Digital BW, The Print

As I don't own the proper equipment, I've decided to seek out profiles 
for money.  So far I've run across Cathy Stratton and Eileen and 
Mark's Custom profiles.

I notice that they use rather different targets.  The one using the 
target with more squares claims that helps them get a more accurate 
read.  Any thoughts?

So, if any of you have used either of these (or another source), 
please comment on your experiences.

BTW, these both charge $40/profile.

Glenn Thureson

Hi Glenn

Before I got my EyeOne I used Cathy's Profiles for 4 custom profiles. 
She provides an excellent service. I'm based in the the UK and the 
price of $40 I thought was a bargain. As far as quality of profile is 
concerned all I can say is they worked. Who provides the best in 
quality I could not comment, but for $40 I would think any of the 
custom profiles would be a great deal better than generic.

Peter.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "glenn98059" 
<glennthureson@c...> wrote:
> As I don't own the proper equipment, I've decided to seek out 
profiles 

> for money.  So far I've run across Cathy Stratton and Eileen and 
> Mark's Custom profiles.
> 
> I notice that they use rather different targets.  The one using the 
> target with more squares claims that helps them get a more accurate 
> read.  Any thoughts?
> 
> So, if any of you have used either of these (or another source), 
> please comment on your experiences.
> 
> BTW, these both charge $40/profile.
> 
> Glenn Thureson

Hi

Just a word of caution on remote profiling services.

I was having a chat with a well known UK colour management expert the other day, about 
some of the printer/monitor profiling systems that I've been looking at recently (col and B/
W) when he pointed out several people who are offering remote profiling services based 
upon nothing more than using the Eye One Photo set up - one person was even charging 
for the 45 patch 'easyRGB' target profiles that you can make with Eye One Design... it does 
to check with anyone offering a remote profiling service to see just what equipment and 
software they are using. 

This isn't to point a finger at anyone mentioned in this thread so far, by the way.  The 
problem is that poor profiles may well lead a person to think that their printer is faulty and 
incapable of producing good results when it is just the need for profiling. Good 
monochrome performance in profiles needs very high quality profiling (for normal 
coloured inks)

I've got an Eye One Photo setup that I used for one of my recent reviews, and the profiles 
were good - but not as good as the ones I'd use for my actual sellable work. I can see the 
temptation to recover some of your profiling kit costs through making the odd profile, but 
it's something I just wouldn't try.

bye for now
Keith Cooper
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "glenn98059"
<glennthureson@c...> wrote:
> As I don't own the proper equipment, I've decided to seek out
profiles 
> for money.  So far I've run across Cathy Stratton and Eileen and 
> Mark's Custom profiles.
> 
> I notice that they use rather different targets.  The one using the 
> target with more squares claims that helps them get a more accurate 
> read.  Any thoughts?
> 
> So, if any of you have used either of these (or another source), 
> please comment on your experiences.
> 
> BTW, these both charge $40/profile.
> 
> Glenn Thureson

I've recently used Cathy Stratton and found her both technically
reliable and, as a business, excellent to deal with. I'd recommend her
highly.

'Dolph Amster

CHROMiX has, among many other things, an attractive profiling 
service, Glenn. To go directly to it, go to:

<http://www.chromix.com/ColorValet/index.cxsa?-session=tx:3F960EE813a7916525wsq13CAC74>

--
Sam


At 6:39 AM +0000 8/5/05, glenn98059 wrote:

>As I don't own the proper equipment, I've decided to seek out profiles
>for money.  So far I've run across Cathy Stratton and Eileen and
>Mark's Custom profiles.
>
>I notice that they use rather different targets.  The one using the
>target with more squares claims that helps them get a more accurate
>read.  Any thoughts?
>
>So, if any of you have used either of these (or another source),
>please comment on your experiences.
>
>BTW, these both charge $40/profile.
>
>Glenn Thureson

Typically the paper manufacturers that seem to be "with it" have custom profiles readily available.  
 
Here's an example.  Check out this page by Breathing Color ( www.breathingcolor.com/p.htm ), they seem to have great Epson profiles.  I use their Sterling 210g Natural White paper and Elegance 310g and the profiles are spot on.  
 
