|
Articles and Reviews
|
Home >> Photography >> Digital GretagMacbeth
Eye-One Display and Eye-One Photo
The calibration products meant for professional printers and graphic houses cost dearly with most costing well into the several thousands of dollars for a calibration package and some going into the five figures for a whole suite of hardware and software products. Some professional photographers and graphic artists regard this as a cost of doing business and do not balk at the large capital outlay; however, not all photographers are so well-heeled, that they can afford five-figure calibration options and only the richest of amateur photographers can even glance at such products. A company offering a good calibration package, with no frills and modest cost could do very well for this particular segment of the market. ColorVision is one company that competes in the entry level, of which I have bought some basic calibration and profiling packages. However, ColorVision is not the only game in town and while favored amongst many budding digital photographers, a company once known only amongst the high-end color management crowd is now making aggressive moves into the entry to mid-level market. GretagMacbeth figures prominently in the higher end world of color calibration products with the company seeming to hold top position in the professional pre-press, press and graphics world among others. GretagMacbeth offers a wide range of products, but the focus here is on their Eye-One Photo package. The Eye-One Photo package costs $1500 US, which is significantly more than the basic ColorVision products I have. Are they comparable? Is ColorVision a giant killer or does that extra money for the Eye-One offer meaningful improvements worth the while of a professional and/or serious amateur photographer working in the digital darkroom? Let’s find out, but first some background information on color management and GretagMacbeth. Also, the modus operandi of this review will be to describe the Eye-One Display and Photo package and what they offer on their own merits and then to do direct comparisons to my ColorVision products on a CRT with supplemental considerations for LCD panels. This review was made possible by a manufacturer loan of the product. If you would like to skip the introduction to color management and go straight to the Eye-One review, click here. What is Color Management? Color is all around us and unless you are color blind, you take it for granted. With color photography so dominant in the world, seeing a B&W photo is now a quaint experience. But what is color about? If you remember high school science, you will recall that color is the visible portion of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. Book-marking the visible spectrum on the low frequency side are radio waves and on the high frequency side are such nasties such as x-rays and gamma radiation (yeah, the stuff that turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk, but comic books aside, real gamma rays kill). Within the color spectrum, the low side starts with red tones and as you move up higher in frequency, you reach the blue and violet tones. Beyond these are ultra-violet radiation, x-rays and gamma rays. How we see color has to do with light entering the eye and hitting receptors at the back of the eye that then create an electrical signal to the brain. The brain interprets the electrical signals into what we call color, or technically the hues of the light based upon the light’s wave lengths. To add some order to color, a body called the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage, or International Commission on Illumination (CIE) established standards based on how the human eye sees colors. There are seven divisions within CIE and the first deals with vision and color. To quote from the CIE web site, Division One seeks:
CIE developed the familiar upside down, but slightly curved, horseshoe shaped color space (CIEXYZ) that is often used in articles discussing color management. Without getting into arcane technicalities, I will generalize to a horrible degree and explain that this horseshow shaped color space is based on what the human eye can see and was first published way back in 1931. However, in the 1970s a new mathematical model of color space was developed called L*a*b* (Lab or CIELAB). Lab is a more three-dimensional space than the old inverted horseshoe. CIEXYZ and CIELAB images below courtesy of GretagMacbeth
The advent of digital editing and capture has made color and its management very important. Prior to there being set standards that all manufacturers and vendors could work with, devices did not have profiles that indicated how the device would interpret color, e.g. scanning a piece of film and then working on it in Photoshop pre version 5 probably led to a crap shoot in terms of how accurate the colors would be. If the scanner rendered colors one way, the monitor another, and then finally the printer another way, what do you end up with but a cacophony of colors that may be totally off base from what you originally expected. Thus in 1993, a new organization called the International Color Consortium (ICC) was created to establish standards for vendors and users of color devices, such as scanners, monitors and printers and their respective calibration devices. The ICC used the standards established by CIE to create the new standards. The whole point is to have a point of reference so that one device can communicate with another to ensure consistency in a managed system. The devices do so with ICC profiles attached to the devices’ software and can be accessed by an ICC compliant OS or software application (like Photoshop) so that there is complete system-wide communication of the ICC standards. Mac users enjoyed ICC compliance for several years before PC users and it was not until Windows 98 that some kind of standard was established for the PC platform and really not until Windows 2000 and Win XP that PC users have had a system-wide color managed capability just as Mac users enjoyed with their Colorsync system. Note that PC users utilize profiles that end in the extension .icm whereas Mac users use profiles with .icc, but there is no difference to these profiles. The ICC profile tells the OS what kind of color space the device has or is capable of and by checking all the ICC profiles, a color managed system will ensure accuracy, or at the least the best rendering of color from those devices to work within the desired color space, e.g. Adobe RGB 1998 in Photoshop. It does so via mathematical equations to render the ICC information to CIE color spaces. It is obviously important to have the correct profile associated with the device and this is where many manufacturers cheap out and only provide generic profiles with their devices and why those very critical of color, go to great lengths to generate custom profiles for all of their devices. Having an ICC compliant color managed system was not always required because in the old days, professional printers operated in a closed-system that they knew all about and could modify to ensure accurate printing. With desktop publishing and the introduction of more affordable film scanners, the content creators were doing work usually done by professional labs and printers. Without a common standard of reference, work created by the photographer or artist and then sent to a printer could end up completely off base. Another consideration is that small shops or individual photographers usually worked within the RGB world because that is what most scanners are set for. Even an inkjet printer used for proofing is an RGB (red, green, blue) device whereas professional printers work within the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) world for color. Technically, an inkjet printer is a CMYK device, but the conversion from RGB to CMYK is taken care of by the printer’s driver, so no need to convert your image file to a CMYK in Photoshop beforehand. Having profiles allows RGB devices to be able to communicate with CMYK devices to produce an accurate print in a color managed environment.
