Datacolor User to User Support Group.

>How consistent or stable is the Printfix Pro's spectrocolorimeter?
>
>WHile I really don't know anything currently about the figures
>generated by the printfix pro but keeping at one patch and reading a
>number of times - every read produces a different value although the
>reader was not moved at all? Is this ok? The lab values differ readings
>are like 1.34 and then 1.38 and then 1.25 and so forth....

Ed,

Sorry that I haven't had time to answer all of your posts; I'll try to
work backwards through them, over the next couple of days.

Extremely small flucuations like that in the numbers that you get back
are within the tolerance of the spectro; it's not a problem.

So: Yes, it's ok...:-)

If you look at the PFP review on Northlight Images:

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/printfix_pro.html

(and it looks to me as if some of this has been refreshed since it was
originally posted, I'm sure I see images and screenshots here that I haven't
seen before)... You may want to read through this carefully if you haven't
already done so, there's some good information in it.

All the way down towards the bottom, there's a table that we've provided that
is a comparison between the PFP spectro and other well-known measuring devices.

Small variations (hundredths place) are to be expected. You won't always
get the same numbers, to the hundredths place, when you take a measurement.
(each .01 on the a/b scale is .004%, if I'm doing the math right. A difference
of .04 for an a or b reading, although it sounds like a lot to you,
is .016%. .01% would be one hundredth of one percent).

>Does anyone know if the other profiling system will produce identical
>readings?

According to the spec, other devices will either be comparable, or worse.
(What you're looking at would fall under "Short Term Repeatability"). And
those other devices are considerably more expensive.



>Why can't the printfix pro produce spot on consistent
>readings if its using LED which are touted as stable?

You're looking for a precision here that goes beyond the expectation of
what consistent readings would be...:-)

Best regards,

-- 
David Miller
Senior Software Developer, Digital Color Solutions
ColorVision