Holiday Gear Guide 2010 - Part II of II (B&H)

B&H Gear Guide

The following are products found on B&H’s web site in special collections created exclusively for ronmartblog.com readers. You’ll notice some items are offered at their lowest price of the year thanks to instant rebates and price drops only offered during the holiday season. Stock up and enjoy from the following categories:

Cameras, Lenses & Flashes ($5200 – $370)*

70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – Lowest Price of 2010!!!

If I won the lottery I’d own everything on this list! Items that I do own from it which have been reviewed on this blog are:

• Canon 1D Mark IV – In my opinion this is the best camera Canon has ever made and its really the only camera gear purchase I’ve made where I’ve never had buyers remorse – not even more a minute!
• Canon 5D Mark II – This camera has redefined videography and Hollywood, but I don’t have time for video. I love it for the great camera it is and find myself using it every time I can use a tripod and for select photo shoots. See my Photographer’s Notebook and notice how many times it shows up as the camera of choice. I use the 1D Mark IV more, but I seem to capture the shots I care about the most with this one.
• Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – From the moment I first used it at the Olympics (as discussed in the link) I was blown away, and even now I am amazed that a lens this good is this inexpensive. I know that sounds nuts given how much it cost – especially compared to its predecessor, but it’s hard to find a piece of glass from Canon that can outperform it on sharpness, image stabilization (IS) and AF performance – at any price level (including primes).
• Canon G12 and S95 – Honestly both are great cameras. I chose the G12 because it meets my needs well but if my wife had the final say so she’d take the S95 for its wonderful form factor. You can’t go wrong with either.

Printers & Paper ($2145 – $15)*

My printing series has been a huge hit so my guide wouldn’t be complete without some recommendations. There’s tons of great products out there and I wish I could feature more, but this is great start for printer and paper choices. Here’s a list of what I own and/or reviewed up to this point on the blog (and many more articles are still to come):

• Canon iPF6300 – It’s probably due to the wide format, but as it stands right now this is my favorite printer – period. I love the image quality and the user-friendliness of it is second to none. Its companion the 6350 is identical in performance but offers a hard drive for caching, so you can’t go wrong with either. The iPF8300 isn’t listed simple because I haven’t used one enough to recommend it, but it’s hard to store such a beast so for most this is as big as you’ll ever want to get.
• Epson Stylus® Pro 3880 – This thing rocks and I’ve included the 4900 in my list as the only things lacks on this printer (by design) are all available on the 4900. Sure, I’d probably love a Stylus® Pro 7900 just as much, but I’m living with the Canon iPF6300 so it is hard for me to imagine something better than it at this point. This is a great desktop printer and if you can afford it then do like all of the print masters I’ve interviewed and keep a 17” on your desk for those times when the big beasts are just too much for the job.
• Epson Exhibition Fiber – This paper just rocks plain and simple, so if you own an Epson you owe it to yourself to put your best work on this paper (but feel free to do your test prints on Luster!). It’s also a fantastic paper for Epson’s Advanced Black & White Mode. It works with Canon papers too if you are willing to waste a bunch building a media configuration file for it. That’s expensive, but worth it since Canon’s Polished Rag has been in limited supply lately. My other favorite Epson Signature Worthy papers are featured as well – I love them all!
• Canon Papers – All of the Canon papers listed are my favorites but I just haven’t had time to do formal reviews yet. They are coming so if you want a sneak peek into the future reviews, this is it!

