i1Studio or i1pro2 (Profiling Service) for ICC Printer Profiles

[ManuelGoico]

The i1Studio software is a distinct improvement over the old Colormunki software in that you can do batch profiling. With the old system you had to keep the software open whilst your prints dried.

The lower number of patches is not quite so clear cut as it might seem, in that you can run a second optimising step to refine profiles. It will work fine without the option of adding an image for colours.
This can (on well behaved printer/paper/ink combos) give very good results.

I wouldn't choose the 'B&W' profile options in i1S myself - during testing I found them of marginal benefit and definitely not up to driver B&W print modes - YMMV so worth testing

One area where the i1S spectro is different from an i1Pro2/3 is that it's only UV Cut, so may have some issues with strong OBAs

The i1Studio works well for monitor calibration as well

One other thing, the old Colormunki spectro works with the new i1studio software, but not vice versa. This matters if you want to use some of the functionality of the old software (patch measurement) that didn't make it to i1Studio

Hi, I'm new to profiling the printer. I bought the I1Studio and realice that the icc are smaller than the ones the paper supply. I profiled the Ilford Satin and the EPSON Traditional photo paper. Neither reach the blacks and when I compared them in color sync, the gamut is smaller. Is it normal, Who should I trust? Is the I1Studio not worth it, or is it normal to get smaller gamut? Or maybe is it better to use an external service? I appreciate any advices.
Thank you1

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I bought the I1Studio and realice that the icc are smaller than the ones the paper supply.

- Could you please give some numbers - I typically see i1Studio profiles with 1.8 - 2 MB in size, and that does not differ from my profiles created with i1 Profiler software. The number of color patches does not drive the file size, data is recalculated into a standardized set of 3D matrices with a fixed number of control points.

- When you profile your paper on your printer you get the profile just for that combination and driver settings, Epson profiles need to average across a wide range of variables - the paper - the printhead - the inks - for now and including some history of variations over time - your profile will never be identical with a profile by Epson or Canon or....
- I have seen quite some profiles by paper manufacturers which were pretty old - measured even with the predecessor of the i1Profiler package - the ProfileMaker software. Papers may still be within manufacturing margins - I don't know but I rather would like to use profiles which are more up to date.

- I did some comparison between i1Studio and i1Profiler profiles - on the same paper - with the same inks on the same printer - with 96 patches for the i1Profiler software - I got a perfect match .

- please be aware that the optimization process does not change the overall size of the gamut, you won't see differences with a gamut viewer, the opt. process is adding control points within the gamut volume .

- Based on that I don't see any critical deficiency with the i1Studio , profiles are accurate as they can be with a low number of patches, there may be some handling issues with the manual scanning process which may require some retries - you may try to scan one patch sheet several times and create separate profiles which you can compare, this could give you some info about the reliability of your handling process, reading errors typically show up as local distortions to the gamut volume - spikes or indents

 

[ManuelGoico]

- Could you please give some numbers - I typically see i1Studio profiles with 1.8 - 2 MB in size, and that does not differ from my profiles created with i1 Profiler software. The number of color patches does not drive the file size, data is recalculated into a standardized set of 3D matrices with a fixed number of control points.

- When you profile your paper on your printer you get the profile just for that combination and driver settings, Epson profiles need to average across a wide range of variables - the paper - the printhead - the inks - for now and including some history of variations over time - your profile will never be identical with a profile by Epson or Canon or....
- I have seen quite some profiles by paper manufacturers which were pretty old - measured even with the predecessor of the i1Profiler package - the ProfileMaker software. Papers may still be within manufacturing margins - I don't know but I rather would like to use profiles which are more up to date.

- I did some comparison between i1Studio and i1Profiler profiles - on the same paper - with the same inks on the same printer - with 96 patches for the i1Profiler software - I got a perfect match .

- please be aware that the optimization process does not change the overall size of the gamut, you won't see differences with a gamut viewer, the opt. process is adding control points within the gamut volume .