For monitors, a colorimeter is used to measure the brightness, contrast and white point, or color temperature. A colorimeter is a device that generally uses three filters inside to simulate human vision. The measurements are calculated by the profiling software to create a new profile. Depending how critical your needs, you may want to re-calibrate every week, but most enthusiasts will likely be okay calibrating every month. The reason for regular calibration is that CRT monitors age and the output of the color guns decrease over time. Eventually, a CRT will not be able to output enough brightness to be used as a critical editing device. My experience with LCD panels is limited, so I cannot offer any comment on how long they will last for. Printers and other devices can be profiled by a spectrophotometer., a device similar to a colorimeter, but more precise because it measures discrete wavelengths of reflected or transmitted light measured in the nanometers (1 billionth of a meter). Why Color Management
Without that accuracy, a lot of time, energy and money can be wasted in trying to reconcile what the photographer or client signed off on to what the printer produces and then subsequently has to reprint because the colors did not match. What use to happen in the old days of film was that the photographer supplied an original piece of film along with a proof print of exactly how the print should reproduce. A lot less responsibility for the photographer so long as the original film (usually slide/chrome) had accurate colors (hence the popular use of Kodak Wratton filters in so many studios to modify light sources and their color temperature). Now with digital, whether from scanned film or original digital capture, most of the tweaking is done in Photoshop and while proof prints are still supplied to the printer for reference, often times, the digital files are sent solo. Without a properly color managed and calibrated system, the photographer/client has no idea if the printer will see the colors with any accuracy. Or rather, the printer is fully calibrated and color managed, but the photographer is not. The onus is now falling on the photographer to provide accurate color managed digital files to the printer and thus, calibration hardware and software are becoming very important tools for the photographer to invest in. Amateur photographers scanning and printing in their own closed system will still benefit from an investment in good profiling and calibration tools. The question is, which company’s product to invest in? Background into GretagMacbeth GretagMacbeth is a publicly traded Swiss company (Swiss Stock Exchange) with significant German, Italian and American subsidiaries that produce precision color management and calibration products (both hardware and software). Anything having to do with color and you will find GretagMacbeth having a presence, from textiles, to graphics, to ink formulation, GretagMacbeth prides itself on being able to provide one-shop shopping for customers seeking color management products. There are other companies that compete against GretagMacbeth in software (Monaco, Heidelberg, Fuji, ICS, Kodak) and hardware (X-Rite), but few compete in terms of providing full software and hardware solutions. ColorVision and Colorblind provide both, but I have not heard either being a factor with the high-end world of professional press and pre-press clients. I asked a contact at Creo, a world leader in digital press products and service what he knew about GretagMacbeth and he indicated that the company has an excellent reputation in the industry. Creo uses various GretagMacbeth products for their own use (including the spectrophotometer under review here) in creating custom profiles for their proofing printers. On the Nikon D1scussion list, the topic of monitor and color calibration pops up every so often (coincidentally, during this review period) and the usual calibration companies pop up such as ColorVision, Monaco, as well proprietary calibration devices included with certain LaCie and Sony Artisan monitors, but GretagMacbeth’s Eye-One seems to come up as being regarded as the best of the lot by a few of the D1scussion members. In discussions with a representative from GretagMacbeth, I was advised that GretagMacbeth is actively pursuing the professional and enthusiast market with the Eye-One packages. Prior to the original Eye-One package coming to market about two-years ago, GretagMacbeth’s product line required a very large investment that could easily have surpassed $10,000 US. Realizing that few photographers could afford such sums, the Eye-One was developed to bring that same quality down to a more reasonable price scale with an easier user-interface.