Computer Products ($4239 – $50)*

Lenovo W701ds

People are always asking me for computer advice and they are surprised when I tell them that much of my work is done on my Lenovo or Apple laptops. I only use laptops with desktop caliber performance so you can rest assured that my recommendations are suitable for those 500MB Photoshop files I seem to find myself creating every time I image files these days. They are expensive, but they are machines that offer no compromises over the desktop so you can have a great experience no matter where you are in the world. Here’s my computer recommendations as well as my monitor, digital tablet, and a couple DVD & book recommendations:

• Lenovo W701ds – This is the best photographers machine on the market – period. I love it and have managed to keep my loaner for another few months as I can’t bear the thought of parting with it. Sure my Mac (featured in the list as well) is smaller and sexier, but it’s a toy by comparison to this phenomenal machine.
• NEC PA Series Displays – I first started mentioning this display in my Douglas Dubler interview and have been raving about them ever since I got mine. I’ll be doing a review in the future of both the 24 & 27” models as well as their accessories (included on the list).
• Wacom Intuos 4 – I love my Intuos 3, but I lust for the 4 (this is on my wishlist too). I’ve used it and my guest blog article about it has been a popular one all year long.
• The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers – I have reviewed and loved The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers as well as the CS3 version and it’s a staple on my What Photoshop Books Should I Read? article. I have the CS5 version and am reading it but haven’t had time to finish & review it yet, so I wanted to let people know this is a must own book.

Color Management Products ($1850 – $99)*

GTI PDV-2020EX

With the exception of the i1IO table for which I long for, these are products that are on my desk as I write this and that I use to improve my work. Here’s the ones featured in reviews on this blog:

• i1XTreme – For those who are passionate about color management.
• GTI PDV-2020EX – I love this device and have yet to meet someone who hasn’t been blown away by how great it is to view your work in this box (and that includes well over 200 people who have seen my box in real life)
• X-Rite ColorMunki – This is the best value in town and works great. I know it is a little more expensive than non-spectro versions, but this is something that anyone who cares about their print quality should own at a minimum (with the i1XTreme being the step up). I’ll also be covering the ColorChecker Passport soon too!

Memory Cards & Readers ($90 – $33)*

Lexar Professional ExpressCard
CompactFlash Reader

When I did my “Is a faster Compact Flash card worth the extra money?” article at the Olympics I burned my bridges with SanDisk and don’t expect to hear from them ever again. Why? Because they didn’t like me telling you the truth – despite the hoopla on Rob Galbraith’s web site, the reality is that many people only care about the performance of their memory cards in their camera as that is when performance can mean the difference between getting the shot or not. Using the fastest camera’s in the business – the D3s and 1D Mark IV (both in my guide) I proved that you really don’t get any benefit from the fastest cards. It’s also common for people to not have a reader on their computer that can keep up with the latest cards, so there’s a much better value to be found in the middle of the road cards which I’ve featured on my list – they will perform faster than your camera can buffer its data and they aren’t insanely expensive. I also tossed in my favorite ExpressCard reader which is the fastest CF reader I’ve ever used and can transfer data at speeds near its claimed 133MB/sec when writing to a fast SSD drive.

Accessories ($200 – $18)*

Sennheiser MKE 400 Compact
Video Camera Shotgun Microphone

This is just a collection of things that don’t fit in any of the other categories, yet I own and can’t live without. I demonstrate the Digital Target in my ExpoDisc review (which I also recommend) and I have a very old review of the Hoodman Loupe that still basically applies.  The shotgun microphone shown is at the top of my wish list as my audio sucks in my videos and this is the perfect solution!

* = Prices as of 11/23/2010 and may include mail-in rebates. Prices subject to change without notice and are provided simply as an approximate range.

Don't forget it is Instant Rebate Season!

and B&H has it’s own special offers too:

Conclusion

I appreciate B&H for helping me out here to bring you all of this info in these customized web pages and check back often as I may be tweaking them as we go for some last minute additions! I do not recommend products I do not love, so if you see it in this series then you can rest assured that I’d feel confident giving the product as a gift to a close family member or recommending that they spend their hard earned money on these products.

Happy Holidays to everyone of all faiths!

Be sure to visit Part I of Ron Martinsen’s Holiday Gift Guide 2010 on ronmartblog.com for huge savings from great companies like Nik Software, onOne Software, Photomatix, Topaz Software, and more! 

