Native Digital

i1 Profiler Update

2011-05-10T14:48:00.002+01:00

I promised you an update after I had been using the new i1 Profiler in the field for a few weeks, so hear it is. I’ve done quite a few jobs with the new software now and I remain impressed with the quality of the profiles and have gotten used to, or worked around, or learnt to ignore some of the small interface niggles I have with the software.

I’ve used i1 Profiler to create profiles for two of my oldest and most regular customers - the artists Gilbert & George, and fashion and interiors company Photographic Interiors. Both are very demanding in different ways. Gilbert & George use two Epson printers to print their art and they use a mix of monochrome photography with bold graphic colours. Their works are often very large and so they need the two printers to match exactly so that panels can be printed across both. The nature of their work requires profiles that deliver very good neutrals and vivid colour saturation. The profiles I made with i1 Profiler for them matched their very high standards.

Photographic Interiors are demanding customers for a very different reason, they constantly are on the leading edge of digital production for the fashion and interior design market and use a very wide array of media. They produce garments and wall coverings for some of the very big names in UK fashion and design. In the past I have profiled printing onto real leather for them as well as many different fabric printing technologies. Due to the nature of the materials involved the gamuts are sometimes small and the processes sometimes inherently variable but they still need to achieve eye-popping colour. Again i1 Profiler was up to the task with the new profiling engine making the most of the fabric printing process I was profiling, even if I did have to wait an hour and a half for each set of patches to be washed and steamed before measuring them.

I’ve also done my first customer training on the software. I took a break from a family holiday to train the photographers of FotoLarko in Cyprus in creating profiles for their entire workflow. Explaining software to somebody else is always a good test of its ease of use and despite some slight difficulty with language (but obviously their English was much better than my Greek) we profiled their printers, cameras and monitors with the new software during the day and they haven’t come back with any questions yet.

There have been a few bugs found after the software was released, specifically problems reading dark colours with a i1 Pro, but X-Rite have produced fixes or work arounds and will probably issue a maintenance release soon. I’ve found I’m using the Saved Workflows feature a lot to store frequently used combinations of media size, instrument and black generation which makes things quicker. All the customers who have had profiles through our Custom Profile Service have been very happy with the results as well.

i1 Profiler - Displays & Projectors

2011-04-15T13:23:00.002+01:00

In this last blog looking at the new i1 Profiler software I’ll be covering monitor and projector profiling. The only instrument that is supported for display profiling is the i1 Pro, which is a shame since the i1 Pro spectrophotometer doesn’t measure low light values as well as a colorimeter, such as the i1 Display 2, although the i1 Pro can be more accurate at higher brightness values.

The Display Profiling workflow is pretty intuitive, even if you’ve never used a monitor profiling system before. The first option you get is to choose the White Point of your monitor, D65 (6500K) is the default. You can choose from a range of common values or measure your ambient lighting. The Luminance value defaults to 120 cd/m2. You also get to choose the Contrast Ratio, which is usually a factor of the luminance of the white point divided by the luminance level of the black point. If you are profiling multiple monitors then having the same contrast ratio can help to get a visual match. You’d have to profile each screen, see what contrast ratio each has and then set them all to the lowest value. The trouble with this approach is that most of the screens are no longer displaying at their full potential and are being dumbed down slightly.

The Profile Settings page allows you to set options such as Tonal Response Curve, Chromatic Adaptation and ICC Profile Version. Most customers won’t need to change from the defaults, apart from those using older versions of Photoshop who may find a version 2 ICC profile works better for them.

Once you click on the Measurement page you’ll see options to use Automatic Display Control (ADC) or Adjust brightness and contrast manually. Many monitors support ADC for automatic adjustment of the monitor. Both my MacBook Pro screen and my Lacie 324 have this feature, for example. Other monitors may not be able to be adjusted automatically and so you’ll have to interactively measure and adjust the brightness.

Interestingly you don’t get the option of adjusting the white point at all. i1 Profiler adjusts the video look up table of your graphics card to get the correct white point. This can be a good approach for cheaper monitors with poor controls but many monitors do have good adjustments for colour and it is disappointing not to be given the option of interactively changing and measuring the white point of the monitor. However, it did adjust the white point of my monitor using ADC but not precisely enough that it didn’t still have to make adjustments in the graphics card.

After the measurements have been done you can go on to the ICC Profile page and Create and save profile. You can then look at a graph of the gamut of your monitor and a graph of the adjustments made in the graphics card. You also get to see the range of Roman test images you get in the CMYK Printer Profiling workflow, and also have the option of loading your own. When you are viewing the test image you can click a before or after button to see the change in your monitor.

To further test your new monitor profile you can access the Display QA workflow. This takes the reference values from the classic 24 patch ColorChecker card, displays them on screen and then measures how close your monitor comes to displaying the colours accurately. Most previous monitor validation software I’ve used simply puts a series of colours through a profile, and then measures them to check the internal consistency and accuracy of the profile. The i1 Profiler approach of how well the monitor can display certain reference colours is different and I can see the benefit of it. What I would say though is that the little message you get at the bottom of the QA Report page, that the reference uses different measurements and some of the differences might be due to that, is not that reassuring. I’m assuming the reference values were done in D50 and since I profiled my screen at D65 that might be the difference X-Rite are referring to but a little more explanation or factoring in of the differences might make this feature more useful. I first profiled my display to 120 cd/m2 as usual and it failed the QA test but when I put it up to 140 cd/m2 it passed, just.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that since I got the BasicColor Discus I have been slightly spoilt when it comes to monitor profiling. The profiles the Discus makes the best monitor profiles I’ve ever seen. That said i1 Profiler with an i1 Pro does a competent job that compares favourably with those from a ColorMunki, Spyder3 Elite or i1 Display 2. However, since i1 Profiler is X-Rite’s top of the range profiling product they could have put a few more features in to the Display Profiling workflow to reflect this. I think the lack of white point adjustment is a major omission and I also think an extended Display QA workflow that included uniformity checking would be good.