$1500 may still seem expensive for many readers; however, in comparing the Eye-One Photo to similar suites from competitive companies, the Eye-One Photo is actually in the lower-middle range of the suites available. Some of these competitive suites are:
The Eye-One Photo is only a few hundred more than the ColorVision suite and considerably cheaper than the Monaco suite and what is really interesting is that the $3000 Monaco suite offers the same spectrophotometer as the Eye-One package. Monaco was primarily a software company, hence the need for it to include other companies’ hardware in their suites; however, they have recently been bought out the hardware maker, X-Rite, so now X-Rite will be a major competitor for hardware and software solutions. The beginning digital photographer is not likely going to be interested in spending $1500 or more for a color management suite and indeed, the beginning photographer may not have any color management beyond something very basic, such as Adobe Gamma. Eventually though, the beginner will progress to the point of actually needing to buy a dedicated hardware and software solution (at least this has been my own experience) and this is where GretagMacbeth is going head to head against ColorVision to market affordable colorimeters and profiling software. Many professional photographers utilize the ColorVision products that can be bought for under $500 US; however, the Eye-One Photo has the potential to provide superior custom profiles and is targeted for the large group of advanced amateur (or prosumer) and professional digital photographers. In this regard, the cost of the Eye-One Photo can be seen in more proper perspective and considering what you receive, a comparative bargain compared to other similar suites. It all sounds very good and certainly the Eye-One Photo package as delivered, seems quite substantial in content. Eye-One Display
The other kits available are the US $1500 Eye-One Photo, US $1595 Eye-One Beamer (for projectors) and US $2895 Eye-One Publish (for those working within the CMYK world). The colorimeter is a small oval shaped device, smaller than the typical mouse used for navigating through a computer desktop. The underside reveals an outer ring of soft felt-like rubber to protect the delicate surface of an LCD panel while an inner section surrounding the actual measuring circle is made up of tiny suction cups for use with CRT monitors. Very slick dual use implementation although the counterweight for holding the colorimeter when calibrating an LCD seems a bit small and lightweight, but we shall see how well it holds during actual use with an LCD. The very basic instructions that come with the Eye-One Display indicate installing the software first before plugging the colorimeter into a free USB port. Installing the software is quick and simple and after plugging in the colorimeter into the USB port. Windows XP recognized the new hardware and then proceeded to setup the software for it (ensure that you choose the option for XP to do this otherwise the colorimeter will not be recognized when the Eye-One software is opened). Running the Eye-One software is quite straightforward, but spending a few minutes watching and listening to the included Flash demonstration is worthwhile so that you can see beforehand how the software will prompt you towards a proper calibration. The step-by-step process of calibration will be detailed further down when I discuss the spectrophotometer from the Eye-One Photo kit.
The Eye-One Photo
The heart of the Photo kit is the spectrophotometer, which does it all, even being able to read ambient light, so that one can produce custom prints meant for display under a particular type of light. I am sure a gallery exhibition photographer and/or artist would have an interest in this feature, but it was not one that I tested since the spectrophotometer would need to be plugged into a computer to do the reading. A laptop would obviously be the best option to utilize the ambient reading feature off site. The Photo package comes complete with a number of accessories to get the job done with the spectrophotometer device. The spectrophotometer itself is larger than the typical computer mouse (kind of rat shaped, but in a good way), but that facilitates its multipurpose role with comfortable hand holding. A base plate is supplied for the spectrophotometer unit to rest in when not in use, but the base plate also has a dual role of being required when one calibrates the spectrophotometer unit during monitor and printer calibration phases. Two adapters are supplied for use with either a CRT or LCD monitor, the CRT holder with a suction cup and the LCD adapter with the same soft felt-like rubber on the underside as the Eye-One Display. The LCD adapter has a good-sized counterweight attached to it, indicating the larger and heavier aspects of the spectrophotometer versus the Eye-One Display colorimeter. Two other accessories are included for the RGB profiling stage. One is a guide ruler (not seen in the sample photo above) that ensures the spectrophotometer unit glides smoothly over only the line that you need to measure while the other is an individual patch measurement guide to allow you to measure only the very specific patch of a measuring chart. More on this aspect of the RGB profiling later on in this review. A measuring chart is also included in the kit, but I am not certain what purpose it serves, since the Eye-One Photo does not provide the ability to profile scanners (it is actually a feature of the Eye-One software, but not accessible with the Photo suite). A certificate signed off by a GretagMacbeth manager, Eye-One software, registration card, and brief manual round out the Eye-One Photo package in a nice box. Calibrating the Monitor Before calibrating the monitor, you should make sure that any current profile is taken out of the system startup, so that there are no conflicts with the new profile being created. E.g. if you have Adobe Gamma loader active, you need to go into your Startup folder and move it out of there so that the new profiling software can install its own profile loader.
As mentioned already, the Eye-One software is quite straightforward. The screens generally have three parts to them:
The first step of the calibration is to select the device desired. With the spectrophotometer plugged in, the Eye-One software will indicate that all the choices are available, but of course only the monitor and printer option will actually be available (you can upgrade to these packages if desired).
Click on the monitor choice and the screen changes to prompt you to choose either a CRT or LCD.
Next, you are prompted to calibrate the spectrophotometer by placing it in its base plate (or matte black surface for the Eye-One Display colorimeter). Calibration takes a few seconds and then you’re advised to continue on. You continue onto the next stage by clicking on an arrow under the Help section. A back arrow is also provided to allow you to step backwards during the calibration process.
You choose the basic profile you wish to calibrate for on the next screen. This includes the color temperature or White point you wish to set as well as the Gamma. For me, I find a White point setting of 6500 degrees Kelvin and a Gamma of 2.2 to be a superior match to what I receive from the custom profiled prints I used for evaluation. You may prefer to set a White point of 5000K, which is what most Mac users set with a corresponding gamma of 1.8.
The next screen prompts you to attach the colorimeter or spectrophotometer device to the monitor or LCD. A center location is preferred because that is the sweet spot of the monitor; however, you can actually place the measuring unit on just about any place of the monitor because the Eye-One software utilizes an almost full-screen view for the measurements. Only the top right corner of the monitor is not advised because there is a small window placed there for allowing you to mouse click for a new measurement.
Next up, you adjust the contrast according to the prompt and most users will likely see the contrast bumped up to 100%.
Following the contrast setting is the brightness adjustment and here you are required to set the initial setting to 0% and then bump it up to 50%, then to 75%, before fine tuning increments are prompted by the Eye-One software. The next stage is probably the most critical for monitor calibration and that is setting the White point or color temperature of the monitor. The White point process measures the output of each red, green and blue (RGB) gun in a CRT and LCD and provides a reference graph for you to match for proper a White point setting. If you don't believe how important it is to set an accurate White point, try adjusting your monitor to 6500K through the monitor's hardware settings without doing a calibration and adjusting the individual RGB output. You should notice that the monitor's default 6500K has little relation to a calibrated 6500K setting, being much more warmer than it actually is.