Disclosure

I may get a commission if you make purchase using the links provide in this article. Thanks for supporting this blog by using the links!

Counterpoint: Extreme Profiling or ImagePrint?

Photo Courtesy of B&H Photo
ColorChecker Targets Sold Separately

If you read my review of the i1XTreme Color Management Solution then you know that while I loved the results from the product, I really wasn’t a happy camper three hours into scanning 32 rows of patches and only being on row 21. In fact, during that time I started thinking – why the hell am I doing this?

ImagePrint Profiles are easily accessed over the web via Profile Manager
and if they don’t have the profile you need they’ll make it for you!

Well the reason for creating your own profile is so you can have a more accurate profile than you are using today so that you can create a print that makes the most of what your printer is capable of doing. With this in mind, if ColorByte ImagePrint bypasses the driver and controls the printer directly using the profiles it created with a $10k spectrophotometer and thousands of patches, then that theoretically should be the best results you can get right? In my opinion, and many others, the answer is yes!

While ImagePrint user interface leaves a lot to be desired, you can’t argue with the print results I got on the LexJet Sunset Photo Metallic paper. I’ve been unable to generate my own profile that can surpass what ImagePrint can do, so that begs the question – why spend several thousand dollars getting a great calibration system and software and still have to spend days building the perfect profiles, when I can spend a fraction of that and get better results?

I’m as cheap as the next guy so $800+ and up for ImagePrint seemed outrageously expensive to me at first. Now that I can see how much a proper color management system and software costs, I’d say leave profile generation to those who really need it and get ImagePrint instead.

Conclusion

If you still need to calibrate your scanner or camera LCD, then i1Basic seems like a more cost effective option along with ImagePrint and you’ll still end up over a thousand ahead of the game!

Don’t get me wrong that the i1XTreme is the way to go if you are going to go nuts doing paper profiles, but I think it’s probably time to leave those tools to the experts who make or sell those profiles to us rather than being the person who tries to generate them in the first place.

If all of this is too much for you, then you aren’t alone. I’d advise that you just check out my color management article and go with the ColorMunki until you are in a position to consider more advanced options. The ColorMunki is a great product with great simplicity, so I keep mine around so I can always do a quick and headache free calibration.

Special Offer – Save up to $300 with our 10% OFF discount!!!

I have worked with ColorByte to offer you the first ever discount that has been made available for a blog. ColorByte is offering a 10% off discount to readers of this article when you contact JVH Technical, LLC by phone or email. You can not get this discount through the web or ColorByte directly, so you must contact JVH and you MUST mention this blog in order to get the discount. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact JVH, ColorByte or me directly about this discount program.

Disclosure

I may get a commission if you take advantage of the special offer or purchase products from select partner links in this article. Thanks for your support of this blog by returning here when making your purchases!

Extreme Color Management with the X-Rite i1XTreme and ProfileMaker 5 – Part 2 of 2

This article is a continuation of Part 1 found here.

i1XTreme Continued…

This section resumes my prior discussion of the i1XTreme Color Management Solution….

Match 3 was a snap to use with only one scan error

When working in Eye-One Match 3, I was able to easily scan the patches and only hit one error when scanning  row 5 shown above, but a simple re-scan solved the problem. In no time flat I had the measurement data I needed and a new profile.

Match 3 Measurement Success

Trouble on the way to Paradise

When scanning Bill Atkinson’s targets RGB 800 WIR Eye-One 2 Page targets shown below (see previous article for more info) I had a much more difficult time.

Bill Atkinson’s RGB 800 WIR Eye-One 2 page target

I’ve tried to establish credibility on this blog by calling things like I see them rather than just doing gloried press release reviews like some other reviewers often do. In this case I have to fully disclose that I hit a speed bump during my review that made me want to toss the i1XTreme system out the window and never do another profile again. Let me explain why I hit these problems, assure you that there are solutions to the problems I hit and why I’m glad that I didn’t give up.