The Projector Profiling workflow is basically similar to the Display Profiling workflow, but you get no option to adjust the projector, the software simply profiles it as it is. You’ll need the Beamer attachment for your i1 Pro to profile a projector. The Projector QA workflow is also the same as Display QA. The projector profiles I got were slightly better than i1 Match.

My blog has covered all the major aspects of i1 Profiler now, but I’ll revisit it again in a few months after I’ve used the software on-site a bit more for customers. I used it yesterday for customer to profile their digital printing onto cloth and it did a very good job of profiling a difficult process and all the printer profiles I’ve made so far have been very good.

CMYK Printer Profiling with i1 Profiler

2011-04-13T09:55:00.002+01:00

In this blog I’ll be looking at CMYK printer profiling in the new i1 Profiler software, including the Printer Linearization, Printer QA and Data Analysis workflows. The new i1 Prism color engine in i1 Profiler seems to make exceptionally good CMYK profiles, although as with other parts of the software there are functions included that I think few people will use and some that don’t seem to have much effect, there are also a couple of features of ProfileMaker that I will miss.

Let’s start with the Printer Linearization workflow. Linearizing a printer ensures that each colour channel is printing in a defined linear fashion so that 50% of a colour is half as strong as 100%, for example. The software won’t let you linearize a RGB printer since most printers being profiled as RGB are only virtual RGB devices and are really printing with CMYK inks. Not all CMYK printers need linearizing in profiling software since most RIPs have a linearization function within the media calibration wizard and you’ll get better results linearizing there. If, however, you are profiling something like a simple colour laser without a RIP then you may get better results doing a linearization before you profile. You start by defining the number of patches per channel, 40 is more than enough, and then go on to set page size and print the chart. You then measure and save the linearization result. It would be nice to be able to see the curves at this point, as you could in Monaco Profiler.

When you start the CMYK Printer Profiling workflow you can then load your Linearization file and it will be applied to the colour patches you generate for the profiling and also embedded in the profile at the end of the process. Linearizing a printer profiling will get you a better profile because the colour patches will be more evenly distributed across the colour gamut of the printer.

When you generate patches for a CMYK profile you have additional options to the ones you had for an RGB profile. You can set the total ink coverage for the patches. If you’ve ink limited in your RIP then you can leave that to 400 but otherwise you can set it to lower amounts if the media you are profiling won’t take that much ink and you get drying or spreading problems. You can also set a slider for Patch weighting (dark/light), the theory behind this feature is that if you know you are going to be generating a profile with high level of black (more about this further down) then you can choose to have more dark patches. I haven’t had time to fully explore this option but I guess it might come into its own with some of the trickier types of media I profile such as cloth or leather.

The Test Chart, Measurement and Lighting pages are the same as for RGB profiling so I’ll skip over them and get to Profile Settings. It’s here that you set the black generation options. I haven’t got space to explain black generation in detail so I suggest if you are new to the concept that you go to the CMYK Printer chapter in Practical Colour Management, which you can download for free from our websites.

You can control the total ink coverage, how soon black ink or toner begins to be used in the tonal range and the maximum level of black. The Black curve control sets how much black is generated at any tonal level. Some devices suit quite a light black curve and with others you’ll get better results and save ink with heavier curves. You can view the K%/Lightness curve by clicking on the button on the control bar above the test image (more about that in minute). It would be good to be ale to view all the gradation curves as you can in Measure Tool. The black width control determines the range of colours affected by the black generation, a setting of zero means that only neutral colours are affected, 100 would mean all colours might be.

The Full black separation check box will produce very heavy black generation, and the Use intelligent black check box will stop the Black curve you’ve selected from compromising the total gamut of your profile, it is best to leave this on unless you have problems and need to force the behavior of the black curve.

The affect of any setting can be viewed by looking at the channels of the test images supplied, or indeed by loading your own. There are test images for high key, low key, mid tone and various colours so you can get a good idea how the profile will generate black before you do any test prints. Once you have made your black generation choices you can then go to the next page and create your profile. ProfileMaker had some pre-set black generation settings and I think it would be good for novice users if i1 Profiler adopted this approach as well, there is one fairly hidden offset printing preset you can use but there should be more. The Perceptual, Tables and Advanced options are the same as for RGB profiling.

Once you have built and tested your CMYK profile you can go to the Printer QA workflow to measure a control strip to see how well your device conforms to an international printing standard, or you can use this workflow to monitor the consistency of your printer over time. The software supports the popular IDEAlliance and FOGRA test wedges, which are fine for those familiar with proofing and press standards but it would have been nice if X-Rite had included the option of creating your own test wedge. Once you’ve measured your wedge you can compare it to an industry standard reference, or if you’ve previously saved the page data from a Printer QA measurement page you can use that as a reference to judge your own devices against each other or against themselves over time. At the end of the workflow you get a Pass/Fail result and details of the delta e values (colour differences) and you can save out a QA report. The Printer QA workflow could be useful for monitoring printer behaviour, although I think most users needing to use it would have the functionality built into their RIPs. The Data Analysis workflow allows you to get a similar report to the Printer QA workflow but allows you to compare any two sets of measurement data as long as they have the same number of patches. This could be useful for comparing results across different media on the same printer, the same media over time or the same media on two different printers.

I’ve been really impressed with the CMYK profiles I’ve made using the software so far, our first customer using the software was a a very demanding fine art printer and he is getting excellent results on a wide range of canvas and fine art media.

The next and final blog in this series will be on Display and Projector profiling.