Starting with the color gun most distant from the ideal center location of the graph, you adjust the color gun output via your monitor’s hardware control. If your monitor does not allow for adjusting individual RGB output, then you need to select “RGB Presets” on the Eye-One screen and allow the software to determine what the White point is. A measurement will take place and as long as you are within 100 degrees of the desired White point, you will be okay, e.g. 6400 versus the ideal 6500. At this point, I highly recommend that you utilize a monitor that has individual RGB controls and thankfully, most current monitors, even budget ones, offer this feature. For me, I faced an interesting option for my 21-inch Sony E540 CRT monitor. Most monitors have but a single control per RGB gun to dial in the desired output, whereas mine has dual RGB gun controls, one set for brightness and one set for contrast. Instead of fussing about which ones to dial in, I ensure that brightness and contrast are dialed in equally. It’s an intriguing option to have available, but sometimes there can be too much of a good thing and I would have preferred a simple one-dial approach instead. I also have three steps for every number setting, e.g. 50/100 could be 50.33/100, or 50.66/100 before it hit 51/100. Once the white point has been set, the Eye-One software will create a new profile that you can rename and then have takeover as your system wide profile. That’s basically it to monitor calibration. Now, you may wonder why I chose to calibrate via the spectrophotometer instead of the Eye-One Display colorimeter. The colorimeter follows almost the same process as calibrating with the spectrophotometer unit; however, during the white point adjustment stage, I noticed the RGB graph indicators fluctuate quite wildly at times and despite getting close to the desired middle location when adjusting each RGB gun, I never saw the graph indicators settle down enough for me to move on with confidence. The explanation from GretagMacbeth is that the colorimeter is extremely precise and provides real time feedback from all the fluctuations in the monitor’s phosphors to create the millions of colors possible. I was also advised that these fluctuations are dependent on the monitor being calibrated so do keep in mind that this experience is relevant only for my particular CRT. The spectrophotometer provided a much more stable graph and did not fluctuate nearly as much as the colorimeter and thus I was quite confident I had a very good profile for the monitor – when I adjusted the color guns to reach the desired middle target, the indicators stayed still and did not continue to move wildly. As such, future references to monitor calibration with the Eye-One are specific to the ones I did with the spectrophotometer. Confirming the Monitor Profile To check and confirm that your newly created monitor profile has taken effect (if it wasn't already obvious by the end of the process), go through these steps (Windows based PCs). On your Desktop, right click on the mouse to bring up window you see below and select Properties.
Click on the Settings tab in the Display Properties window seen below, then click on the Advanced button at the bottom of this window.
The advanced monitor controls window will show up and here you want to click on the Color Management tab to obtain the view below. You will then see which profile is in effect for your monitor. In the example below, you can see a profile created by ColorVision OptiCAL and one created by the GretagMacbeth spectrophotometer.
Compared to Colorvision
I will note that ColorVision's OptiCAL with the Spyder Pro (the one the can calibrate both CRT and LCD) costs US $299 compared to the Eye-One Display at US $249; however, OptiCAL does provide more user adjustable parameters than does the Eye-One Display. A more cost-conscious package of a CRT-only Spyder and OptiCAL software costs US $169 (prices from B&H). ColorVision OptiCAL software has two parts to the calibration process; the PreCAL adjusts the white point of the RGB guns first before the profiling of OptiCAL takes place whereas Eye-One adjusts the white point as the last step. In the end though, you still end up adjusting these three monitor hardware settings:
Both Eye-One and OptiCAL provide reference points for you to meet and this ensures a very simple and straightforward process for calibrating the monitor. Where Eye-One utilizes almost the whole monitor for the measurements, OptiCAL pops up a smaller window just large enough to cover the Spyder. Although you can move this window to anywhere on the desktop, it defaults to the center of the monitor because that is the recommended position for calibration. PreCAL also provides a graph to measure RGB output, as well as a specific numerical setting to try and match as closely as possible. I have no problems in meeting the graph and numerical settings; however, I have noticed one potentially big difference between what OptiCAL sets with my particular monitor and how Eye-One does it. In order for me to meet the default settings recommended by ColorVision, I need to adjust my red gun output very high during the PreCAL process, almost at maximum (99/100) in order to meet the recommended Contrast setting in OptiCAL. The need to increase the red gun output also requires an obvious boost in the green and blue guns.