When scanning the color patches you simply hold the button down at the beginning of the row while you are on a white spot, wait for a beep, and then glide the i1 across the page until it stops and release. The software will tell you if you failed (which requires you to rescan the row) or if you can continue (by notifying you to scan the next row).  The system seems simple enough and with the limited test patches (which happed to be much larger too) in the Match 3 product I had no problems. In fact, I thought it was rather fun to use!

With my first success behind me, I decided I’d take on Bill’s big chart because 800 should be a heck of a lot better than 288, right? I could just see this amazing print rolling off my Epson with this new and improved profile that I was about to create, so I scanned with much excitement.

Well, I was excited until I got my tenth “Too Many Errors” alert (see below). I became annoyed at the fact that the user-interface never bothered to tell me what I did wrong or how I could do better next time, so I would scan again and get another failure. I’d scan slower, and I’d scan faster, yet both resulted in the same error. I’d adjust the paper and I’d take my time scanning. All of these efforts seemed to work on at least one occasion, but none of them worked reliably. However, when I got the nod from the MeasurementTool to advance to the next line, I was thrilled to move on – and move on I did.

Too many errors. Please read strip again.
You will hate this error message and
wish evil things up those who created it!

In a little over three hours I scanned the 32 rows of these charts (approximately 400 row scans), so to say I had a few errors is an understatement. I was tired and frustrated with a blister on my right index finger – but I was done. I saw the completion page below and thought I had some great data for ProfileMaker to do its magic and create a killer profile for me.

After 3 Hours of scanning, I thought I was done.
I thought wrong!

After I generated my profile, I quickly examined it in a cool tool called ColorThink Pro (review coming in November 2010 which also shows how to generate and use the charts). Upon inspection (see below), I immediately noticed it was @%#ked up!!!!

3D Graph of my first ProfileMaker ICC Profile
Never try to print using a profile that looks this nasty!!!!

I didn’t need to print to know that I would get horrible results, so I scratched my head and went back to the drawing board.

In doing my analysis, I noticed that my scan chart didn’t look as clean as Bill’s charts, but I thought ProfileMaker would use that data and magically make a great profile. However, what I really discovered is that the tool let me advance to the next slide when it got a row of data – not necessarily a correct row of data (see below) – WTF????

Scan success, but ignore the directions
to move on to the next row!

I felt like an idiot, so I did some more research and proceeded to scan again. This time knowing that a row not only had to be successfully scanned, it also had to be the correct pattern, I found myself investing 5 hours more of my life in getting 32 accurate row scans. FIVE HOURS!!!!

Not the birth of my children, nor my first magazine cover, nor anything I could imagine in the future (i.e., winning the lottery) had brought me more joy than to see the dialog below and know that wouldn’t be scanning any more of those @#king patches again that day!!!!!!

All rows scanned successfully.
One of the greatest accomplishments of my life!

Now I understood why the scan table had an advertisement that read “Need Automation? Add an Eye-One iO!” Pardon my language, but no shit!!!! Holy cow, I looked at that ad in disgust as I scanned for hours – once taking a 12 hour break out of frustration with the device.

With my frustration behind me I was ready to get my reward – a great paper profile, so that meant a visit to ProfileMaker 5.0. While there, I chose Bill Atkinson’s source chart (a text file) as the reference data to compare to my new data (also a text file) as shown here:

Generating the profile in ProfileMaker 5.0

The whole Gamut Mapping stuff confused me, but I found this i1 Gamut Mapping information to be very helpful. In the end, I did all three choices and graphed and printed using all three and got what appears to my eyes to be identical results. I’m sure there are differences and maybe eye isn’t trained enough, but the graphs in ColorThink Pro indicate they are very similar if not identical.

The Reward of Perseverance

An excellent profile generated from my 800 patch scan

To demonstrate the value of profiling I’ve printed the same source photo multiple times using various paper profiles – most of which I’ve generated myself. This test will show how one device can differ from another, as well as the importance of the software in this process.

