Canon Color Management Tool

[Emulator]

I have down loaded the Canon Color Management tool and tried it out on my Pro9000 ll. It operated in conjunction with my ColorMunki Photo and produced 3 pages of test charts with 45 patches per page on A4 (135 colour patches). These are read by the CM and create a printer specific profile for the various Canon papers. I think it should work equally well on any paper. So this is another profiler tool to play with!! Not that many patches but, none the less potentially useful. It worked smoothly enough, but I have yet to evaluate the profile produced.

The Canon download site lists it as follows:-
"3.Color Management Tool Pro Ver. 3.2.5 (Windows 8/8 x64/7/7 x64/Vista/Vista64/XP)
File version: 3.2.5
Operating system(s): Windows 8, Windows 8 (x64), Windows 7, Windows 7 (x64), Windows Vista, Windows Vista (x64), Windows XP
Language(s): English
DescriptionOptional) This software is a color management program that helps to colour profile your printer. Additionally it helps to create ICC profiles for your specialist paper. You will require a compatible spectrophotometer."

There is also a Mac version.

The usage description:-
"You can create an ICC profile with Color Management Tool Pro.
For users who require even higher color precision, the Pro-1 series and the Pro9500 Mark ll series allow you to perform printer calibrations that minimize variations in color reproduction when the enviroment is changed or as time elapses and differences in color reproduction when multiple printers are used. You can get more stable results by calibrating the printer before you create the ICC profile."

 

[Emulator]

I spent a short time doing a web search for Canon CMT problems, but only came across jtoolman's other questions and answers. No other stated colour problems.

Examining the profile I produced shows quite a good overall structure (first image), but there are some nasty indentations in the upper surface and and also particularly in the lower surface, second and third images, so I think there must be something wrong in the implementation. You really have to manipulate the image rotation to see the indentations properly.

 

[Emulator]

Pondering over the problem, two facts occurred to me. I am using IS inks and I doubt that jtoolman is using OEM inks either. Second point is the generated profile size is 456KB, normal basic paper related Canon profiles are 322KB. ColorMunki profiles are typically 2400KB. ArgyllCMS 1.6.1 profiles are around 1233KB.

Has Canon taken a short cut in generating Canon CMT profiles by leaving out ink data, assuming that users are using OEM ink? If so I wonder why????

 

[jtoolman]

Oh but I was using OEM inks. Remember I did this on my new Canon PRO-100 for which I have already created two custom profiles that are better then the canned ones.
I was figuring on trying the Canon tool to see whether I could improve on what I had already done with the Colormunki and the CM software.

 

[mikling]

After 4 years of advanced calculus at the University level, I still fail to grasp how 135 data points can create a 3D surface map that can show incongruities with holes on the surface
To my mind this is simply not possible on a 10/9 color printer engine. If you knew where to look for the holes and roughness, that might be possible to some degree. You simply cannot create more detail when less is captured. It's like having a 1 megapixel sensor uprezzing to a 12 megapixel image. It's is still only a 1 megapixel worth of data. All the extra pixels are estimates and guesses.
Remember that that there are different types of profiles. Some profiles, use defined functions that track data points and some are simply tables, some data structures are padded and some not. That might explain the variance in size. Then again we don't know if the viewer has a problem. There are a lot of assumptions in the math of creating profiles. Only Canon and Xrite engineers will know what is happening and why the results are what they show, Graeme Hill should be consulted and perhaps he can explain the assumptions and science of what is done.

There are a lot of assumptions and guesses by the math in creating profiles... each time a new idea of how it can be done better, new software is born. It becomes obvious that the calculations of how to "shape" it is not definitive but some algorithm to shape it closer evolves. These algorithms can possibly run into non linear or odd situations not expected and maybe this is what the CMT too has run into.

it's outta my league as I fear running into a technician's dilemna. The tool he uses is the absolute truth because he does not understand the tool and the ideas behind it but trusts wholly in it.

For example, after uprezzing the 1 megapixel image and giving it to a layperson who knows nothing about uprezzing, they might indicate that it was in fact a 12 megapixel image that was captured because its size indicates such.
.

 

[Emulator]

hi jtoolman, Oh well that knocks that idea on the head, but I still suspect Canon may include standard OEM ink data in the printer eeprom and leave it out of the individual profiles, it gives economy in the size of profiles.

A second thought is that although the blurb suggests that Canon CMT is for all the Pro printers, it may have been modified in the updates, such that is now really only suitable for the pigment ink printers. Have you tried it on a pigment printer? I don't have one.

mikling, I know what you mean. I have never had a ColorMunki profile with "indentations" but they certainly are present in the Canon CMT profile. They are also illustrated in the ColorThink video on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eHx6LX9BRQ