Profile Verification & Optimization

2011-04-06T14:05:00.004+01:00

Two of the new features of i1 Profiler are the ColorChecker Proof profile verification option and Printer Profile Optimization. We’ll start with ColorChecker Proof. The software comes with a new version of the classic 24 patch Munsell ColorChecker but this one has a twist, it has holes in it.

The idea is that you click on the ColorChecker Proof workflow in the software and then drag and drop one of the profiles you’ve made onto the ColorChecker page icon. There is a check box to show which patches are out of gamut and so not expected to be matched on the printer. You then print the ColorChecker image and then get your ColorChecker Proof target and lay it over the print out. You’ll see the printed colours through the holes in the target and be able to evaluate the accuracy of the profile.

The main problems I have with this approach is that it obviously depends a lot on the light source you are viewing the print and the target under but also assessing areas of flat colour often tells you less about the accuracy of a profile than viewing a photographic image, with a wider range of tones and real world imagery we are familiar with such as faces, that our visual system has evolved to evaluate. So whilst I think the ColorChecker Proof is a useful tool I wouldn’t use it in isolation from conventional test images.

Once you have tested a profile you may choose to access the other new feature we’re talking about today, Profile Optimization. The Profile Optimization workflow takes an existing profile and analyses which areas might need a bit of improvement and generates a new set of patches to output and measure. Patches can be generated from images or spot colour libraries as well.

The technology is based on that in the ColorMunki software. The ColorMunki software only produces an initial 50 patch set so I can see the need for generating an additional second set. However, if you start by building an i1 Profiler profile with maybe 1000 or more patches there are unlikely to be many gaps that need filling. When I’ve tested Profile Optimization with RGB printer profiles I’ve never been able to see a visible difference in the final prints between and an optimized and un-optimized profile. There may well be small measurable differences in some colours but if the differences are not visible to the naked eye then it’s debatable if the procedure is worthwhile.

With CMYK printer profile you do sometimes get a small visual improvement and a larger measured improvement in Delta E values, but the improvement isn’t large in either case. I’ll need more time to assess this feature as I begin to use the software more in the field on a wider range of printers and technologies. However, I also find it curious that you can generate up to 6000 new patches and it will always generate the number you set. It never gives any feedback saying the profile is OK and can’t be improved or that only X number of patches are needed to make some improvement. It just generates the number of patches you ask it to. The level of improvement achieved is never quantified in any way either, so I’ve yet to be convinced but time will tell.

The other related feature to the ColorChecker Proof and Profile Optimization workflows is the Printer QA workflow, but we’ll tackle that next time when we talk about CMYK printer profiling.

Using X-Rite i1 Profiler to calibrate your screen.

2011-04-05T10:28:00.000+01:00

Here's another video demonstration of using the new X-Rite i1 Profiler software (i1 Basic Pro, i1 Photo Pro, & i1Publish Pro) to calibrate and profile your monitor.

For more information, please check out our website at www.nativedigital.com

New videos about the X-Rite i1 Photo Pro

2011-04-04T13:11:00.000+01:00

If you're keen to know more about the i1 Photo Pro, then these videos will give you a better understanding of the product and it's application.

The first video is just under 2 minutes and shows you the top 10 features of the i1 Photo Pro:

The last video is about US-based photographer Andy Katz - he show how he uses the i1 Photo Pro to help him throughout the photography process - from shooting RAW using the mini ColorChecker chart (to help with colour balance), profiling his monitors, profiling his printers and also profiling a digital projector - ensuring consistent and accurate colour every step of the way.

If you have any questions, please get in contact, or check out the i1 Photo Pro product page at www.nativedigital.com

RGB Printer Profiling with i1 Profiler

2011-03-29T13:10:00.013+01:00

Over the past few months I’ve been one of the team beta testing the new X-Rite i1 Profiler software, and now that it’s been officially released I can begin a series of blogs taking you through the new software. We’ll start with RGB printer profiling, in my tests the new software produces profiles that are noticeably better in many areas than i1 Match, ProfileMaker or Monaco Profiler. Also for users of i1 Match the new software includes advanced functionality previous only available in ProfileMaker or Profiler, but before we delve into the RGB printer profiling workflow it’s worth saying a few things about the general interface.

The opening screen or page of the software has several useful features including the ability to automatically check for software updates, access information about the software online and most important of all access training videos. One of my standard pieces of support advice is RTFM - Read The Flippin’ Manual. I’m sorry, but having written software manuals in the past I’m one of those people that reads the supplied manual for whatever they buy, it usually saves me a lot of time and lets me find features that might remain hidden if I didn’t know they were there. However, I realise not everybody gets on well with software manuals, apart from maybe as a cure for insomnia, so what I suggest is that the first time you open i1 Profiler you have a cup of coffee to hand and sit back and watch the training videos supplied via the handy button on the screen. They cover most of the functions of the software and are clear and very easy to understand.

i1 Profiler has two modes, Basic and Advanced. The Advanced mode really comes into its own when you’re profiling CMYK printers and for a lot of users doing just RGB printer profiling using the Basic mode will just stop you being presented with options that you’d always leave to default anyway, but in the interest of full disclosure I’ll write the rest of the blog assuming you are going to use the Advanced mode.

i1 Profiler uses a a step by step process and the options for each page can be saved into a workflow. Default workflows are supplied but you can also save your own to suit your own kit or processes. A workflow can include options such as the number of patches, page size and profile settings. Saved workflows, previous profiles and other saved data can be dragged and dropped onto the buttons in a workflow to set the options.

