ColorVision v. Monaco color management softwersI'm

[JaroslawP]

I want to buy Color Management software from ColorVision or Monaco.
Has anyone used these, and have any feedback that may help make my decision?

 

[Cathy Stratton]

Don't know anything about Monaco.

I've used ColorVision ProfilerPlus, PhotoCal, Optical and ProfilerPro. I've also used i1 Pro with i1 Match.

ColorVision PhotoCal monitor profiling is straightforward and easy. Optical is a little more time consuming and a bit harder. The results from Optical seem the most accurate. i1 Match is the easiest, but to my eye the least accurate. With i1 I can never see all of the grey steps on the review pages here; I can either see ABC or XYZ - never both.

Printer profiling with ProfilerPlus is the scanner based and I couldn't make work. I always had a color cast and saturation problems. It may have been my scanner.

ProfilerPro is spectro based and was much better, but I would not recommend Color Savvy's Color Mouse II ColorVision bundles with it. It only reads one patch at a time and there is no alignment tool or guide. I found it difficult to make sure I had it properly centered on each patch. Plus I was only satisfied withe the results of the 729 patch target profiles, reading them took almost 2 hours. ColorVision printer profiles (both scanner and spectro) tend to shift saturated blues to purple. They have a fix for it but then the blues look dull or flat compared to all the other colors. Both ProfilerPro and ProfilerPlus have adjustments to fine tune profiles, but I found that the profile was either good and I couldn't make it better with adjustments or it was bad and the adjustments did not make it useable. ProfilerPro comes with DoctorPro a profile editing application, I did not find it useful, same comments apply as those above about fine tuning profiles.

i1 Pro has an alignment guide and can read a strip at a time. It takes about 15 minutes to read ColorVision's 729 patch target.

i1 Pro with i1 Match has 288 patch targets for profiling scanners and printers. It takes less than 10 minutes to read the targets. There are no user selectable variables for profiling either. There is no profile editing or fine tuning capability. i1 profiles do not shift saturated blues to purple otherwise it is a bit more saturated than ProfilerPro's 729 target and the colors are not quite as accurate. The Blue-purple shift bothers me enough that i preferr i1 Match profiles to ProfilerPRo profiles. What I really want is i1 Match with a target with more patches.

Please remember these are just my experiences and opinions; you may not get the same results, ColorVision has room for operator skill or error; especially Optical and ProfilerPro/DoctorPro. Different equipment will also give different results, maybe better, maybe worse.

Hope this helps.

Cathy

I want to buy Color Management software from ColorVision or Monaco.
Has anyone used these, and have any feedback that may help make my
decision?

 

[Ethan Hansen]

Cathy S1 wrote:
Excellent writeup!

Printer profiling with ProfilerPlus is the scanner based and I
couldn't make work. I always had a color cast and saturation
problems. It may have been my scanner.

Scanner based systems are a hit or miss proposition. You need to be lucky with your combination of printer, ink, paper, scanner, and software. Change a variable, and lousy profiles arise. Profile Prism seems to work as well as any of the more costly varieties of these packages.

ProfilerPro is spectro based and was much better, but I would not
recommend Color Savvy's Color Mouse II ColorVision bundles with it.
It only reads one patch at a time and there is no alignment tool or
guide. I found it difficult to make sure I had it properly
centered on each patch. Plus I was only satisfied withe the
results of the 729 patch target profiles, reading them took almost
2 hours.

Sounds like a major PITA. Even crazier that ColorVision does not supply software to actually make the measurements. Their recommended solution is to download Gretag's ProfileMaker Pro and use the demo mode.

ColorVision printer profiles (both scanner and spectro)
tend to shift saturated blues to purple. They have a fix for it
but then the blues look dull or flat compared to all the other
colors.

This is a result of ColorVision doing all their profile calculations in L*ab space. Out of gamut blues shift to purple when desaturated in L*ab.

i1 Pro has an alignment guide and can read a strip at a time. It
takes about 15 minutes to read ColorVision's 729 patch target.

The i1 is 2x faster than the automated Gretag Spectroscan we use. The difference is that you can let the Spectroscan crunch away by itself.

What I really
want is i1 Match with a target with more patches.

Get the latest i1 Match update. It comes with Bill Atkinson's 918 patch target. This is a great target. It adds neutral and near-neutral gradients to the 729 patch target. You need these for RGB printers to get good neutrals. That is why profiles made from the 288 patch target often were more accurate than the ones from the 729 patch target.

--
Ethan Hansen
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

 

[Cathy Stratton]

Ethan,

I just checked on http://www.eye-one.com under software updates, they list the latest version as 1.3. That's what I have (I downloaded it in Dec) and it does not have the 918 patch target. Did I miss something?

