Digital BW, The Print

-----Original Message-----

From: Tim Atherton [mailto:tim@...]
Sent: Monday, January 9, 2006 12:23 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Colorvision vs. Gretag

What's the thoughts on Colorvision Spyder II vs the Gretag i1 Display 2?

I've always used the Spyder, but I've got to purchase a monitor 
calibration set-up for a client and I thought I'd look at both

thanks

tim atherton

Tim

You may want to wait a week or so. There was a press release a while back that Colorvision was coming out with a new printer profile solution. They just might have a package your client will like that includes a spyder. That's just a wild guess though. As far as what's best. I own both and think it's a flip of the coin. I currently use the Spyder II. 

Regards, Walt

The new ColorVision package that was referred to may be the 
PrintFixPRO Suite package, which is due to be released later this 
week. This is all new software and hardware. It has almost no 
similarities to the former ColorVision "PrintFix" package. It has 
the PrintFixPLUS/PRO software and a completely new colorimeter, as 
well as the Spyder2 monitor calibration device and completely 
revamped software for monitor calibration.

Because I've had trouble getting good color matches with my Epson 
R1800, I've been looking around for sources of excellent printer 
profiling, which eventually led me to the PrintFixPRO package. I've 
been beta-testing it, and I've been truly amazed at the excellence 
of the results! Printer profiles (I realize that was not the 
original question, but bear with me...) are as good as the best I've 
ever received from an excellent custom profiling source, and they 
can be tweaked or re-made easily - if that is ever necessary. I've 
used just about every profiling source out there except the really 
costly GMB packages, and this just blows them all away. 

Back to monitor packages - The reviews of the current Spyder2 
monitor calibration package have been quite good, only giving the 
nod to the GMB package if one has to be able to frequently display 
many shades of white on the monitor (the example given was wedding 
photography). 

Disclaimer - no affiliation at all with ColorVision, other than as a 
person who is rather fussy about print quality, and who is very 
impressed with this new system. I'm going to buy it when it's 
released.

Bill Hansen

Bill,

I was stupid enough to buy a PrintFix when it came out - one of the
worst purchases I've made, and Colorvision's support was totally
useless. Could you tell us more about the PrintFixPro printer
profiling hardware and software. I've been unable to get any
worthwhile info from Colorvision beyond marketing hype. How does it
compare with ProfileMaker and the Eye-One?

Thanks,
Helen 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com,
"bill_hansen20012001" <wgh2005@t...> wrote:

>
> The new ColorVision package that was referred to may be the 
> PrintFixPRO Suite package, which is due to be released later this 
> week. This is all new software and hardware. It has almost no 
> similarities to the former ColorVision "PrintFix" package. It has 
> the PrintFixPLUS/PRO software and a completely new colorimeter, as 
> well as the Spyder2 monitor calibration device and completely 
> revamped software for monitor calibration.
> 
> Because I've had trouble getting good color matches with my Epson 
> R1800, I've been looking around for sources of excellent printer 
> profiling, which eventually led me to the PrintFixPRO package. I've 
> been beta-testing it, and I've been truly amazed at the excellence 
> of the results! Printer profiles (I realize that was not the 
> original question, but bear with me...) are as good as the best I've 
> ever received from an excellent custom profiling source, and they 
> can be tweaked or re-made easily - if that is ever necessary. I've 
> used just about every profiling source out there except the really 
> costly GMB packages, and this just blows them all away.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "helen_bach2003" 
<helenbach@h...> wrote:
>
> Bill,
> 
> I was stupid enough to buy a PrintFix when it came out - one of the
> worst purchases I've made, and Colorvision's support was totally
> useless. Could you tell us more about the PrintFixPro printer
> profiling hardware and software. I've been unable to get any
> worthwhile info from Colorvision beyond marketing hype. How does it
> compare with ProfileMaker and the Eye-One?
> 

The colorimeter will not be as accurate.

It may be close, as the old system that was exactly like this was 
close, but not as accurate. Owning many different tools (hardware and 
software and including the old Colorvision system), I can tell you 
that a real spectrophotometer is the best way to go. Short of that, I 
would say you might consider having someone build your profiles for 
you. The i1 Photo and Xrite Pulse are both very good, and to journey 
above that is more than another $2000 to $4000 for the software 
(Gretag PMP starts at around $2000 plus you need a spectro). I'm 
currently using Xrite's Monaco Profiler Platinum, or Heidelberg 
Printopen with either an i1 or Xrite DTP20UV (Pulse spectro), and all 
I can tell you is that they work well. Profiler gives a bigger 
target, but they both produce excellent results. I haven't tried the 
Pulse software, and may never try it (since I have Profiler). It was 
simply only another $50 for the full Pulse system, with the Optix XR2 
for the monitor, over the price of the spectro alone. I would 
recommend that you throw another $500+ at your colormanagement 
solutions if you definitely want to do the profiles yourself. If the 
Printfix Pro software is worth having, I would still recomend a real 
spectrophotometer to use with it, and you might want to get the UV 
filtered version of that spectro.

Thanks Greg, that's interesting information.

I've been having my colour profiles made by Dry Creek and doing my 
own B&W ones with a densitometer, but keep thinking about a 
spectrophotometer like the  Eye-One, mainly because of its usefulness 
beyond just printer profiling.

What sort of an instrument is the PrintFixPro device?