The first page, Patch Set, in an RGB printer profiling workflow defines the number of patches you want to measure. You can measure as few as 400 or up to 6000. In my experience you get little benefit from measuring over 1000 patches for an RGB printer profile. You have the option of scrambling or randomizing the order of the patches just in case there is any difference across the sheet, but there shouldn’t be on a inkjet printer. Once you have selected the number of patches you can then move on to the next page, Test Chart.

The Test Chart page allows you to define what measuring instrument you are using, the page size of your printer and other physical options relating to how the chart is laid out. You might have to step back and forth between Patch Set and Test Chart until you find a number of patches that fit on a certain number of pages. Personally, I think it would be better if they combined the Patch Set and Test Chart pages so you could define the page size and instrument then click a button to fill the page with patches. Anyway, once you have define the parameters you can then print the target or save it as a TIFF file.

The Measurement page is obviously where you connect your measuring device and measure the colours, and pretty much does what it says in a similar way to other profiling software. The next page, Lighting, is a new option that will be unfamiliar to users of i1 Match. Printer profiles can be built based on an expected viewing light to help improve the accuracy of the profile under that lighting condition. For example, if you were producing prints for a gallery that had a particular type of lights you could measure those lights and then use that measurement data when the profile was created to make the prints look good under that light source. Usually, however, you don’t know where the print will be viewed so the best thing for the vast majority of users is to leave the lighting options set to the default of D50 and skip the Lighting page.

Profile Settings also allows a lot of control over areas that most users will leave to default. The perceptual mapping options allow you to increase or decrease Contrast or Saturation and also the Neutralize gray option allows you to choose if gray colours are mapped relative to the colour of the paper or more absolutely neutral. The effect of these options will only be visible when printing with the perceptual rendering intent and I’d recommend first building a profile with the default options (all to zero) before changing anything. The effects are subtle but can be quite pleasing. The Tables option govern the size of the tables within the profile, again there isn’t much need to deviate from the defaults. By the way the defaults are displayed as ‘Custom’ for some reason - one of the issues I reported back during testing they didn’t have time to fix. Advanced sets other options most users won’t touch, you can find out what any option means by activating the Help function by clicking on the question mark at the bottom left of the screen and putting the cursor over the item you want explained.

The final ICC Profile page lets you save the profile. A 3D gamut graph of the profile is then displayed. You should then go and test the profile by outputting a few files before trying the new profile optimization and verification options, but more about those in the next blog.

If you want to test the quality of the profiles from the new software then we’ve already swapped our custom profiling service (http://www.nativedigital.com/products/Custom-ICC-Printer-Profile.html) over to using the new software.

Creating the Right Ambience

2011-03-24T10:10:00.006Z

I have a confession, I’ve never really got why you should compensate for ambient light when calibrating and profiling monitors. Don’t get me wrong I understand the principles and the effect that ambient light can have on the images you see on your screen, it’s just that to me making your monitor brighter or darker based on the light surrounding it is the wrong way round. Isn’t it better to get your ambient lighting to the right level so the monitor looks its best?

My first experience of colour correction came when I was working in a pre-press company and our drum scanning suite was housed in a former funeral parlour. Windows were few and far between and you can imagine that the lighting was on the sepulchral side, especially during the night shift. My current office has a large window but as soon as I do any image correction or software testing down comes the venetian blind to make the lighting as dim as I can. When I go on site to retouchers or video editing suites the light is also very low. My standard advice is that if the monitor is the brightest light source then your eyes will adjust to it correctly. Some customers say they haven’t got control over ambient light and I can imagine that in an office environment but for all our amateur customers most spare room digital photo studios are surely equipped with a light switch and a set of curtains.

I think the problem is that I know enough about monitors and print viewing to know not to hold a print next to my screen and expect it to match exactly. If I want to get closer agreement between the two I break out the viewing booth and adjust my monitor calibration targets to get a visual match but I usually take my prints to the window and view them in daylight and I find when I allow my eyes to adjust properly to either daylight or the monitor then what I see on screen is close enough to what I get out of the printer. So my only aim for the ambient lighting around my monitor is for it to be dim enough for me to see all the details in my images, especially in the shadows, so for that the room lighting has to be very dim.

Anyway, I’ve just started beta testing a new monitor calibration solution and amongst the first few screens in the software is the ability to measure ambient light and adjust the calibration targets accordingly. The developers were making a big song and dance about it so I thought I better revisit the area of ambient light compensation to see if I was missing something.

Our biggest selling monitor calibration and profiling solution is the i1 Display 2 from X-Rite. It’s philosophy dove tails with my own view on ambient lighting in that it does allow the measuring of ambient light but it is for information only and doesn’t suggest calibration targets, affect the calibration or monitor ambient light and adjust the monitor on an ongoing basis.

I connected my i1 Display 2 and launched i1 Match. I checked the Ambient Light Check option and then closed my blinds as I usually do when I work on images. I clicked measure and found that at 28 lux it thought my lighting was too dim so I opened the blades on the blind slightly and remeasured until the black line was in the central green area. The room was still acceptably dim but not quite as dark at 53 lux. After calibrating the monitor to 120cd/m2, 2.2 and 6500K (my usual targets) I examined my Square Black Level Test image that has concentric areas of very low RGB values. I could not see much variation in the blacks but if I closed the blinds completely again then I could see all the values distinctly. The recommended values for ambient light in the i1 Match software are based on the ISO 3664 standard although another ISO standard, ISO 12646, recommends lower levels of light, such as I normally have.

The Spyder3 Elite software does have more ambient lighting features. During the calibration process it can measure the ambient light and suggest new calibration targets. The Spyder Utility can also be set to monitor ambient light and warn you if it begins to differ too greatly. The first half of this article was written in the late afternoon when the sun had gone around the side of our building. This second half on the Spyder I’m writing in the morning with the spring sun shining on the window. I have the blind fully closed but it is still much brighter than yesterday, i1 Match says 182 Lux.