NOTE: The images shown in this section are photos of prints taken using identical camera settings in identical conditions, but photo reproduction this way is quite tricky so they are subject to human error. The photos of the prints do not truly express the quality of the prints for a variety of reasons, so no conclusions about the paper or print should be made by using these photographs. Instead, they should just be used as a tool to demonstrate significant differences in the background gradient and tones on the tires in one image versus another. Sharpness or alignment may vary slightly due to my sample photos error, not the actual prints.

LexJet Sunset Photo Metallic Profile Test

For this example I am LexJet’s Sunset Photo Metallic paper where they do not provide a paper profile for my Epson Stylus® Pro 3880 printer. I started by trying using the Epson 3800 paper profile (which I know doesn’t work, but I did for illustrative purposes) and got horrible results (mouse over below or click here). To improve upon those results, I created my own profile using the ColorMunki and you’ll notice a huge improvement! Score one for the ColorMunki!!!!

Mouse over (or click here) for LexJet 3800 Profile vs.
Mouse out (or click here) for ColorMunki 3880 Custom Profile

Mouse over (or click here) for the Eye-One Match 3 Profile vs.
Mouse out (or click here) for the MeasureTool/ProfileMaker Profile

Now I probably don’t have to tell you but you’ll notice that the image above (mouse out or click here) was the image with the most tonal range and is the print that most closely represents the stellar results I was getting on my Canon iPF6300 printer using LexJet’s phenomenal profile. If you mouse over above (or click here) you’ll the Eye-One Match 3 profile which is a clear improvement over the ColorMunki profile, but still falls short of the MeasureTool/ProfileMaker profile created using Bill Atkinson’s 800 RGP 2P test patches. Now to be fair for the Eye-One Match 3 I only used the i1 RGB Target 1.5 test patches which only had 288 patches – but you have to go to MeasureTool if you want large or custom patch sets.

What’s the net result here? Naturally, the more patches you test – on your specific model printer – the better your prints will be. You’ll extract more tonal contrast out of the image and more accurately represent the colors you are seeing on your calibrated display. In fact, if you create your profile properly the print you create should blow your display image away.

Conclusion

The scanner and display calibration with this product are both simple yet offer the flexibility for advanced calibration as well. This was great because this was more advanced than what is possible with my beloved ColorMunki. However, what really makes this product worth the money is its ability to generate a exceptional printer profiles.

Fine art printing can be expensive and it is the final representation of your work, so if it doesn’t look amazing then you are selling yourself short. For those who care about the details of their final result, an excellent printer profile is a must! Sadly the profiles generated by others (including paper and printer makers) aren’t always the appropriate choice for the best results possible from your specific printer.

For those who wish to control the process of creating the best possible profile, I’d recommend you consider using an X-Rite i1XTreme UV Cut Color Calibration Solution (which includes Eye-One Match 3) or ProfileMaker (until i1Profiler becomes available). I must also HIGHLY RECOMMEND the i1iO Automated Scan Table. Alternatively, you may also consider the i1iSis as an even faster solution for reading your test charts, but either way automation is critical in my opinion.

For Photography, I do not recommend purchasing the non-UV cut version. I questioned a panel of 5 printing experts featured in this series and they all insisted that the UV cut is required for photographers due to the growing use of papers with Optical Brightening Agents (OBA).

Ordering Information

The X-Rite i1XTreme UV Cut Color Calibration Solution is available from Amazon, Adorama, B&H and other resellers.

ProfileMaker (which includes MeasureTool) is currently only available i1iSis bundles which I could only find on Adorama at this time.

Adorama and B&H both carry the i1iSis

i1iO Automated Scan Table

Save yourself from frustration of manual scanning by purchasing an i1iO Automated Scan Table to complement your i1XTreme system from Amazon, Adorama, or B&H. NOTE: You only need an i1iO or an i1iSis for automation, not both. The i1iSis is the fastest solution from X-Rite.