One of the recommended numerical white point settings in PreCAL is to reach a figure between 85 and 95 points for the luminance. To reach the recommended OptiCAL Contrast setting, I need to output the RGB guns to reach at least 90 points. If I just shoot for the minimum value of 85, then my RGB output is less and this obviously means I am not hitting the recommended Contrast setting in OptiCAL, even with my monitor contrast setting adjusted to 100%. What does this all mean? Well, the end result in terms of monitor calibration are nearly identical from both Eye-One and OptiCAL, depending on which settings you calibrate for with OptiCAL. However, if you choose to always try and hit the recommended OptiCAL settings, you may be reducing the effective critical editing life of your monitor in that you may reach the limits of the red gun output before you really need to. Please note that I am not saying your monitor is going to die sooner, just that it’s life as a critical digital editing tool may not be as long as with the minimum PreCAL settings or with the Eye-One process. A monitor can go on for many years, even decades in non-critical applications, but for critical digital editing the effective life may be only three to five years depending on the quality of the monitor. However, you can certainly adjust the RGB output and see if you can obtain a reciprocal setting with a lower red gun output. Calibrating an LCD
I was still curious though about calibrating an LCD, so I called up my buddy Larry to schedule some time with his 19-inch Viewsonic. I brought over both the colorimeter and spectrophotometer incase the colorimeter became too fussy, as it was with my CRT. Calibrating an LCD is not that much different than with a CRT with the primary difference in letting the colorimeter lay flat against the screen instead of pushing down on it to engage the suction cups. The counterweight from the Eye-One Display though small, did the job to balance the weight of the colorimeter. I did have some concerns about accurate readings because with the colorimeter essentially dangling from above, a perfectly flat placement was difficult to achieve with the LCD standing straight up instead of at a slight angle. I also noticed the colorimeter swaying every time I lifted my hands off of the table as the vibration from that release of energy traveled through the table to the LCD, causing it to shake. Definitely not the same level of stability as my 60 lb CRT. With LCD panels, you want to try and lay the colorimeter as close to the center as possible to avoid light fall off. The Viewsonic LCD forced us to lay the colorimeter above dead center because the LCD’s menu options window pops up right in the center of the panel, and of course, we had to use the menu window to adjust RGB output. Another difference is that the Eye-One software did not prompt to adjust brightness and contrast, as it does for CRT calibration. This was curious; however, we got the calibration done and the Eye-One Display worked much better with the LCD than with my CRT. The white point adjustment was as easy to set as it was with the spectrophotometer and the CRT. After the calibration, we used a daylight temperature bulb to view and compare the test prints to the LCD view. The calibrated LCD showed the relative differences in the custom profiles, as accurately as my CRT, but the view was always much brighter than the actual print output. Compared to my CRT, which was pretty much bang on, the LCD was one to two stops brighter than the print. To provide some background for this round of testing, I copied the custom printer ICC profiles I created on my own system over to my friend's computer. The rationale being that the printer ICC profiles would produce the same print as I got at home using the same printer, as if it had been plugged into my friend's computer. Thus, all I had to do was just compare the test prints produced earlier to the soft proof view on Photoshop via the LCD. The results would seem to validate the general view that modestly priced LCD panels are not suitable for critical editing usage at this point in time given the discrepancy I witnessed with this test. There also seems to be something about an LCD's view that seems less precise in tonality and gradations of color; however, given my lack of experience with LCD panels, I am not prepared to close the door fully on them yet since the thought of going dual monitor capable is in the back of my mind and an LCD would be a great second, non-critical screen to use for menus and other applications. Printing Woes Monitor calibration is very important, the first critical step towards a properly calibrated system; however, it is not the end. Working in a fully featured digital darkroom requires a high-quality photo printer to be a part of the kit. For most enthusiasts and even a large number of professional photographers, the most cost effective and highest quality printers are inkjet units. You can select from dye-based ink printers or pigment based ink units. Most inkjet printers are dye-based, which provides a very pleasing and large color gamut to work with along with a number of paper options. Pigment-based printers are higher cost and have slightly less color gamut, but have the advantage of having much higher print life, estimated to be several decades higher than dye-base prints, with some even claiming centuries of life. No matter which one you choose, the whole point of monitor calibration is be able to “soft proof” the image on the monitor and expect the printer to produce what you see, the Holy Grail of the digital darkroom, as I like to put it J Most printer manufacturers provide stock profiles for their recommended papers (and usually they only recommend their papers for best results). How good are these stock profiles? Well, most would agree that they are pretty good and that a digital darkroom photographer could work with those stock printer profiles with only a properly calibrated monitor in the system. Unfortunately, this is not my situation. I have
made mention of Epson outsourcing the production of their inks for
their 1270/1280 dye-base printers to
The China ink prints, at the least, have a higher magenta cast to them than the Japan ink prints and in the past I have done manual adjustments of the color controls in the Epson printer driver screens to try and obtain a more neutral print. Although, I did not consider it a big deal at the time that Epson began the outsourcing of ink production, I do consider it a big deal now because of the wasted, time, effort and money in trying to obtain consistent prints. This
obviously means that the stock paper profiles that come with the
Epson 1270 are essentially worthless without the original Made in
The solution to this problem was to generate custom printer profiles when I bought the ColorVision products. At last the magenta cast was controlled and I was obtaining pretty consistent results from the different papers I profiled. Given the relatively affordable cost of the ColorVision suite, I thought this was good as it was going to get for me. More on that in the comparison section below, but first printer profiling with the Eye-One’s spectrophotometer. Eye-One Photo Printer Profiling
If you’re merely a middle class amateur, a very critical photographer, or a working professional, you will probably want something a little less extravagant, but no less precise in generating your custom printer profiles. Enter the Eye-One spectrophotometer, which uses the automation of your arm and a guide ruler to measure the color patches line by line. And incase you think less of this arm-powered spectrophotometer unit, remember that Creo, a world leader in digital press and pre-press hardware and software technologies, utilizes the same spectrophotometer under review here, to create profiles in-house for some of their expensive proofers. Of course the software Creo uses is a wee bit different since they do multiple profiles and then average them out for a final profile, something not possible with the Eye-One software (Creo will generously toss in a Spectroscan if you purchase one of their US $100,000 plus proofers though). The Eye-One printer profiling is as straightforward as calibrating a monitor. The software makes it easy and painless for you to create a custom profile by using the ruler guide to provide the spectrophotometers unit a straight path. You glide the spectrophotometers unit over the swatch of prints smoothly and if you did it either too slow, too fast or not very well at all, the Eye-One software will pop up a message advising you of the problem and you do it again. The basic process begins with you selecting the printer image in the Eye-One software. A calibration of the spectrophotometer is done, just as with the monitor calibration and off you go. The next screen comes up with the option to print off a test chart. Clicking on the print button brings up the OS’s printer window where you select the appropriate printer to profile. Here the Eye-One software does not provide any details, but common sense would dictate that you go into the printer’s driver window and select the appropriate paper and resolution settings. It is also important to ensure that the printer’s own ICM is not selected by choosing “No Color Adjustment”, the whole point after all is to ignore the printer’s own profiles. For example, in profiling Epson’s Premium Glossy paper, I select it from the list provided in the Epson printer driver. I click on the Advance option to go further into the printer driver to set the highest resolution of 1440 dpi, High Quality Half-toning, and ensure that High Speed is off. This is also where the “No Color Adjustment” option is selected. For papers not provided in the 1270’s driver list, I select the most appropriate choice, e.g. Epson Heavyweight Matte is selected for Epson’s Archival Matte and other matte papers and Epson Premium Glossy is selected for Epson Premium Semigloss or Premium Luster (my favorite, but out of supply during this review period).