Running the ambient light analysis as I calibrate the monitor using Spyder3 Elite it suggests a luminance level of 200cd/m2 and that is much higher than my normal 120cd/m2 target. It reports the lighting level as Very High. It is brighter than yesterday but I wouldn’t really say it was very bright, it’s still dimmer than most offices. I accepted the Spyder’s recommendation and calibrated the monitor. It was much brighter than I’m used too and looking at images in Photoshop both before and after I preferred my normal luminance level. I couldn’t see the shadow detail on my Square Black Level Test image even with the monitor set brighter than normal. I turned on the ambient light monitoring in the Spyder utility and after a short while the little icon turned red and when I went into the utility it said the ambient lighting was now just High and I should recalibrate or return the ambient lighting to the condition it was when I calibrated. I hadn’t opened the blind or anything, the sun must have gone in or moved around the building a little.

If I was a photographer wanting to process some RAW images I would now have the quandary of wondering wether to wait for a cloudy day, recalibrate every time the weather changes or, I suppose, buy a proper black-out blind.

Constant recalibration would mean the images I see on my monitor would always be changing and I think I still prefer to stick to the same calibration targets over time. Obviously you can’t always choose when you process your files. So, of the three choices the black-out blind makes the most sense to me. If you can block all light coming in from outside you could control the lighting level more precisely, all though of course you’d have to choose any artificial lighting carefully for the intensity, colour temperature and colour rendering index. Many of us started our photography by working in a darkroom and I think for many it still makes sense to work in one now.

Discussing the Discus

2011-03-04T11:41:00.003Z

I’ve finally managed to get my hands on a BasICColor DIscus, ours came today just in time for us to show at Focus. The BasICColor DIscus has been designed to be the best monitor calibrator on the market, and barring lab grade instruments, I think it probably is. So far, because all our test monitors are packed up for Focus, I’ve only got to test it on my new MacBook Pro but even with a relatively poor quality screen it’s given an excellent calibration.

The Discus has been designed from the ground up to cope with any kind of display or projector, even difficult LED back lit ones, and to deliver extremely high levels of consistency and repeatability. True it’s not the prettiest of products, but the best ones seldom are. Most colorimeters on the market are necessarily compromised by the need to get to a price point that most customers feel able to pay. The more expensive Spectrophotometers can be more accurate but don’t measure dark blacks very well. The Discus was designed to do the best calibration including dark black levels, for the widest possible range of screens, hence it isn’t cheap at just under £700.

basICColor Discus shown on NEC SpectraView monitor.

It does though have a host of unique features that could make it worth the money to the right kind of customer. It can measure monitors from a distance to account for the way ambient light affects the display, it has a built-in laser for accurate aiming. As new display technologies come to market the Discus can have it’s firmware updated to account for the difference in gamut and backlighting. Each Discus is individually calibrated in the factory and can be re-certified at any time and it has a temperature sensor to compensate for variation during measurement. Also it is already compatible with SpectraView Profiler or can be used with BasICColor’s own Display software.

For those customers who need absolute precision in monitor calibration this precision made German instrument is the answer. Come along to stand K3 at Focus on Imaging at the NEC from Sunday 6th March and see for yourself.

Rob Griffith

Colour Guru in One Day - Course, March 30th

2011-02-23T14:31:00.000Z

Colour management experts The Colour Collective, are offering the ultimate one day course offering hands on ’try before you buy’ experience coupled with expert training on some of the most advanced Colour Management equipment available including X-Rite’s new i1 Profiler software.

Aimed at photographers, designers, wide format printers or pre-press professionals who want to understand how to fully control colour, achieving accurate and predictable results from input to output across a color critical workflow, “Colour Guru in One Day” is delivered by colour management expert & author, Rob Griffith.

Colour Guru in One Day will be held at X-Rite’s UK HQ near Manchester in their fully equipped training centre. With dates available in March, May & June each course is limited to only 8 attendees so everyone will get one-to-one attention & have the time to use and understand the equipment.

Benefiting from a blend of theory to understand the foundations of Colour Management combined with practical exercises that include profile creation, implementation, setting up the colour management options in applications such as Adobe Photoshop attendees are also welcome to bring questions and issues for open discussion on common workflow issues.

Demystifying what is often seen as a complex subject, course modules include:

Colour Theory
How Colour Management Works
Calibrating & Profiling Monitors
Using Applications to Colour Manage your Images
Colour Managing Digital Photography
Profiling RGB Printers
Profiling CMYK Printers
Proofing & Press Standards
Evaluating Colour & Fine Tuning Results
Colour Managed Workflows

The course is the latest to launch following a range of successful courses by Rob Griffith. He commented, “The feedback we’ve had from past courses indicates our clients are benefiting from increased critical colour quality, which is saving them both time and money, in addition to improving their end results.”

Rob Griffith, author of Practical Colour Management has previously run training courses for X-Rite, Canon Europe, The Royal Photographic Society, The British Museum and has many years of colour management experience in a wide variety of different workflows and market sectors.

Colour Guru in One Day will cost £150.00 + vat per attendee with group discounts available. All attendees will receive a free copy of Practical Colour Management, course notes, email & telephone support after the course & exclusive discounts on products. Lunch & refreshments will also be provided.

Book online now!

Eizo fixes 'Jumping Mouse' problem with some Macs

2011-01-13T15:48:00.001Z

We've recently become aware of a firmware update that can affect some Eizo monitors.

The symptoms are a 'jumping mouse pointer' on screen, when the monitor is connected to an Apple Mac using the Mini DisplayPort connector.

As far as we know, only certain models, and with certain serial number ranges are affected.