Also I've been discussing the 918 patch target with GregtagMcbeth's tech support and customer support, neither of them have mentioned this. They're supposed to be working out a way I can exchange i1 Pro with i1Match for i1 Pro with ProfileMaker Pro, (for a nice hefty sum for the difference of course). They have been very nice and I'm not implying any dissatisfaction with them, but anyone can make a mistake, over- look the latest change, or miss the memo annoucing it.

Any additional info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Cathy

What I really
want is i1 Match with a target with more patches.

Get the latest i1 Match update. It comes with Bill Atkinson's 918
patch target. This is a great target. It adds neutral and
near-neutral gradients to the 729 patch target. You need these for
RGB printers to get good neutrals. That is why profiles made from
the 288 patch target often were more accurate than the ones from
the 729 patch target.

--
Ethan Hansen
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

 

[Kui]

last spring + early summer (that was > 3 months), I was obsessed with the color management for my 1280+OEM archival inks.

I have tried Colorvision Photosuite (first), followed by Profile Prism and finally EZcolor Monaco system.

EZcolor Monaco system is still the one that I'm using now. THe previous two didn't seem to do the job for me. I am not 100% satisfied with EZColor (always pink/red cast) but I just cannot afford anything more expensive than this. Thanks Cathy who's helping me to try to rid of that red cast. I'm happy enough with Monaco but not really 100% (may be 85-90%). It may be better with the new version.

Just to let you know that there wil be many comments on the color management solution. As you can see some people are happy with one system while the others are not. The most powerful or more consistent method is perhaps - the uses of photospectrometry rather than the scanner. Unfortunately, all of them are expensive.

So, ask yourself - how much you want to spend for this and try each system and discover it yourselves. The comments from the others are just a guide. Leave some room for yourself, buy something that is returnable (most of them returnable if you buy it from the manufacterur). You can start with the cheapest on earth -Profile Prism. Many people are happy with it and you may be one of them but I'm not included.

Good luck, it sure will take a lot of times, papers and inks !

Kui
http://www.digital4to.com

 

[Dominic.Chan]

Hi Kui,

Would you care to elaborate on your experience with Profile Prism? I was thinking of buying it. I already have WiziWYG but it produces a yellowish/greenish cast, and the profiles do not work with Qimage.

Thanks
Dominic

last spring + early summer (that was > 3 months), I was obsessed
with the color management for my 1280+OEM archival inks.

I have tried Colorvision Photosuite (first), followed by Profile
Prism and finally EZcolor Monaco system.

EZcolor Monaco system is still the one that I'm using now. THe
previous two didn't seem to do the job for me. I am not 100%
satisfied with EZColor (always pink/red cast) but I just cannot
afford anything more expensive than this. Thanks Cathy who's
helping me to try to rid of that red cast. I'm happy enough with
Monaco but not really 100% (may be 85-90%). It may be better with
the new version.

Just to let you know that there wil be many comments on the color
management solution. As you can see some people are happy with one
system while the others are not. The most powerful or more
consistent method is perhaps - the uses of photospectrometry rather
than the scanner. Unfortunately, all of them are expensive.

So, ask yourself - how much you want to spend for this and try each
system and discover it yourselves. The comments from the others are
just a guide. Leave some room for yourself, buy something that is
returnable (most of them returnable if you buy it from the
manufacterur). You can start with the cheapest on earth -Profile
Prism. Many people are happy with it and you may be one of them but
I'm not included.

Good luck, it sure will take a lot of times, papers and inks !

Kui
http://www.digital4to.com

 

[Kui]

I wondered myself what have I done wrong with it. Seems like a lot of people got a good results from it but certainly not me. When I was using the combo of 1280+epson OEm ink. The print was kinda terrible, and I blame it all on that combo (well, you know the 1280 wasn't designed to use the pigment inks). Anyway, when I finally got Monaco, it just gave me the confidence again (after I lost it alll with these 2) and feel the power of the profiling again after I almost gave up with scanner based system and almost went with eye one and skip the monaco.

So, the Monaco actually saved me from spending > $3K.

The software continues to be developed and you can see now the version number is far from what I've used before on my 1280. Anyway, when I got 2200 in August 02 and I think may be this will proof my assumption about the bad combo (1280+OEM archival). So I tried it again with my 2200 and wish for a positive result. It's clearly better than the old version + 1280 but it's still not perfect. I got a color that almost right but not accurate. the saturation is very good, perhaps too good to my sense. I still like the EZcolor profile better (even I'm not completely sastisfy with it ).

But I think you should try it because it's cheap and it may works OK for you (if not you can return it). I would guess " no" because we all have different standard and you're already slightly disappointed from WiziWYG. Your standard is perhaps gonna be just like me. I'm still thinking about going up to the level of the spectrophotometer every day. But you know, I'm not a pro - just a freak home printing users and why should I bother buy $3 grand toys for my pleasure (though I know somebody who did that I'm extremely jealous ! ).

