i1 Studio vs. Datacolor Spyder Print Profile comparisons

[Mike Earussi]

I own the Spyder 3 and find the strip reading totally useless as it's prone to constant misreadings. I now only use the single patch method, which is very slow, but it is also fairly reliable.

The Spyder can only read some papers accurately enough to create a usable profile, specifically very smooth papers like flat matte, smooth glossy and fine luster. Anything with a pronounced texture and you will get a misreading--it's especially bad with glossy canvas.

BTW, no one in the U.S. ever recommends Spyder, they all prefer the i1 instead. Spyder's customer service in the U.S. is not very good either.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm sorry for not being clear enough, the gamut defines the range of colors you can print with the given printer/driver settings/inks/papers, any color outside the gamut is not printable. The gamut display does not tell you how input colors are mapped to the ouput colors via the profile data, so yes - these internals can indeed be different and would require some more sophisticated tools to look into the table data , the different rendering intents describe the rules how colors are transitioned from inside to outside the gamut. The gray axis is very much in the middle of the gamut volume but you still can get different lightness values depending on the settings - BPC on/off + rendering intent. So even if you have the same gamut the input to output color mapping inside can be different. Colorvision has a display option to show these input to output vectors in the color space but this display mode is overall not very helpful for a more detailed analysis. ColorThink by Chromix offers something like that as well but is barely better, and you have to pay for that software.

We did some profile forensics but did not do a complete comparison - Spyder vs. i1Studio. I only can tell you this that we did not get any signficant deviations between i1 and Spyder gamuts - as long as the scanning did not create erratic readings. So I only can repeat the advise by Datacolor to use Spyder profiles only with the saturation rendering intent - w/o BPC. Color prints look alike colorwise, the only perceivable difference is the slight lightness increase of the Spyder profiel vs. the i1 profile - which you only can see if you directly compare prints with different profiles as we did. Robert is happy with the Spyder profiles - the lightness increase beyond the level the BPC option gives you helps a little bit to improve the contrast/detail definition in shadow areas. But there are other ways as well to do such adjustments in Photoshop or else prior to printing.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I own the Spyder 3 and find the strip reading totally useless as it's prone to constant misreadings. I now only use the single patch method, which is very slow, but it is also fairly reliable.

o.k. - you are apparently as well a victim of these stripe reading errors and the single patch mode is pretty slow.
You are addressing another issue - how the sensor handles papers with a gloss effect on the surface. This issue is not related to scanning errors but the construction of the sensor hardware - i1 is using a standardized setup of 0/45 deg - the illumination happens via a ring mirror and the light hits the paper under 45 deg. The actual sensor is positioned above and reads the the reflecting light under 0 deg. I'm not familiar how Datacolor is doing it. But yes, there are a few papers which the i1Pro spectro cannot handle either very well either, papers of the Lustre type as I have seen so far. But that's quite a different subject.


Edit:

 

[stratman]

Thread from a couple years ago:

You know what the problem is with SpyderPrint?

 

[stratman]

Spyder vs. i1Studio

Datacolor calls it's SpyderPrint unit a "spectrocoloimeter" while X-rite calls the i1Studio a "spectrophotometer'.

Are we comparing apples to apples or is there a difference in the units in how color is measured, the number of filters used, etc?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

yes, there are differences between the instruments but they cannot explain the erratic readings in stripe mode and have no impact onto the way the color mapping tables are calculated - including the substitute for the BPC option.

Thread from a couple years ago:

You know what the problem is with SpyderPrint?

This thread shows the same problems with erractic readings in stripe mode , about nothing seems to have improved since then. Robert told me that he does not plan to invest into another profiling package at this time, he is not doing that many profiles to justify that, and he is happy with the current profiles he got - after all our tests and investigation.
And I offered him - in case of need - to run an i1 profile for him.
But I would not recommend the SpyderPrint package at this time for anybody who plans to buy a new package.

 

[vmw]

Color prints look alike colorwise, the only perceivable difference is the slight lightness increase

Thank you for your explanations. It is no clear for me. The difference is for example comparable to the difference one gets when printing with or without BPC.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

- Datacolor has implemented a functionality which resembles the black point compensation but with a stronger effect
- you cannot turn off this function
- you are supposed to use the saturation rendering intent with BPC off which implies that the
other rendering intents and options are not available to you anymore
- the issues with erratic target scans are not resolved and create a risk that you create pretty useless profiles
- lots of recommendations and guides etc - 'how to print with Photoshop' - setttings - rendering
intent - BPC - etc are not applicable to Spyder profiles
- Datacolor/SpyderPrint offers lots of additional adjustments and tweaks to their profiles no other profiling software does
- If you can overcome these issues a Datacolor profile can give you a pleasing print nevertheless

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Let me put it this way - Datacolor has created their own profiling biotop deviating from the industry standard definitions, they have implemented a kind of stronger black point compensation and offer you a range of adjustments for your profiles - look to the advanced profile editing options further down in this test report at the screen 'SpyderProof Edit'
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/spyder3print-sr-spyderprint-review/
And there are even more adjustment options with the latest software version.
Most of such changes will modify a profile that it won't fit anymore into any of the standardized rendering intents.
I won't exclude that you will get some pleasing prints this way but it will get you into conflicts if you are used to use profiles created with other profiling software or use such software yourself.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I had some recent contact with Robert about issues with Spyder/Datacolor profiles and their use in LR and PS, prints and softproofs look different in both programs. This let us go back to the issues and findings about 18 months ago with the detailed data in this thread above.

To make a long story short

- Datacolor advises the user to use the rendering intent 'saturation' in PS , with black point compensation turned off

https://www.datacolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Print-with-ICC-in-PS.pdf

You find it on page 3 at the top left in this document, Datacolor does not give you any alternative, explanation or other option.

Datacolor advises Lightroom users to use the perceptive rendering intent which is conflict to the above statement, and Datacolor blaims Adobe for that - ' LR does not offer a saturation rendering intent'. You find this on page 3 in this (German) document

https://www.datacolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Drucken-mit-ICC-in-LR.pdf
(I don't know if an English corresponding document exists)

'Zum Schluss setzt man die „Renderpriorität“ auf „Perzeptiv“ und klickt danach auf „Drucken...“. Im Gegensatz zu Adobe Photoshop ist im ProgrammAdobe Lightroom die Renderpriorität „Sättigung“ leider nicht verfügbar. '

The evaluation from last year shows that you cannot use the perceptive rendering intent correctly with a Spyder profile since BPC is applied effectively a second time (it is always on with the perceptive mode) but Datacolor advises LR users to do so nevertheless - your image get a wrong lightness in the soft proof mode and prints as well look different to prints with the same icm-profile when printed from PS.

What a stupidity - Datacolor contradicts itself and rather should tell their users that they cannot correctly print from Lightroom with a Spyder icc-profile, and softproofing does not work either for the same reason. I'm afraid that only a small number of Spyder profile users together with LR is aware of this problem since Datacolor is very diffuse with their explanations.

(SpyderPrint allows you to create artistic profiles - similar to the one with a hole from last year , this is a new creation with SpyderPrint - with two holes in the gamut volume this time - all surfaces and gamut edges are smooth so what is the problem ? This is a feature you won't get from any other profiling package - I cannot imagine that i1Studio/ColorMunki could deliver something like that - you get this feature for free with a SpyderPrint package)