After printing the test charts, pack up and do something else because you will want to give the prints at least a night to dry and most critical applications suggest 24 hours as appropriate. Once the prints are dry and ready to profile, fire up the Eye-One software again and go through past the test print stage. On the main screen of the Eye-One window, you will see an image of the test chart and prompts for you to measure line by line. Contrary to the sample photo I used to the show off the spectrophotometer at the beginning of this section, I measured the chart upside down so that the spectrophotometers unit did not risk marring the unmeasured lines - look at the top right of the screen shot below for what I mean. You will also learn how to angle the spectrophotometers unit a certain way so that it does not catch against the test print, especially as you measure towards the center lines.
As you measure each color line successfully, the image in the Eye-One window will change to reflect each successful measurement. This is where the Eye-One software will advise you of any errors in measuring the line and require you to do it again until it is satisfied with the measurement.
Once all of the lines have been measured, the next screen comes up that will take the measurements into consideration and generate a new custom profile. If during any part of the previous measuring process that you somehow missed some patches, Eye-One will advise you of this and give you the option of accepting the profile or going back and measuring only the specific color patches missed. I had this happen when I profiled Epson Heavyweight Matte and although Eye-One advised that it could still generate a good profile, I went back and measured the missing patches for a more accurate profile. What would be the point of accepting a compromised profile if you were seeking the highest accuracy possible with the hardware and software?
When measuring individual patches, a separate guide is used instead of the ruler guide. This smaller guide provides an opening just large enough to cover the individual color patch. I will mention here that the ambient light of your digital darkroom is not critical since the spectrophotometer has its own light source to light up and allow the unit to measure the color. I did all of my profiling during the day in the subdued lighting of my office with the blinds drawn. Only the monitor and a daylight temperature light bulb provided any form of illumination during the profiling process and neither was a factor. Once the profile has been generated, you can name it what you wish and it will be saved into the appropriate folder that Windows XP keeps all other ICC profiles. Total process probably takes about 10 minutes per print and for my testing I profiled five Epson papers (Heavyweight Matte, Archival Matte [now Enhanced Matte], Photo Glossy, Premium Glossy, and Premium Semigloss). How to Print with a Custom Profile Once you have created a custom printer profile (via Eye-One Photo or other suite), you need to access it and use it properly. The following will be how I print from Photoshop with my Epson 1270 printer. Under the main menu of File, select Print with Preview. This will bring up the window seen below.
In this window, you will see a small image representation of your file on the top left side. Below that is a Show More Options box, which should be checked off to reveal the color management options. Under Source Space, ensure the radio button for Document: Adobe RGB 1998 is marked - this is the most widely used color space amongst digital darkroom practitioners and is pretty much the industry standard due to its large color gamut. Under Print Space, use the drop down under Profile to find your custom printer profile. If you were just going to use the default printer profiles, you would choose Printer Color Management at the top of the long list of profiles. I use Perceptual for the Intent option below the Profile box and while other people recommend Relative Colorimetric, I saw almost no difference between it and Perceptual. The Perceptual or Colorimetric intent gets into some pretty esoteric color theory, and suffice to say I am not the right person to discuss the concept of Intent with any competency.
At the top right hand corner of the window, there is a Page Setup button, click on this to bring up the Page Setup window.
On the Page Setup window, click on Printer to select the appropriate unit and then click on Properties. This will bring up the Epson printer driver options.
From the Epson Properties window, click on Advanced to bring up a new window seen below.