Special Offer

X-Rite does not offer any special offers on its products, but I’m happy to announce that LexJet (maker of the Sunset Photo Metallic paper featured in this article) does! Click here to learn more.

Disclaimer

X-Rite provided a loaner i1XTreme color management solution for me to use so I could write this article, as well a dongle for use with ProfileMaker. If it were not for X-Rite’s generous support, I could not have brought this article to you. I receive no compensation from X-Rite, but if you purchase products using links in this blog to external sites I might get a commission. Thank you for supporting this blog by returning here when you make your purchases.

Extreme Color Management with the X-Rite i1XTreme and ProfileMaker 5 – Part 1 of 2

Earlier this year I introduced you to color management using the X-Rite ColorMunki which I love and use on all my computers. However, if you’ve been following my printing series you’ll notice that when I list out the gear that my featured photographers are using, you don’t see the ColorMunki mentioned anywhere.Instead you’ll often see the X-Rite i1iO Automated Scan Table or X-Rite i1iSis XL Color Calibration System mentioned along with ProfileMaker.

Why aren’t the top pros using the ColorMunki? Well part of it is because the ColorMunki is still fairly new compared to the i1 system, so many have been doing color management since before it came out. However, another important reason involves calibration on the next level – what I call “Extreme Color Management”.

Extreme Color Management

Extreme Color Management is when you use targets with a lot more than 50 (x2) color samples you get with the ColorMunki along with a high precision spectrophotometer and advanced software (ProfileMaker now i1Profiler coming soon) to create a much more accurate precision profile that is more accurate than what can be accomplished with the ColorMunki. Of course, like in all things in Photography, this means it’s going to cost you more money for that extra precision, but is it worth it?  Stay tuned and I’ll try to show you why you should care and who this configuration is intended for.

A good example of an Extreme Color Management Top Photographer is Douglas Dubler (also an X-Rite Coloratti). Douglas demands the best results and is willing to take the time to create the best profiles to get those results. The fruit of his labor are some of the most impressive prints I’ve ever seen, and ones that can stand the scrutiny of wall-size light boxes like the GTI VPI 52. It is for the most critical eye, yet the results are ones that even a novice can appreciate – even if they can’t quantify why Douglas’ prints are so much better than other master printers.

ProfileMaker 5

When using a ColorMunki or i1Basic, it will come with easy to use software to help you generate a custom profile for your display (and projectors and printers for the ColorMunki). ProfileMaker goes beyond the i1Match takes profiling to the extreme by supporting the generation of profiles for scanners, printers, displays, projectors, and even your digital cameras! This is an advanced end-to-end color management system not only for personal and professional printers, but also publishers CYMK printers! In short, if a device can take a profile, this software can be used to create a profile for it.

I will not do an in-depth review of this software at this time as it is due to be replaced in the near future.

i1Profiler

i1Profiler is the name of the current unreleased software which will replace ProfileMaker 5 at a future date. I hope to bring you more on this product as it becomes available.

i1XTreme

Photo Courtesy of B&H Photo
ColorChecker Targets Sold Separately

The X-Rite i1XTReme Color Calibration Solution (Product Overview) is a product designed to give you advanced color consistency between all of the devices in your digital workflow so you can achieve the best color management possible on the market today. It supports not only the obvious like computer displays and printers, but also scanners, projectors, and even digital cameras! The net result is a color managed workflow that goes beyond the basics that a device like the ColorMunki can provide.

This device and supporting software like ProfileMaker/i1Profiler are critical if you wish to generate your own profile for use with RIP software as you need the ability to print and measure outside of i1Match.

UV Cut or Not?

One thing that has always confused the heck out of me is why there are two different versions of the i1 spectrophotometers – one with a “UV Cut” and one without. Well it turns out that the “UV Cut” was introduced when papers with OBA’s came out as they apparently introduced problems. The Built-in UV filter prevents problems when measuring pigments that fluoresce under UV light or papers that incorporate artificial whiteners (source: Adorama).