Phil

Sam McCandless <samcc@...> wrote:
CHROMiX has, among many other things, an attractive profiling 
service, Glenn. To go directly to it, go to:

<http://www.chromix.com/ColorValet/index.cxsa?-session=tx:3F960EE813a7916525wsq13CAC74>

--
Sam


At 6:39 AM +0000 8/5/05, glenn98059 wrote:
>As I don't own the proper equipment, I've decided to seek out profiles
>for money.  So far I've run across Cathy Stratton and Eileen and
>Mark's Custom profiles.
>
>I notice that they use rather different targets.  The one using the
>target with more squares claims that helps them get a more accurate
>read.  Any thoughts?
>
>So, if any of you have used either of these (or another source),
>please comment on your experiences.
>
>BTW, these both charge $40/profile.
>
>Glenn Thureson


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "kcooper666" 
<yahoogroups@n...> wrote:

> when he pointed out several people who are offering remote 
profiling services based 
> upon nothing more than using the Eye One Photo set up - one person 
was even charging 
> for the 45 patch 'easyRGB' target profiles that you can make with 
Eye One Design... it does 
> to check with anyone offering a remote profiling service to see 
just what equipment and 
> software they are using. 
> 


Yes I cringed when someone on a different forum pointed to that place 
with the sleazyRGB target. I can tell you from the point of view of 
an i1 Design owner, that target just DOESN'T WORK! The CMYK version 
is even worse (if you can imagine that). You can read about my 
thoughts on the i1 Design over at DPreview in the printers/printing 
forum be searching for the keywords "i1 design". I also cringed when 
someone pointed to a place using the i1 Match software and the 288 
patch target...

--------------------------------------------------------------
It really goes to show that there are some people that have no 
integrity!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------

Are people actually paying for this? If so I need to get my self 
going and selling this type of service, using much better 
software...  

I will say that my main choice for a lot of paper trials is Printopen 
4.0.5.2 with the tiny little 240 patch set (CMYK), but for anything 
of quality, a larger number of patches must be used! The quality and 
features are very good, even better now that Xrite has the Colorport 
software that can export a measurement file that P.O. will import. 
Now it no longer takes me more than 3 hours to measure the larger 
targets that P.O. can use. I get fantastic results with the CMYK 
profiles compared to Monaco Profiler 4.5, but haven't done much work 
with the RGB side of things. My limited exposure to the i1 Match 
software leaves me thinking it is much too limited to make anything 
really good, but others have a differing opinion. You'll find that 
the better profile services are not using the Match software but the 
more expensive Profile Maker Pro software, or other comparably 
expensive software from other manufacturers.

****** Keith if you are looking for another product to review, try 
the new Prinect Profile Toolbox from Heidelberg. I've read through 
the users guide, and there are some improvements over the Printopen 4 
that I'm using, now if I could only come up with the nearly 
$2000.00USD to upgrade! It's a really hard decision right now, the 
improvemnts may be more than I may be able to wait for. The changes 
are in the way you can handle OBA's, the profile graphing, I'm sure 
the algorythms for calculating the profile have been tweaked, and it 
now works with the i1 spectro in scanning mode (even though Xrite 
fixed that for me, thanks for the link Ernst)!

****** Glenn, if you would like to try a freebie with my Heidelberg 
software and i1 spectro, please email me off list. It's a freebie 
because I don't have a lot of experience with the RGB half of that 
software, so it might be good, it might not. Only you can decide if 
the risk is worth the paper, ink and postage. The RGB target is two 
pages with 840 patches (total). I'm in the USA, just incase you 
aren't. I might also open this up to a couple of other people too.

I HIGHLY recommend Cathy. Last year she created a profile for me 
which, due to my mistake, turned out bad. Her customer service is 
amazing and her technological knowledge fantastic. In the end, she 
created another profile for me (this time right)and provided me with 
invaluable coaching on setting up my color management.