The Advanced window allows you to select the appropriate paper, as well as resolution (I always print at 1440 dpi), High Quality Halftoning, and ensure that the High Speed option is off. Also on this window, ensure that under the Color Management side that "No Color Adjustment" is selected. If you do not do this then you will create a situation called double profiling, in that both the printer profile and your custom profile will be in effect and your colors will be grossly off on the final print (dark and muddy looking). Once you have made your selections, you click on Okay and then go through a process of closing all the windows that popped up as you navigated through to the printer driver. Back at the Print with Preview window in Photoshop, you will finally click on Print to send the job to the printer. If you selected the Print with Preview option in the Epson Properties window, another Epson window pops up to show you the image file. One way to ensure that you are actually using a custom profile to print is that in this window view, your image’s colors should look “wrong”. The screen shot below has two arrows pointing out the most obvious magenta casts. If this preview image looks “right” then that means the printer’s own profiles are being used and again, you risk double profiling.
The Results Well, I might as well give it away, but the custom profiles generated by Eye-One Photo ROCK! I used a PDI test image that is commonly used in the digital world that has a range of colors, color test targets, and skin tone samples. It is quite good to use as a test and was what I used during the ColorVision profiling sessions. You can see what it looks like in the Epson driver screen shot above. One measure of how good the profiles are is using Photoshop’s soft proofing feature. You access the soft proofing by these steps:
Once you have the new profile selected, you return to the main window and use Control Y to toggle between your default working space (Adobe 1998 for most users) and the custom printer profile. The more accurate your profile, the less difference there should be between the regular RGB view and profile view. You can open up a duplicate image window and have one in the Adobe RGB 1998 color space and the duplicate under your custom profile instead of toggling back and forth. How good are the Eye-One profiles compared to the Adobe 1998 color space view? So good that only a very subtle change is detected by my eyes and it has nothing to do with colorcasts or other deleterious effects. The subtle change is just a slight lightening of the custom profile view. Compared to the custom profiles generated by ColorVision’s ProfilerPLUS, there is no doubt that the Eye-One is a whole level further up in the color management food chain. In fact, I must profess to myself being a low-level student of color management and when I created the profiles with ColorVision’s ProfilerPLUS many months ago, I did not utilize Photoshop’s soft proofing feature to view those custom profiles. When I do now, I see a distinct magenta cast to the profile view compared to the Adobe 1998 view. The actual print output with the ColorVision profiles (with no magenta cast) have no corresponding relationship between the soft proofing view in Photoshop. This is not the case with the Eye-One profiles, as the print output matched the Photoshop soft proofing view. Prior to working with the Eye-One profiles, I had no point of reference for the ColorVision profiles except for the heavily magenta-cast Epson profiles and thus I accepted them as is and because “most” of the print output looked close enough, it seemed good enough. What seemed good enough is no longer acceptable and instead of having maybe 75 percent accuracy (likely less), I am seeing accuracy greater than 95 percent with the Eye-One profiles (my own subjective opinion). The skin tone samples in the test image are very challenging to print out with the proper color and tonality. The little black girl’s tone is especially difficult to get right and even the Eye-One prints reveal a slight posterization effect whereas the ColorVision prints never got it right and show a lot of posterization in the transition areas of subtle shadow to highlight. The light green coffee cup filled with chalk sticks near the upper left of the test print is also a challenge to get right and usually, my previous prints always came out over-saturated. The Eye-One prints were again far superior in print output. I could go one with other specific examples within the test print and I could even point out a few where the ColorVision prints were very close too, but there is no point.
Superficially, the ColorVision ProfilerPLUS process of creating a profile is not much different than with with the Eye-One Photo. A test target of color patches (seen at right) is printed out and then measured. However, the ColorVision ProfilerPLUS is a cost-effective option that foregoes the high precision of a spectrophotometer for that of a flatbed scanner. The profiles created by ColorVision ProfilerPLUS are only as good as your scanner is in scanning the test target accurately. The scanner I used for my ColorVision profiles is my low cost $200 Epson Perfection 1200, which is not going to be threatening the accuracy and fidelity of a US $45,000 Creo Eversmart Supreme anytime soon. The more appropriate comparison to have made for the Eye-One profiles would have been ones created with ColorVision’s own spectrophotometer equipped suite, the US $1129 Master Suite Spectro. I would expect the contest to be much more fair between these two products. To describe it another way (as I did to a skeptical friend), in the world of printer profiling I see the respective products in this fashion:
You get what you pay for and as I have now discovered $600 or so CAN for a color management suite is quite entry level with a requirement to spend between $1500 to $2500 CAN for a much higher quality suite. For the professional photographer working digitally, it’s the cost of doing business and I would not expect much quibbling since the working professional has tax considerations in play. For the prosumer or serious amateur market, the cost cannot be amortized over the life of the product as tax write offs, so the cost is out of pocket and it is quite significant. However, having experienced what a spectrophotometer-created printer profile can provide, I can no longer recommend a lessor product, such as the ColorVision ProfilerPLUS, despite its more affordable cost when bundled with the ColorVision Spyder and OptiCAL or PhotoCAL. If you cannot afford to spend over US $1000 you would be better off using the money buying a colorimeter only and then buying two or three custom-made profiles from professionals doing this for a living. $1500 US is about the same as a top quality zoom lens like a Nikon 17-35 f2.8, or a good D-SLR like the Canon 10D. There is an obvious lack of sex appeal when looking at and comparing such purchases, but it comes down to this, you can have all of the best photographic cameras and lenses, but if you have skimped on the color management side of things, all of that expensive gear will not provide you with any consistency from what you see on the monitor to what you expect from your prints. If there is no consistency then you are going to spend a lot of money wasting ink and paper trying to manually tweak a good looking and accurate print. At some point you will have to decide what your time is worth. Is it worth many hours sweating over an image, trying to edit it to perfection and not being to able obtain an accurate print, or would you rather spend a few seconds to just bring up a custom profile from a list and then printing with full confidence that what you will receive on paper is what you see on the monitor? An example of my past printing foibles below due to a lack of being color managed beyond Adobe Gamma.