Best,
Helen

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Greg" 
<dfaprinting@y...> wrote:
>
> The colorimeter will not be as accurate.
> 
> It may be close, as the old system that was exactly like this was 
> close, but not as accurate. Owning many different tools (hardware 
and 
> software and including the old Colorvision system), I can tell you 
> that a real spectrophotometer is the best way to go. Short of that, 
I 
> would say you might consider having someone build your profiles for 
> you. The i1 Photo and Xrite Pulse are both very good, and to 
journey 
> above that is more than another $2000 to $4000 for the software 
> (Gretag PMP starts at around $2000 plus you need a spectro). I'm 
> currently using Xrite's Monaco Profiler Platinum, or Heidelberg 
> Printopen with either an i1 or Xrite DTP20UV (Pulse spectro), and 
all 
> I can tell you is that they work well. Profiler gives a bigger 
> target, but they both produce excellent results. I haven't tried 
the 
> Pulse software, and may never try it (since I have Profiler). It 
was 
> simply only another $50 for the full Pulse system, with the Optix 
XR2 
> for the monitor, over the price of the spectro alone. I would 
> recommend that you throw another $500+ at your colormanagement 
> solutions if you definitely want to do the profiles yourself. If 
the 
> Printfix Pro software is worth having, I would still recomend a 
real 

> spectrophotometer to use with it, and you might want to get the UV 
> filtered version of that spectro.
>

> The colorimeter will not be as accurate.
> 
> It may be close, as the old system that was exactly like this was 
> close, but not as accurate. Owning many different tools (hardware 
and 
> software and including the old Colorvision system), I can tell you 
> that a real spectrophotometer is the best way to go. Short of that, 


The new PrintFixPro does use a spectro device for printer profiling. I 
don't know how accurate it is compared to the EyeOne or Pulse though.

Jon

They call it a spectro device, but it uses LEDs; so who knows what it really
is.  I guess there are two units as well; the pro version has a different
device that also uses LEDs.  It does not sound like something that measures
the spectrum every 10nm though.  Maybe koloshor has some thoughts on this.
It probably does not follow the 45/0 degree standard either, but if it makes
great profiles who cares?

Best regards,
John Moody

-----Original Message-----
From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Jon
Canfield
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 1:33 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: PrintFixPro, was Colorvision vs. Gretag


> The colorimeter will not be as accurate.
>
> It may be close, as the old system that was exactly like this was
> close, but not as accurate. Owning many different tools (hardware
and
> software and including the old Colorvision system), I can tell you
> that a real spectrophotometer is the best way to go. Short of that,


The new PrintFixPro does use a spectro device for printer profiling. I
don't know how accurate it is compared to the EyeOne or Pulse though.

Jon





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

On 11-Jan-06, at 11:33 AM, Jon Canfield wrote:

>
>> The colorimeter will not be as accurate.
>>
>> It may be close, as the old system that was exactly like this was
>> close, but not as accurate. Owning many different tools (hardware
> and
>> software and including the old Colorvision system), I can tell you
>> that a real spectrophotometer is the best way to go. Short of that,
>
>
> The new PrintFixPro does use a spectro device for printer profiling. I
> don't know how accurate it is compared to the EyeOne or Pulse though.


It is a spectrocolorimeter, not a spectrophotometer.

Carolyn

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "John Moody" 
<moodymz3@y...> wrote:
>
> They call it a spectro device, but it uses LEDs; so who knows what 
it really
> is.  I guess there are two units as well; the pro version has a 
different
> device that also uses LEDs.  It does not sound like something that 
measures
> the spectrum every 10nm though.  Maybe koloshor has some thoughts 
on this.
> It probably does not follow the 45/0 degree standard either, but if 
it makes
> great profiles who cares?
> 


I'll tell you what I know of the old device. It was a ColorSavvy 
ColorMouse CM2C. The CM2C uses many LEDs to generate combinations of 
different color light, in a 45/0 pattern, but the light rotates 
around the center as it changes from one color to the next. There 
were two "banks" of opposed LEDs, so each bank would rotate through 
180 degrees. There was somewhere between 6 and 10 combinations of 
colors coming out of the device, so it definitely did not sample 
every 10nm. What I think it did was to sample a couple blue, a green, 
and a couple red illuminations, and form a Lab value from that 
combination. If you really need to know, I might be able to dig it 
out and count. And I'm pretty sure that the new device isn't much 
different, except that now it has a USB connection, and gets power 
from the USB. It also looks like it is bigger and bulkier, and they 
claim it is faster than before.

The more important things come out when you read the description on 
their web site! See my comments here: (I'm too lazy to type them 
again)
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=16546764

When I used the CM2C with ProfilerPro (2.x and 3.0), it was ugly! 
When I used the CM2C with Monaco Profiler 4.5, I got good results on 
paper with no OBA. Paper with OBA had a yellow cast to the prints. 
When I went to using an Xrite DTP22 Digital Swatchbook with Profiler, 
I got better results(still problems with OBA). When I went to using 
an i1 spectro with Profiler, I got different results from the DTP22 
(again still problems with OBA). When I went to Printopen, I could 
cancel the OBA in the software. Since I've upgraded to Profiler 4.8, 
I've been using a UV filtered spectro, so no problems with OBA with 
any software. Most of the above was making CMYK profiles for my RIP, 
maybe the ProfilerPro software worked better with RGB, maybe...

If you want to read my commennts about the Colorvision Spectro suite, 
do a search on DPReview for "colorvision spectro suite"