when the software is available.

Sept. 2008 X-Rite and the i1 range

From Sept. the range is simplified to two options. The functionality is the same as we have reviewed, but exactly what you get varies. As a result of this rationalisation, the i1Photo, i1Photo SG, i1Proof and i1XT have all been discontinued, and the i1 range now consists of:

The i1Basic - i1Pro measuring device with monitor profiling software
The new i1XTreme - professional monitor, RGB and CMYK printer, camera, scanner and projector profiling, plus profile editing

With the i1XTreme you can calibrate and profile:

Monitors - LCD, CRT and laptops
RGB output devices
CMYK output devices
Scanners
Digital projectors
Digital cameras*

CMYK

There are a range of target patch sets available for profiling CMYK printer (most inkjets are RGB devices, even if they do have CMYK inks)

Only the 'Easy' version is available in Eye One Photo package. See the options at GretagMacbeth for details.

You are more likely to use this option if you are making full CMYK profiles for RIPs. or profiling true CMYK devices like some solid ink printers.

If you actually need CMYK profiles then you will be aware of it :-)

Summary

The profiles generated by this package will probably give better results than many profiles that are supplied by manufacturers with printers for their own papers.

They will almost certainly give better results if you are using third party inks and or papers.

The profiles you generate are slightly limited in that you cannot specify details concerning rendering intents or adjust them for different illumination of the prints (ColorByte supplied 5 versions of the profile for a particular Permajet paper for different lighting conditions, with their ImagePrint RIP)

This may or may not be a problem for you...

For most inkjet printers the larger 918 patch target will give better results.

It's good for quickly testing different papers, inks and printers and getting a good idea of what they can do.

An excellent device for a camera club to get together and buy as a club resource -- no more excuses for really bad colour prints.

March 2006 -- GMB have updated the Eye-One Match software with some extra functionality - more details

Overall

It's very easy to use and gives good profiles.

Note - I've seen companies advertising on the web, offering profiles made using the Eye One Photo. My own opinion is that if you want someone to make you a profile, you would do far better to spend your money with a company that uses professional grade profile making software and knows how to use it.
The Eye One spectrophotometer is a top quality bit of equipment, but to consistently make -really- good profiles you need both the advanced software and the skills/understanding to use it. If you see someone selling targets made with the 45 patch 'easyRGB' target, then the alarm bells should ring. The 45 patch target is quite good for what it does, but I just wouldn't have the nerve to try and sell such profiles - others are not so scrupulous ...

A personal view... There are objective means of evaluating profile accuracies and colour gamuts, however I've looked at this product primarily as a photographer, not a colour management guru :-) If the precise numbers are meaningful to you then I would suggest that you already know far more about the subject and are unlikely to be using a profile generating setup this 'simple'. There comes a point for myself where I think, what does it actually look like ... is it a good print? Am I happy with it? Does it convey the feeling I want? This depends on the subject, the client's requirements and the purpose of the picture, maybe even how many cups of tea I've had... :-) It can be very difficult to compare a good profile with a very good profile - the differences may only appear in a few particular images. You could end up doing a lot of prints to get it 'right' I'd also suggest that if you are a perfectionist by nature (I'm not :-), then building profiles could easily become a lengthy (and expensive) process. Do realise the limits of the equipment and software you are using, and always consider getting professional profiles made. Remember, it's the final image that counts... Sometimes you just have to stop and say "This will do, it's good enough for what I want". Maybe you don't share that viewpoint but when it comes down to it, I know that a person who pores over one of my prints with a magnifying glass is probably not going to buy one ;-) Keith

More Info

An Introduction to colour management article by Keith and collection of CM info.
The Viewing page - basic monitor set-up
Colour management links on this site
Colour Management Check-up kit review
Eye One scanner profiling - review
Using the Eye One with a scan target to get better results form your film or flatbed scanner.
The PrintFIX - review
The Spyder2 Pro - review
The Eye one Display 2 - review
Review of the printer profile editor in Eye One Match.
The Eye-One iO automated scanning table - review
An automated solution to improving the quality and accuracy of target measurement for printer profiles when using the Eye One spectrophotometer.
The Eye One iSis automated chart reader - review
An automated whole chart reader for printer profiling test charts. A3 and A4 versions provide spectrophotometer readings for both UV and UV-Cut (filtered) measurements.
Black and white printing with MonoChromePro inks and QuadToneRIP
A review of a specialist B/W printing ink set. The Eye One is used to linearise curves for the shareware QuadToneRIP package.
Review of the Camera Profiling option in the Eye One Photo SG package.
Black and White printer test image - A downloadable image put together as a tough test for any B/W printing set-up.
PrintFIX Pro
An all new version of the printfix that comes with a spectrocolorimeter for patch reading.
PrintFIX PLUS
The software only version of PrintFIX PRO that allows you to create icc profiles without your own patch reader.

You can search all the hundreds of articles on the site for more information

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