Conclusion What can I say that has not already been said? In my limited experience with quality color management products, I have come much closer to the Holy Grail of creating a true WYSIWYG digital darkroom system; what you see is what you get. The monitor calibration aspects of the Eye-One packages indicate parity with ColorVision and given the similar costs for the colorimeters only, that is to be expected. If it were my money though, I would go whole hog for the Eye-One Photo straight off and not bother with the Eye-One Display; however, since GretagMacbeth includes a generous US $200 coupon towards an Eye-One upgrade, you will hardly lose anything at all in buying the Eye-One Display colorimeter first and then upgrading to the Eye-One Photo package. My confidence in editing an image and then producing a truly accurate print is very high thanks to the Eye-One Photo capabilities. Although very expensive for a mere photographic enthusiast, the Eye-One Photo is right in the middle of the pack between competitive products from ColorVision and the more expensive Monaco suites that include the same GretagMacbeth spectrophotometer that comes with the Eye-One Photo. And frankly, if the mighty Creo has no problem using the same GretagMacbeth spectrophotometer to create custom profiles, I don’t think you will either. As one informal comment from a Creo contact put it, “GretagMacbeth is as good as it gets for color management.” April 3, 2004 - I’ve had a few e-mails in the last little while asking me about ColorVision’s Spyder and GretagMacbeth’s Eye-One packages. While all understood my very positive comments about the Eye-One Photo, some were not sure about how I regarded the Eye-One Display, which is GretagMacbeth’s basic monitor calibration and profiling kit. The basic question asked was which one would I spend my money on if I had to choose between the two. My response to them and repeated here is that I would choose the ColorVision Spyder Pro with OptiCal software. While many have received excellent calibrations and profiles from the Eye-One Display, my experience with it on my Sony CRT was less than reliable. While it did well with an LCD, I would not spend nearly CAN $400 for something that could only do half the job. The spectrophotometer in the much more expensive Eye-One Photo package had no such problems and so it shouldn’t given its CAN $2000 cost. May 28, 2006 - Color Management Shoot Out - ColorVision, GretagMacbeth, and X-Rite/Monaco products compared with my rankings. Link to GretagMacbeth or their specific Eye-One web site |
|
Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
|
 |
|
Monitor
and system calibration have become key considerations for the ever-growing
digital darkroom industry. What was once the domain of professional
printers and graphic artists has now become a part of the regular
workflow for photographers, both professional and amateur alike
that want the most accurate relationship between what they see on
their monitor to what they receive back from the printer of choice.
The
ubiquitous horseshoe shape is still useful to provide a relative
comparison between different color spaces and it is still commonly
used to reveal what kind of gamut is available from say Adobe 1998
RGB versus 
To
start on the right color managed path, either working with supplied
profiles or creating custom profiles is required. For scanners,
that would mean scanning a test target such as the IT8 target (Kodak's
version seen at right) and then having the dedicated software create
a new custom profile.
Why
is color management so important, especially since color management
seemed to be the domain of the professional printer in years past? 
The
first Eye-One package came in at around $3000 US and although significantly
more affordable than previous high-quality color calibration suites,
still a sum that was beyond the reach of many professional photographers
as well as the expanding prosumer market. Now the new Eye-One package
sees a much more affordable suite in the Photo package at $1500
US.
The
Eye-One comes available in four different kits starting with the
US $249 Eye-One Display, which includes the base colorimeter and
Eye-One 2.0 software. The software included with the Eye-One Display
is the same as that of the higher level suites; however, the other
calibration options of the software will not be active because the
Eye-One Display colorimeter can only calibrate monitors. Also in
the Eye-One Display kit is a US $200 coupon for an upgrade to a
higher-level kit such as the Eye-One Photo and a small counterweight
for use when calibrating an LCD.
The
Photo kit was the more interesting of the two kits I was provided
with for review. The Photo kit is a standalone package that can
calibrate the monitor/LCD, as well as profile an RGB printer.
How
did the Eye-One monitor calibration compare to the process used
by ColorVision's OptiCAL? Well, aside from the obvious differences
in software, the two companies do the same thing, just in a different
order and a different fashion. 
Prior
to buying my Sony CRT, I gave much thought to buying an LCD panel.
There is much to like about LCD’s, compact build and low weight,
minimal radiation and heat and vibrant looking display. However,
the general consensus is that LCD panels are not up to the task
for critical photo editing unless you spend big dollars on them,
such as those from Apple and their Cinema Screens. The cost to quality
ratio is not in LCD’s favor and that ultimately quashed my plans.
You
can spend several thousands of dollars on buying very high-tech
precision measuring devices that will take your test print of color
swatches and automatically measure each patch line by line. If you
were lucky enough to buy into Microsoft when it was an upstart software
company in the early 1980s, these automatic measuring devices are
what you will buy with your pocket money (GretagMacbeth's Spectroscan
bundle costs $5600 US).
Now
before I continue the laudatory comments for GretagMacbeth, I should
say in ColorVision's defense that comparing its ProfilerPLUS to
Eye-One Photo is not actually fair. The GretagMacbeth spectrophotometer
is a precision instrument designed for a specific role to further
the color management of a digital darkroom. 
