[Tool] ChromIQ – a macOS and Windows GUI for ArgyllCMS printer profiling (v3.9.0)

[pkk]

Here is what Claude concluded:

▎ Hi,
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▎ Thanks for sending the two extra sets — they actually told me exactly what's going on, and the news is good: there's nothing wrong with your i1Pro, your ColorMunki, or your copy of the software. The same setup made your two excellent profiles, generated these charts correctly, and built every profile I tested without a single complaint. A broken instrument or a corrupted install can't give you perfect results part of the time — so we can take "corrupted Argyll" off the table completely. You're in good shape; we just need to pin down one step.
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▎ Here's the key thing I learned, and it explains why your rebuild attempts didn't help: your bad profiles aren't all failing for the same reason. There are actually two different problems mixed together — and they need two different fixes. That's almost certainly why my earlier advice didn't match what you were seeing on screen.
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▎ Problem #1 — the profile was never rebuilt from the final reading.
▎ This was the NatMatteV2 one I looked at first. Your measurement of that chart was genuinely great. The trouble was that the profile file sitting next to it was an older, left-over profile that didn't match that reading — it was never rebuilt after the final measurement. So the profile and the measurement disagreed, and a mismatched profile prints badly even when the reading underneath it is perfect. For that type, simply rebuilding the profile from the measurement fixes it — which is exactly what I did, and it came out excellent.
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▎ Problem #2 — the measurement itself has a few bad readings in it.
▎ This is what's happening with the two new charts (the Epson SemiMatte and the Pro1000 Gloss). And this is the important part: for these, rebuilding can't fix them — and that's not your fault at all. When I rebuild a profile, I'm building it from the measurement file. If that measurement has mistakes baked into it, every profile I build from it inherits those same mistakes. So you did everything right when you tried to rebuild — there was just nothing good to rebuild from. That's why it felt like hitting a wall.
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▎ What "bad readings" actually means here — and why it's so clearly a reading issue and not a paper or printer issue: in the Epson chart, a patch that was printed as a dark grey got recorded by the meter as pure paper-white. Another dark-grey patch was recorded as near-black. A dark blue came back logged as a light green. None of those are physically possible for a real patch on paper — the meter simply captured the wrong spot during the scan. That's a classic strip-reading hiccup, where the instrument briefly loses its place as you draw a strip through it. (It also explains why your ColorMunki struggled too — both meters read by dragging strips, so they're both prone to the same kind of slip. And it's why X-Rite's diagnostic passed: that test checks the optics, not how a strip glides across them.)
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▎ The good news is how contained it is:
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▎ - The Pro1000 / Gloss chart is almost perfect. Out of the whole chart, only a handful of patches are off — and five of them are in a single strip. Carefully re-reading mainly that one strip should rescue the whole profile. The software lets you re-read individual strips, so you don't have to start over.
▎ - The Epson / SemiMatte chart had a rougher scan — the slips are sprinkled across many strips, so this one is best re-measured from the top. It's not that the chart is bad; that particular reading session just didn't go cleanly.
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▎ So here's the simple game plan going forward:
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▎ 1. Re-measure the two charts above (full re-scan for the Epson; mostly just the one strip for the Pro1000). Re-measuring — not rebuilding — is the fix whenever the reading itself has slips.
▎ 2. Then build the profile from that fresh reading. Reading a chart and building the profile are two separate steps on purpose (so you can set your profile options first), so the last thing to do after any measurement is click Build Profile to make a new profile from that reading. That guarantees the profile always matches what you just measured — and avoids the Problem #1 situation entirely.
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▎ One more thing from the earlier round: I already rebuilt a corrected version of your NatMatteV2 profile from your (good) measurement of it — it self-checks beautifully, far better than the leftover one you had. Make sure you're using that corrected file rather than the original, and you should see that paper come right in line with your FineArtMatte result.
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▎ A few tips to keep strip-reads clean (these alone usually end the random failures):
▎ - Re-calibrate the i1Pro on its white tile right before you start reading a chart.
▎ - Pull each strip through at a slow, steady pace — rushing or uneven speed is the #1 cause of a slip.
▎ - Keep the chart flat against the backing board and make sure the ruler/guide is seated firmly so it can't shift mid-strip.
▎ - On satin or semi-matte papers, watch for sheen — it can occasionally confuse the meter's sense of where one patch ends and the next begins.
▎ - If a strip beeps oddly, re-reads, or just feels off, re-do that one strip on the spot. A few seconds then saves a whole bad profile later.
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▎ Bottom line: your gear is fine, and the "either great or terrible, nothing in between" pattern makes total sense now. The great ones were built fresh from a clean reading. The bad ones were either a leftover profile that never got rebuilt, or a scan with a few slips in it. Get one clean reading, build from that, and you'll get the great result every time.
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▎ Happy to look at any future ones if you're ever unsure — but I think you've got it from here.
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▎ Thanks again for the detailed files; they made this easy to track down.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll be working on new measurements.