- Based on that I don't see any critical deficiency with the i1Studio , profiles are accurate as they can be with a low number of patches, there may be some handling issues with the manual scanning process which may require some retries - you may try to scan one patch sheet several times and create separate profiles which you can compare, this could give you some info about the reliability of your handling process, reading errors typically show up as local distortions to the gamut volume - spikes or indents

Thank you Ink Stained for your reply.
I'll attach a photo, one in color is the ICC I created with the i1Studio, the grey one, is the ICC epson provided with my SCP600. It is the first time I do profiles, and was surprised that there are areas were I lost lots of gamut, don't really know if it's normal, or maybe it is a "deficiency" of the i1studio, because I tend to think that more patches are better, maybe I'm wrong.
And as you can see, it doesn't reach the blacks. Is that normal?
Thank you again for your reply

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

- did you use exactly the same driver/quality settings as Epson is proposing for this type of paper, changes in driver setting may give you different gamuts, that's quite typical. You may try different settings to see the impact onto the gamut; but yes, I have seen variations to this extend in other cases that real world profiles measured by mayself are smaller than manufacturer profiles, and yes - I would accept the black level as measured.

What type of ink are you using - refill or 3rd party or Epson ?

- As explained before - more colors on your patch sheet will not change the overall gamut, and you can run the opt. process several times if you really want to - e.g. for skin tones and B/W prints. It will incrementally improve the profile accuracy but as long as you are using the perceptual rendering intent colors will get quite some shift and adjustment anyway. The situation is different if you really want to print exact Pantone colors or other in the abs. colorimetrical rendering mode you need more color patches, but such situation gets you over the intended use for the i1Studio anyway.
I don't think there are deficiencies with the i1Studio, there are limitations, e.g. tolerances by the reading /handling process and device tolerances and functional restrictions of the software, but the package overall delivers usable profiles to my experience.
Please be aware that there is one limitation with the i1Studio, the spectro reads data without any activation of optical brighteners in the paper, some have none, other papers lots of those, and that has a (small) impact onto the gamut - there are differences in the lighter color ranges , not really much , but the profile would otherwise try to compensate the impact of these opt. brighteners to a degree, i1Studio profiles don't support that , i1Profiler profiles can do that, that is an option for the profile generation in the software.

And a last personal word - I would trust your actual profile more than an Epson profile.....

 

[ManuelGoico]

- did you use exactly the same driver/quality settings as Epson is proposing for this type of paper, changes in driver setting may give you different gamuts, that's quite typical. You may try different settings to see the impact onto the gamut; but yes, I have seen variations to this extend in other cases that real world profiles measured by mayself are smaller than manufacturer profiles, and yes - I would accept the black level as measured.

What type of ink are you using - refill or 3rd party or Epson ?

- As explained before - more colors on your patch sheet will not change the overall gamut, and you can run the opt. process several times if you really want to - e.g. for skin tones and B/W prints. It will incrementally improve the profile accuracy but as long as you are using the perceptual rendering intent colors will get quite some shift and adjustment anyway. The situation is different if you really want to print exact Pantone colors or other in the abs. colorimetrical rendering mode you need more color patches, but such situation gets you over the intended use for the i1Studio anyway.
I don't think there are deficiencies with the i1Studio, there are limitations, e.g. tolerances by the reading /handling process and device tolerances and functional restrictions of the software, but the package overall delivers usable profiles to my experience.
Please be aware that there is one limitation with the i1Studio, the spectro reads data without any activation of optical brighteners in the paper, some have none, other papers lots of those, and that has a (small) impact onto the gamut - there are differences in the lighter color ranges , not really much , but the profile would otherwise try to compensate the impact of these opt. brighteners to a degree, i1Studio profiles don't support that , i1Profiler profiles can do that, that is an option for the profile generation in the software.

And a last personal word - I would trust your actual profile more than an Epson profile.....

Hi, Ink Stained, yes I use epson ink in the scp-600. and when I print the patches sheet from i1studio software, I chose the type of paper, the resolution, and high speed. Can’t chose relative or perceptual.
my objective is to print photos as close as I can from my monitor. (Eizo cs2730). Also I realize I can have better results with aD55 calibration, instead of a D65 calibration.

And thank you for your reply, I didn’t know how a personal profile compares with a epson or ilford profile looks like. And if i1studio is ok, I’ll continue doing profiles.

I also print in some Carson and hahnemuhole papers, (Matt and baryta) so before I spend paper and ink, want to be sure it is worth the “waste” to do my own profiles.

why do you say you trust more in my profile than in epson profile? Want to learn.

thank you again for your help.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

my objective is to print photos as close as I can from my monitor. (Eizo cs2730)

This is quite a complex subject overall - the monitor and the printer are not connected to each other, there are various issues to consider

- the monitor should be calibrated in the first place

- the monitor and the printer have a very different contrast range - a monitor could come with a range of 1000:1 which equals 10 f-stops; this looks very different with a printer - you may have luminance rante from 100% (or 95% for the blank paper) to 50% to 25% to 12% on a good matte paper - that's 3 f-stops, you may get better darks on glossy paper with a luminance of 6% or even 3%, that's 2 more f-stops - so a total of 5 f-stops maximum, a printer never can reach a similar contrast range as a monitor.