Applicable Monitors: FlexScan SX2462W, SX2262W, ColorEdge CG245W, CG243W, CG223W

Applicable Serial Numbers

Monitors	Serial Numbers
FlexScan SX2462W	Up to 46298080
FlexScan SX2262W	Up to 27256100
ColorEdge CG243W	Up to 21734080
ColorEdge CG245W	Up to 47094080
ColorEdge CG223W	Up to 25363070

Description
When connecting the DisplayPort of certain EIZO monitors with the mini DisplayPort of certain Macintosh PCs, the mouse pointer may jump.

Counter-Measure
Eizo are providing a software update for the monitor firmware that will improve this situation. Please read the user's manual included in the download file before installing the software.

Download Update Software (user's manual included)

Notes on Installation

Applying the software will require a Windows PC*. Please be sure to conform to the following notes or your monitor may have troubles.

It is recommended that you install this software only if your monitor has a relevant serial number. If it does not, a failed installation may damage your monitor.
Do not plug in any device to the USB downstream port of the monitor. The device may break.
Quit all applications before updating the software and do not run any applications while it is being installed.
Set the PC so that it will not go into standby, sleep, or suspend mode.
Set the PC so that the screen-saver will not run.
Do not turn off the monitor and the PC during the installation. It may damage the monitor.
If you use a laptop PC to install the software, be sure to use the AC adaptor.
Do not unplug the USB cables during the installation. It may damage the monitor.
Do not operate the monitor when the software is being installed.

* Now you'll notice that although the problem only affects Mac's, the software that can perform the firmware update will only run on a Window's PC which is bizarre to say the least! Apparently Eizo only produce firmware updates (which are very rarely required), using Windows-based development software.

However, the good news, is that if you're based in the UK, Eizo UK will perform the upgrade free-of-charge for you under the warranty. If you would like to get this, please contact Eizo UK on 01344 355720 or email info@eizo.co.uk

You can see the official Eizo support page here.

How to use the SpyderCube

2011-01-13T13:24:00.001Z

Here's the latest video from DataColor, explaining how to use the SpyderCube.

You can purchase DataColor SpyderCube from our online store at http://www.nativedigital.com/products/Datacolor-SpyderCube.html

RGB Media Tester

2011-01-06T17:45:00.003Z

In the latest revision of our 'Custom Profiling' instructions, we refer to an RGB Media Tester file which you can download (details of the download are below).

The purpose of this file is to check that your inkjet printer is operating correctly and that the chosen media setting in your print driver is the ideal one for the paper you are using.

Use the RGB Media Tester to check for the following:

The blend from black to white will not necessarily be neutral, but it should be smooth.
The total ink test patches should show some differences and you should be able to read at least some of the numbers. If you can't, then too much ink is being used. Likewise the type should be clear and the fine lines visible.
Nowhere on the chart should the ink be wet after printing and you should also turn the paper over to check if the ink is coming through. If it is, then too much ink is being used.
The colour squares should all be smooth and flat with no patterns, unless your media is textured.

Output the RGB Media Tester several times with different media types selected and see which looks best. It's not an infallible test but it should give you a good indication of what media type works best for your printer.

You can download the RGB Media Tester here:
http://www.nativedigital.co.uk/downloads/rgb_media_tester.tiff

Let us know how you get on with it.

Adobe Color Printer Utility

2010-12-07T13:27:00.005Z

For reasons known only to themselves in the last release of Photoshop with Creative Suite 5 Adobe omitted the setting in Print dialogue that let users output profiling charts and other images with the Colour Handling set to No Colour Management.

A number of work arounds were developed to enable profiling charts to be output without any colour management but none were entirely satisfactory.

Now, at last, Adobe have come up with a solution and have released an application specifically for printing profiling charts. The Adobe Colour Printer Utility can be downloaded for free from:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/834/cpsid_83497.html

You simply have to launch the application, load the TIFF file of the colour patches, select the correct page set up and then print. Of course you still need to set you printer driver options correctly to also do no colour adjustments and to use the right media settings etc.

New Canon Lens Mugs are back

2010-12-02T18:06:00.001Z

We've just taken delivery of the latest Canon Lens Mugs (along with the Nikon ones too!). The main difference is that the new version has a stainless steel liner, like the Nikon one does, making it much mor suitable for hot drinks than the old, plastic lined version.

It also comes with a nice little 'drawstring' carry bag, complete with clip, so you can have it with you at all times! Buy online here for the Canon version, or here for the Nikon version.

Buy online here for the Canon version, or here for the Nikon version.

Going back to the darkroom

2010-11-19T11:21:00.001Z

This article was written by Rob Griffith and has been taken from the latest edition of the book 'Practical Colour Management' - available as an e-book or hardcopy from the Native Digital website.

Just when you thought it was safe to come into the light this article is going to suggest that as photographers you go back into the dark to do your processing. I’m going to suggest some basic guidelines for ambient lighting around a computer workstation used for image editing and also to suggest how you can take things further and create ideal colour viewing conditions.

Monitor Viewing

Computer monitors are of course a light source. Our visual system adapts to any light source by essentially doing an automatic white balance. What happens when you take a photograph of a scene with multiple colour temperature light sources? The camera tries to balance the scene as a whole or perhaps the dominant light source and this can result in some parts of the scene looking correct and others having a cast. The same can be true if you face your visual system with multiple light sources, for example a monitor, desk lamp and window. So a simple rule if you want to view images on your monitor is to make it the dominant light source and keep the ambient lighting to a minimum. It doesn’t have to be completely dark, but just a lot dimmer than a normal office environment. There are a couple of ISO standards that deal with viewing images on monitors ISO 3664 and ISO 12646 both recommend a light level of around 32 lux or lower, typical office lighting can be around 750 lux.