Chris

 --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "adolphamster" 
<dolph@m...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "glenn98059"
> <glennthureson@c...> wrote:
> > As I don't own the proper equipment, I've decided to seek out
> profiles 
> > for money.  So far I've run across Cathy Stratton and Eileen and 
> > Mark's Custom profiles.
> > 
> > I notice that they use rather different targets.  The one using 
the 
> > target with more squares claims that helps them get a more 
accurate 
> > read.  Any thoughts?
> > 
> > So, if any of you have used either of these (or another source), 
> > please comment on your experiences.
> > 
> > BTW, these both charge $40/profile.
> > 
> > Glenn Thureson
> 
> I've recently used Cathy Stratton and found her both technically
> reliable and, as a business, excellent to deal with. I'd recommend 
her

> highly.
> 
> 'Dolph Amster

> Yes I cringed when someone on a different forum pointed to that place 
> with the sleazyRGB target. I can tell you from the point of view of 
> an i1 Design owner, that target just DOESN'T WORK! 

The 45 patch target does sometimes give quite usable profiles, but it's a bit of a lottery 
(and some would say the same chance of winning :-)
If you have a look on the site I've covered profiling in the Eye One Design package 
separately from printer profiling with the large targets
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/eye_one_design.html
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/eye_one_printer_profiling.html

> Are people actually paying for this? 

Unfortunately people do seem to. The problem is that they then think that their printer is 
useless or that colour mangement is just a big con.

> You'll find that 
> the better profile services are not using the Match software but the 
> more expensive Profile Maker Pro software, or other comparably 
> expensive software from other manufacturers.

Yes, I've made a few profiles with the Eye One Match software for some people locally, but 
that was for a few pints of beer after helping them out with some other printer 
problems ;-)

I know how much skill, expensive software and knowledge it takes to do the job well and 
I'd rather get on with taking pictures :-)

> ****** Keith if you are looking for another product to review, try 
> the new Prinect Profile Toolbox from Heidelberg. I've read through 
> the users guide, and there are some improvements over the Printopen 4 
> that I'm using, now if I could only come up with the nearly 
> $2000.00USD to upgrade!

Thanks I'll have a look into it

by for now

Keith Cooper

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Phillip Fisher 
<archivalgolf@y...> wrote:
> Typically the paper manufacturers that seem to be "with it" have 
custom profiles readily available.  
>  


Those should not be considered as "custom". They only work well if 
your printer is very close to the same as the printer the profile was 
built on. For most people, those profiles are within about 80%-90%, 
and for many of those people, it is close enough. And if you live on 
the edge and use a third party ink, then you can throw that out the 
window.

>Those should not be considered as "custom". They only work
well if 
>your printer is very close to the same as the printer the
profile was 
>built on. For most people, those profiles are within about
80%-90%, 
>and for many of those people, it is close enough. And if you
live on 
>the edge and use a third party ink, then you can throw that
out the 
>window.

Right. I'm really skeptical of these profiles. Do these guys
just output a target send the readings into some profiling
software and call it good or do they really check the accuracy
of their work? I don't think they really spend a lot of time
on them. For desktop printers, whose tolerences aren't very
close to one another, these profiles aren't much better than
the ones shipped with the printer. If they are well made then
they will get you in the ballpark with the Pro series printers.

Regards, Walt

http://www.kauaiphotos.biz

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Walt Mucha 
<wkm@k...> wrote:
> 
> >Those should not be considered as "custom". They only work
> well if 
> >your printer is very close to the same as the printer the
> profile was 
> >built on. For most people, those profiles are within about
> 80%-90%, 
> >and for many of those people, it is close enough. And if you
> live on 
> >the edge and use a third party ink, then you can throw that
> out the 
> >window.
> 
> Right. I'm really skeptical of these profiles. Do these guys
> just output a target send the readings into some profiling
> software and call it good or do they really check the accuracy
> of their work? I don't think they really spend a lot of time
> on them. For desktop printers, whose tolerences aren't very
> close to one another, these profiles aren't much better than
> the ones shipped with the printer. If they are well made then
> they will get you in the ballpark with the Pro series printers.
> 


Many of the profiles I've seen have been made with a small size Look 
Up Table. I think this is done so that the profile fits in with more 
printers. That means that even if your printer is the exact same 
printer the profile was created for, your print will be less than it 
could be.

A smaller size profile also means a smaller file size, which uses 
less bandwidth.

I've also seen at least one paper company that uses really low 
quality software to make their profiles. I don't remember which 
company, and I won't say which software, since that software company 
has not been mentioned here, I don't think I've had to stomp on it 
yet.