- The gamuts of a monitor and a printer are not the same - they don't overlap completely, the gamut of a good monitor can be bigger than a printer gamut - you can see some of that with the soft proof mode of Photoshop.

- The viewing brightness of an image on a screen is typically higher than the brightness on a printed sheet of paper, you are most likely not using a norm light box to control your printouts. It is typically recommended to lower the monitor brightness to reduce this brightness gap.

And when you keep all this in mind you can compare a print with an image on your monitor.

why do you say you trust more in my profile than in epson profile?

I'm doing quite a lot of testing with inks and papers and have compared them in some cases with Epson or Canon profiles, they never matched, some were pretty close and others far apart.

Do your own profiles, they are o.k. and usable and consistent within the contraints mentioned above for an entry level profiling package. If you want to dive deeper into profiling don't look for the Datacolor Spyderprint package - just forget it, but you may have a look to a freeware package 'ArgyllCMS'; there are members in the forum here who can help you with it. Just search for it.

I somewhere read here in the forum recently that you may be able to reduce the patch sheet printouts to half - printing eff. on A5 instead of A4 and using a ruler to guide the spectro for the stripe scanning mode. It may require a little bit of exercise for the correct and equal speed.

 

[ManuelGoico]

Thank You Very Much, Ink Stained. I have the monitor calibrated and have a "Grafilite2" to evaluate my prints. I was reading a lot before buying i1Studio. I used to have a black and white laboratory at home, and when I bought my first digital reflex, forgot about developing and print. 3 years ago I bought the Epson SCP600 and felt in love again with printing. I have to keep learning, because there are some aspect that aren't easy lo learn or find information about them.
Thank you for your reply, I found the profile that I do for the epson premium semigloss is better than the original, now I have more blues... But in the traditional photo paper I have different greens that in the original profile.

I asked in my photo store and they told me that for my printer the i1studio was the option, the ipro3 was way too much for me...
So I'll keep doing profiles and printing. I'll look into ArgyIICMS, didn't know about it.
One question I can't find response is how do you have to calibrate your monitor, if you want to evaluate prints that are going to be expose under 2700Kelvin.
Thanks again
Manu

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

One question I can't find response is how do you have to calibrate your monitor, if you want to evaluate prints that are going to be expose under 2700Kelvin.

- below 2700K - that's candlelight - I don't know if monitor calibration tools would reach that far down, or you just change the white balance of your image such that you get a pleasing result.

 

[Artur5]

Thank You Very Much, Ink Stained. I have the monitor calibrated and have a "Grafilite2" to evaluate my prints. I was reading a lot before buying i1Studio. I used to have a black and white laboratory at home, and when I bought my first digital reflex, forgot about developing and print. 3 years ago I bought the Epson SCP600 and felt in love again with printing. I have to keep learning, because there are some aspect that aren't easy lo learn or find information about them.
Thank you for your reply, I found the profile that I do for the epson premium semigloss is better than the original, now I have more blues... But in the traditional photo paper I have different greens that in the original profile.

I asked in my photo store and they told me that for my printer the i1studio was the option, the ipro3 was way too much for me...
So I'll keep doing profiles and printing. I'll look into ArgyIICMS, didn't know about it.
One question I can't find response is how do you have to calibrate your monitor, if you want to evaluate prints that are going to be expose under 2700Kelvin.
Thanks again
Manu

To compare the prints side to side with the image on screen, ideally you should use your normalized light ( the Grafilite lamp ) and the white point in the profile of the monitor should match the fluorescent tube of the lamp, which is D50 in the original Grafilite Mk I. Maybe the tube of the version II is slightly different ( If it were D55, then profile the monitor with a white point of 5500K).
For everyday use of the monitor you can switch to another profile with the white point setting that your prefer ( 6500K or whatever).
Regards.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I wouldn't go too far with those comparisons - monitor vs. printer - both are output devices with their own characteristics and performance specifications unless you are working in a commercial environment - fashion - advertising - printing which has its own requirements for color confidence. If you got that much in detail trying to replicate 'correct' colors you would need to start already at the camera and its color rendering, the white point of the studio flash etc.