So, pull those blinds, turn off the over head lights and your desk lamp. As well as the level of the light you should think about the colour temperature of the light. If you are calibrating your monitor to 6500K it makes sense to have any ambient light you do have to approximately the same colour temperature, a cheap option may be to just have a daylight balance bulb, or you can get florescent tubes that conform to a lighting standards called D50 or D65 that conform to daylight conditions.

Also think about your wall colours. One reason to have dim ambient lighting is to minimize reflection from walls. If you do have lighting that conforms to a standard then keep in mind that as light bounces off a coloured wall it’s wavelengths change. You can go to the extreme of buying special neutral paint.

Lastly, if you can’t create a totally dim environment then a good monitor hood will lessen light falling directly on a monitor.

Print Viewing

One of the most common support calls I get is from customers who have bought a monitor or monitor calibration solution from us, and maybe used our custom profiling service to profile their inkjet but still when they put the print next to the monitor they see a difference. There are good biological and physical reasons for this. Firstly, as I said above your eye adapts to light sources so as you flick your eye from the print that’s lit by the ambient lighting to the image on screen lit by the monitor back light your eye is trying to adjust but not being given the time to do so. Secondly a monitor is an emissive light source and a print a reflective one so the qualities of light from each differ widely.

The only real way to get a good monitor to print match that has both images in your field of view at once is to buy a specialist viewing booth that has a known colour temperature and probably the ability to vary in intensity. That way monitor and viewing booth can both be adjusted and calibrated to match. Such systems will cost several hundred pounds. For most users a better option is to view print and monitor independently.

Daylight is the best viewing light for most customers. It’s free and is always spectrally even (i.e it contains a good spread of wavelengths). The best way to evaluate a print to monitor match is to view the print under daylight for several minutes. Then go and look at the monitor for several minutes. Letting your visual system adjust to each light source should mean you see a closer match than if you flicked your eyes from monitor to print.

Sharpness of text on small, high resolution screens

2010-11-17T14:23:00.001Z

I had an email from a potential customer today - we had been discussing suitable monitors for them (non-professional photographer with an upper limit of £500 - monitor also has to be suitable for general office work etc).

We'd come down to the Eizo S2243W being the most appropriate choice for them and they asked about the size and sharpness of text - the concern being that displaying 1920 x 1200 pixels on a 22" screen may mean text is too small.

As I personally use one of these screens as my day-to-day monitor, I thought I'd just take a photo of the display with a reference point (a biro in this case).

As you can see, I've used quite a small font size, but it's incredibly clear and sharp - the slight diagonal line or moiré effect is just a clash between the refresh rate of the screen and the shutter speed on my compact camera - you don't see this on screen with the naked eye!

My Eizo display is connected to a MacBook Pro 13" using a Kanex MiniDisplayPort to DVI adaptor and then a standard DVI cable. With this resolution, we'd always recommend using a fully digital connection as analog (VGA) connections, whilst possible, have a higher chance of signal degradation which can result in some 'fuzziness' particularly with text.

Update (Jan 11) - I now use a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable to link my Mac to the DisplayPort connection on the monitor.

10-bit Graphics on Mac's

2010-11-17T10:27:00.002Z

This article has been adapted from information provided to us by Quato - many thanks to Quato's technical team for their help and assistance. The article refers to Quato's displays, however, the advice is also relevant other 10-bit capable displays such as the Eizo CG223W, CG243W, CG245W and the NEC SpectraView 241W and 271W.

Some of you have already realised that the Quato IP242ex and the Quato IP240ex LED support full native 10bit via DisplayPort because the panels are also true 10bit savvy. However, the proof of concept is one thing, real world usage is another.

Actually, the Mac OS X 10.6 Operating System is only able to display 10bit via OpenGL and not via standard CoreGraphics applications. That means, to display 10bit via DisplayPort (DVI has not enough bandwidth for 10bit) you need both, a graphic card and an application that supports 10bit via OpenGL. Only the Radeon HD4870, HD5870 or Nvidia Quadro 4000 (fermi based) support 10bit on the Mac. Unfortunately, this also means you need at least a Mac Pro. Apart from some 3D Rendering software, only Photoshop CS4/CS5 support 10bit via OpenGL – means the OpenGL feature must be switched on in Photoshop CS4/5.

Thus, the only working 10bit combination is actually a Mac Pro under Mac OS X 10.6 with Photoshop CS4/5 and either the Radeon HD4870/5870 or Nvidia Quadro 4000 (fermi). The graphic card will at least cost 500 € but stunning smooth gradiants and finest details in the darks may justify this extra cost

All other Macs with integrated DisplayPort or Mac Pros with a DisplayPort equipped graphic card other than the 3 above only use 8-bit. Although the interface can theoretically do more, the used ATI/Nvidia/Intel HD graphic chips and drivers do not support 10bit. Thus, there is no solution to get 10bit out of these units.

If you have any questions regarding this article, please don't hesitate to get in contact.

Further information is available as follows:

Quato
Eizo
NEC

EIZO wins “Highly Commended” at MacUser Awards!

2010-11-01T22:01:00.001Z

EIZO UK was delighted to have been awarded the MacUser “Highly Commended award” in the "Display of the Year" category at the magazines recent awards ceremony, for its ColorEdge CG245W.

The MacUser Awards are a firmly established and keenly anticipated event within the Mac industry calendar. The annual MacUser Awards are each voted for by its readers, who vote in their thousands.
“The MacUser Awards reflect the very best products for Mac users, the very cream of the industry’s output over the last 12 months. These awards… provide our readers with a list of products they should be coveting.” (source: MacUser Awards website)

The EIZO ColorEdge CG245W is one of the latest ColorEdge displays to be launched within the range. This unique monitor is one of a kind being the industry’s first ever self calibrating graphics monitor, with its own built-in calibrator.

