i1 Profiler or basICColor 5 for monitor calibration?

[W. Fisher]

Having issues with the i1 Display Pro (spectrometer) and its i1 Profiler software. Screen isn't matching the prints (Print profiles made with i1 PhotoPro 2 head.).

Some things aren't clear to me in the i1 Profiler Contrast Ratio settings with the options: Native. ICC Ratio 1:247, Black point. Etc. I suspect why my contrast is less on the print than the monitor (Print blacks are bunched up over what the monitor shows). Lum. is 80 cd. for prints and D50 V2, but the Contrast Ratio stuff is huh?.

So I download the trial of basICColor 5 and it does seem a lot easier to use with the i1 Display Pro head. Reviews seem good or better than the i1 Profiler too. But two of the 5 calibration selections I made with it show up with a big red "X" vs. the other 3 that are a good green to go check mark. I guess the notebook needs to be setup in its Advanced Mode to get rid of the red X marks?

Anyone use basICColor 5 have any hints as to how to get rid of the red "X" mark (i.e. A bad profile made with a high Delta e.)? This is a 14 day trial version so don't want to buy it for $119, hence no support.

i1 Profiler really isn't showing me a crummy profile made from it, but basICColor 5 seems to catch that something is screwy somewhere (Especially the dark cyan color?). Hence, my prints may never be a good match if I don't get a better handle on what is up with the monitor calibration.

Thanks.

Fisher

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You are raising various questions in your entry, let me comment on some of those.
- A monitor is as much an output device as a printer, and they don't know of each other, you cannot expect the printer to present the colors as they appear on the screen, you could turn that point around and request that the monitor shows the colors as printed. Both devices can handle a range of colors as they are showing, their color space or gamut, they overlap to a wide degree but not completely, there are colors you cannot print with the saturation as on the screen, and there are colors from the printer you cannot display as such. The contrast range of a monitor is typically higher than print output, and the brightness is higher which creates another look. If you would want to compare them you would need to look under the same light/brightness conditions to the screen and on the paper, that's done with light boxes with a lamp creating a kind of standardized light output, spectrum, color temperature.
Notebook displays are difficult if not impossible to calibrate reasonably , contrast , color saturation depend on the angle under which you look onto the screen, and the black level is typically not very good. I would recommend to attach a suitable monitor, suitable for photo work, to the notebook, and calibrate that one.

Software packages react differently to out of range error conditions, one gives an error notice , the other may try to compensate that.

I don't think that another pretty expensive software package is the remedy for that, you as well could look to the Color Munki monitor tool which people rate quite positively.
Or you could use a piece of software like Powerstrip with would allow you to easily adjust the screen output
to the print output as a visual process - (within the limits above) that would allow you to be quite close with the actions in your photo editor to the print output, the i1Profiler package should create profiles without much reason to complain about.
But much better would be a calibrated monitor, and then with Photoshop you can use the proof function which needs to use the printer profile to show you how the print output would look.