Kui
http://www.digital4to.com

 

[Dominic.Chan]

Thanks for your inputs, Kui. I will probably give Profile Prism a try.

What I really like to have, is a program that would allow me to fine tune the profile curves. I notice that the profiles created by WiziWYG are often very "bumpy", and I would like to smoothen the curves while keeping the overall shape.

 

[Art Rosch]

I'm a very happy Monaco user. I know, it's toy-like. I know, it doesn't
have graphs, a zillion patches, infinite grades of calibration. It's simple,
it works for me, for my 1280, for my S9000, with Epson 2450 scanner.
Editable, yet I generate a new profile rather than go through the
trouble. There's at least one staunch enemy of Monaco lurking in this
forum who's called it garbage,
but it has worked consistently trouble free for me, and my standards,
are, well....realistic.
--
Art

see the astrophotos at http://www.artsdigitalphoto.com

 

[Andrew Rodney]

I just checked on http://www.eye-one.com under software updates, they list
the latest version as 1.3. That's what I have (I downloaded it in
Dec) and it does not have the 918 patch target. Did I miss
something?

Download ProfileMaker Pro 4.1.1 and you'll find in the package the reference file for the 9.18 target. You'll have to find the target for the 288 in Match, copy the name and place it in the 9.18 target name or it will not be found by the software. So you'll need to toss (or move) the original printer reference file and replace it with the 9.88 reference file then launch Match. Now you'll see the 988 target show up in Match. Of course you'll need the 9.88 tiff target to print out too (it's part of ProfileMaker Pro too).

Good to have PMP around even if you run some of it in demo mode. Check out the Measure Tool! You can open identical spectral data files and compare how different they are (cool). You could use your EyeOne to measure the 9.88 in MeasureTool itself. Save out the file and load it in Match to build the profile. Up to you. Even in Demo mode, MeasureTool will work with the EyeOne and save out the spectral data files.
--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

 

[Cathy Stratton]

Download ProfileMaker Pro 4.1.1 and you'll find in the package the
reference file for the 9.18 target. You'll have to find the target
for the 288 in Match, copy the name and place it in the 9.18 target
name or it will not be found by the software. So you'll need to
toss (or move) the original printer reference file and replace it
with the 9.88 reference file then launch Match. Now you'll see the
988 target show up in Match. Of course you'll need the 9.88 tiff
target to print out too (it's part of ProfileMaker Pro too).

Good to have PMP around even if you run some of it in demo mode.
Check out the Measure Tool! You can open identical spectral data
files and compare how different they are (cool). You could use your
EyeOne to measure the 9.88 in MeasureTool itself. Save out the file
and load it in Match to build the profile. Up to you. Even in Demo
mode, MeasureTool will work with the EyeOne and save out the
spectral data files.
--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Thanks Andrew.

Cathy

 

[reid thaler]

for those that are still following this tread, I've posted the following message at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=4190274

Hi everyone,

I’m using Photoshop 7 and Monaco EZ Color 1.6.

Monaco should be shamed by how poor the documentation is... Anyway, I’m trying to build a printer profile. I have printed the RGB test patch 3 different ways, as follows. The two printed in Photoshop look the same; the Monaco printed test looks like the screen, but the Pshop ones don’t.

Test 1
Printed from Photoshop
Adobe 1998 RGB
Color management: printer profile: Same as Source
No color management checked in the Epson printer Driver

Test 2
Printed from Photoshop
Untagged RGB
Color management: printer profile: Same as Source
No color management checked in the Epson printer Driver

Test 2
Printed from Monaco software
Untagged RGB (I think)
Color management: printer profile: Same as Source
No color management checked in the Epson printer Driver

Questions:

Which profile should I use? The Monaco printed test looks most like the screen. The pshop ones are dark, why. Monaco says you can print from its software or Pshop.

When I print, I understand that the source should be Adobe 1998 RGB and the printer profile is the one I create.

When viewing the monitor, should the View ~ Proof Setup be set to the printer profile I created? When do I use View ~ Proof Colors?

Any other suggestion to make the workflow print correctly?

Thanks,

Reid

Kodak Brownie
Argus 126
Quaker Oats Container Pinhole CameraContainer Pinhole Camera

 

[Cathy Stratton]

Kui,

Keep being jealous! I'm just a hobbiest too and LOVE my ~$3k toy! He-he

In fact I'm seriously considering going for its big brother, the ~$4.5k toy, after all what's money but green paper that you can't take with you when you die? He-he!!

I'm going to stop spending money on this hobby right after my next newest toy, I am, really. (Please don't tell my husband I said that!)

Cathy

I'm still thinking about going up to the level of the
spectrophotometer every day. But you know, I'm not a pro - just a
freak home printing users and why should I bother buy $3 grand toys
for my pleasure (though I know somebody who did that I'm extremely
jealous ! ).