Because I work with many papers which have OBA’s (like Canon & Epson papers with the word Bright as well as Metallic paper), I chose to get the UV Cut version. In addition, all of but one of my master printers and RIP software companies that I polled as to which version to get said to get the UV Cut version, so that was good enough for me.

The UV Cut has the same MSRP as the regular version, so the decision as to which one to get should really be based on your needs. It seems that if you’ll be doing a lot of measurements off of real life objects for obtaining color matching information, there are cases where the UV Cut would be a disadvantage. This is why both versions are offered, but sadly you have to pick one or the other – there isn’t an adapter that allows one device to do both (do I hear feature request???).

Using the i1XTtreme System

The ColorMunki is simplicity at its best – just plug and play and follow some really simple wizards. However, using the i1XTreme is a big leap from there as you’ll find yourself getting a lot of complex questions for which there isn’t a lot of useful help or instruction to tell you more about what you are being asked or why you should care. From this perspective, I was a bit disappointed in this system as it felt a bit like being thrown into the deep end of the pool before you know how to swim.

The good news is that I’m a fast learner, so I scratch and clawed my way through a bunch of confusing docs, web articles (some of which went back to 2004) and more to find out the information I needed to know. The question is, was it all worth it? More on that later…

Here’s how I use this i1XTreme system in my studio:

• Display Calibration - All good color management begins with a calibrated display, so I use the i1XTreme to calibrate my display. The process isn’t as pretty, but it is very similar to how it is done with the ColorMunki in my Color Management article. You get asked a few more complex questions, but when in doubt just accept the defaults and move on.
• Scanner Calibration – I’ve always been frustrated with the crappy results I’d get out of my scanner, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that I could simply scan a test target provided in my kit and run a simple wizard and voila – a nice scanner profile was created. Just as with printer profiles, the difference was like night & day and it was very easy to do. It was actually harder figuring out how to get my scanner software to actually use the profile than it was to create it!
• Printer Profiling – Nothing is more important than printer profiling in my book, because without a proper profile your prints will look like crap. I’ve actually seen top tier photographers and print masters get lazy and not calibrate their displays because they could trust their printer profile so much that they simply needed to do a test print and put it next to their monitor to get an idea of how the colors would shift. You couldn’t do that the other way around without wasting a lot of time and paper, so this is why I think most people really buy this product.

In addition to the above features, you can also use this product to calibrate your projector (which I don’t own) and digital camera (which requires ColorChecker SG which I didn’t have included in my test kit).

Profiling to the Extreme

Bill Atkinson’s RGB 800 WIR Eye-One 2 page target

Epson Stylus Pro and Profiling Guru Douglas Dubler recommends using the targets on Bill Atkinson’s download folder along with Profile Maker (currently only available i1iSis bundles) to create profiles.

Eye-One MeasureTool (included in ProfileMaker)

I was having trouble getting my ColorMunki to calibrate LexJet’s Sunset Photo Metallic (review and coupon code coming soon) paper for my Epson Stylus® Pro 3880 printer to get the same great results I was getting with LexJet’s profile for the Canon iPF6300. The ColorMunki got me close, but it was still too dark and the print had a green tint to it.  Using the i1 with the included Eye-One Match 3 software I was able to generate a profile, that when printed with the Perceptual rendering intent, gave me something that was much closer to the Canon print.

As happy as I was with my new profile, I decided to take it a step farther and try Bill Atkinson’s RGB 800 WIR Eye-One 2 page target to scan in 800 patches to create an even more accurate profile (profiles up to 5202 patches are available). This sounded great because the Eye-One Match 3 had only printed out 288 patches using the default settings (but more patches were available) and Douglas had recommended Bill’s patches.

Click here to read part 2.

Disclaimer

X-Rite provided a loaner i1XTreme color management solution for me to use so I could write this article, as well a dongle for use with ProfileMaker. If it were not for X-Rite’s generous support, I could not have brought this article to you.