Kui
http://www.digital4to.com

 

[Lawrence Keeney]

I am very pleased with Monaco EZcolor2. I like the fact that you can tweak the profile after you have made it if you are not completely satisfied with the colors.

--
Lawrence

I want to buy Color Management software from ColorVision or Monaco.
Has anyone used these, and have any feedback that may help make my
decision?

 

[Carillon]

I have used Colorvision ProfilerPro to profile several printers and papers with good results. I use a SpectroCam to read the 729 color swatch in about 8 minutes.

Although, the most recent printer I'm trying to profile is a new Canon i850 is giving me fits. I'm running Mac OS X and Photoshop 7.0.1 and Canon's latest driver for OS X and the i850. When I print the 729 patch chart I get several swatches that are noticeably off color and seemingly out of place with surrounding swatches. I don't know if it's OS X -or- Canon's driver doing something funny eventhough I have turned off all color adjustments I can find. This is my first attempt at profiling with OS X and Photoshop 7.

I'm continuing to work on it but so far... dead ends. :-(

 

[Troy Delnicki]

I have used Colorvision ProfilerPro to profile several printers and
papers with good results. I use a SpectroCam to read the 729 color
swatch in about 8 minutes.

Although, the most recent printer I'm trying to profile is a new
Canon i850 is giving me fits. I'm running Mac OS X and Photoshop
7.0.1 and Canon's latest driver for OS X and the i850. When I print
the 729 patch chart I get several swatches that are noticeably off
color and seemingly out of place with surrounding swatches. I don't
know if it's OS X -or- Canon's driver doing something funny
eventhough I have turned off all color adjustments I can find. This
is my first attempt at profiling with OS X and Photoshop 7.

I'm continuing to work on it but so far... dead ends. :-(

I seem to recall reading that in OS X colorsync handles color differently, a type of auto compensation. It may be limited to the monitor only--I'm not sure. I'd ask Andrew Rodney-- http://www.digitaldog.net or Bruce Fraser http://www . pixelboyz.com. This may be part of the problem. It may just be a flakey driver too

Best,

Troy

 

[Carillon]

Thanks Troy... I'll check it out!

 

[Eric Chi]

I'm a very happy Monaco user. I know, it's toy-like. I know, it
doesn't
have graphs, a zillion patches, infinite grades of calibration.
It's simple,
it works for me, for my 1280, for my S9000, with Epson 2450 scanner.
Editable, yet I generate a new profile rather than go through the
trouble. There's at least one staunch enemy of Monaco lurking in this
forum who's called it garbage,
but it has worked consistently trouble free for me, and my standards,
are, well....realistic.
--
Art

HI Art,

Per your calibration with Monaco on 1280, 2450, and S9000, does the monitor scanner printer all match up? What you see on screen is what you get printed out? What's the paper you use?

Eric.

see the astrophotos at http://www.artsdigitalphoto.com

 

[Dominic.Chan]

Another test would be to scan in a "good" photo, i.e., one with wide dynamic range and shades of different colours, print it can compare with the original.

If scanned print matches well with the original then it will indicate that the scanner profile and the printer profile are both good (unless there's a "bug" in the program that led two errors cancelling each other).

I'm a very happy Monaco user. I know, it's toy-like. I know, it
doesn't
have graphs, a zillion patches, infinite grades of calibration.
It's simple,
it works for me, for my 1280, for my S9000, with Epson 2450 scanner.
Editable, yet I generate a new profile rather than go through the
trouble. There's at least one staunch enemy of Monaco lurking in this
forum who's called it garbage,
but it has worked consistently trouble free for me, and my standards,
are, well....realistic.
--
Art

HI Art,

Per your calibration with Monaco on 1280, 2450, and S9000, does the
monitor scanner printer all match up? What you see on screen is
what you get printed out? What's the paper you use?

Eric.

see the astrophotos at http://www.artsdigitalphoto.com

 

[Fred Bopp]

I tried WYZIWYG and ProveIt and finally switched to Monaco EZ Color 2.0 about 2 years ago. I recently upgraded to EZ Color 2.5 and the OPTIX colorimeter and the results are out of this world. OPTIX profiles both CRT and LCD monitors and does one hell of a job. I create a printer profile for each paper I use and for each printer including 2000P, 925, C82 and a 785EPX. I use an Epson 2450 scanner which has outstanding resolution. I get a true match with monitor and printed photos. Don't forget to let the prints dry at least 30 minutes before scanning the profile with the IT target.

I seldom get this enthused about a product but Monaco has done it with EZ Color 2.5 and OPTIX.
Regards, Fred

I want to buy Color Management software from ColorVision or Monaco.
Has anyone used these, and have any feedback that may help make my
decision?