Benefits Include:

Brightness & Colour Compensation
10-bit simultaneous display:3D Look-Up Table
Wide colour gamut, covering 98% of Adobe RGB
DVI-I and DisplayPort connectivity
Wide viewing angles
5 years on-site warranty

The unique calibrating sensor sits within the bezel of the monitor and can be controlled via either EIZO’s in-house developed software ColorNavigator or by its own OSD. The sensor which drops down on to the screen allows the monitor to be calibrated automatically; leaving the user without the need for any extra calibration equipment.

Below is a short video of the CG245 calibrator in operation...

Click for more information on the Eizo ColorEdge CG245W.

X-Rite launch the new i1Profiler range

2010-10-27T16:51:00.002+01:00

X-Rite made an official announcement regarding the new i1Profiler solutions, which include i1Publish software and new hardware bundles - i1Basic Pro, i1Photo Pro and i1Publish Pro.

One of the problems that customers have experienced with X-Rite is understanding the product line, which includes the mid-range i1 (previously known as Eye-One) products and the high-end ProfileMaker and MonacoProfiler. The new i1Profiler range completely replaces everything else (except for the i1Display 2 and i1Display LT).

The new product line now comprises the following products:

i1Basic Pro - RRP £746 plus VAT
The effectively replaces the i1Basic and comes with an i1Pro spectrophotometer plus various accessories (storage case, scanning ruler etc). It also comes with Pantone ColorManager software and i1Profiler software for:

Display Profiling (LCD, CRT, Laptop)
Display Quality Check
Printer Quality Check (note this is not printer profiling!)

i1Photo Pro - RRP £1045 plus VAT
The i1Photo Pro sort of replaces the i1XTreme - I say 'sort of' because it lacks the XTreme's CMYK profiling and scanner profiling. However, it does include RGB profiling to a much higher standard. As well as the i1Pro spectrophotometer and storage case etc, it also includes:

ColorChecker Classic (mini)
ColorChecker Proof
Beamer holder (projector measurement)
i1Profiler software for:
- Display Profiling (LCD, CRT, Laptop)
- Display Quality Check
- Projector Profiling
- RGB Printer Profiling
- Printer Quality Check
Pantone ColorManager Software
ColorChecker Passport Software

i1Publish Pro - RRP £1418 plus VAT
This heavyweight product really does contain everything a professional would need and is equivalent to the previous ProfileMaker products. Like the i1Photo Pro and i1Basic Pro, the i1Publish Pro is based around the well-respected i1Pro spectrophotometer. It includes all the features of the i1Photo Pro and adds CMYK and CMYK+N Printer profiling (CMYK+N is multi-channel CMYK profiling for special colors etc).

i1Publish - RRP £746 plus VAT
i1Publish is the software that effectively replaces i1Match, ProfileMaker and MonacoPROFILER, and is available to people who already have an i1Pro device (although upgrades are available too) or who want to use an automated reading device such as the i1iSis.

It features a number of unique colour management capabilities, adding to users’ power and control in creating professional quality pro files. Users can chose between a ‘basic’, wizard-driven interface; or an ‘advanced’, user-driven interface to create high quality, precise, custom color profi les for monitors, projectors, printers, and presses (device support dependent upon product purchased). At the core of i1Profi ler is X-Rite’s i1Prism engine, whose unique profi ling technology lets users build printer profiles for up to 8-color workfl ows (RGB, CMYK and CMYK plus any 4). This reliable, intelligent iterative technology is extremely robust, allowing for further pro file optimisation based on any combination of images, spot colours or captured colours, resulting in the best possible image quality and colour accuracy. Users can select from any of the included PANTONE colour libraries, including the new PANTONE PLUS SERIES.

Users can further adapt their profiles to specific ambient light conditions, compensate for optical brighteners in their papers (with an i1iSis), and utilize simple yet advanced controls for black separation. i1Pro filer lets users save and reuse assets or preferred settings with drag-and-drop functionality - meaning profile generation workflows can be created or shared with others quickly, easily, and efficiently. This exchange functionality also allows users to communicate palette information and other colour data across the office or around the world using X-Rite’s ColorExchange Format (CxF) for the most comprehensive digital colour data exchange.

Upgrades from £373 plus VAT
People who purchased an i1XTreme or ProfileMaker bundle since 1st April 2010 will be eligable for a free upgrade to the latest software*.

Customers who have an iBasic Pro, i1Basic, i1Design LT, i1Photo LT, or an i1Pro OEM unit can upgrade to i1Publish software for £672 plus VAT

Customers who have an i1Photo Pro, i1Photo, i1Photo SG, i1Proof, i1XT, i1XTreme, ProfileMaker Platinum or MonacoPROFILER Platinum can upgrade to i1Publish software for £373 plus VAT

We expect the new software and solutions to become available mid-November. If you have any questions about the suitability of the new version, please get in contact as some of our staff have been involved in the beta testing and are therefore quite knowledgeable on the upgrade.

*To be confirmed

Further information on the X-Rite i1Profiler range is here.

Eizo wins prestigous industry award

2010-10-13T17:50:00.002+01:00

EIZO UK is delighted to announce that it has won the Monitor award in the prestigious PC Pro “Reliability & Service Awards 2010” - the UK’s largest survey of customer satisfaction when buying IT products and services.

The reader voted awards which were announced last week, are a representation of the magazines readers' experiences, converted into straightforward star ratings: 6/6 being exceptional, 1/6 being very poor.

More than 12,000 people took part in the 2010 survey and EIZO was proud to discover that its customers awarded its monitors an amazing 6/6 stars in each of the qualifying categories; “Image Quality”, “Reliability” and “Would Buy Again"!

PC Pro’s website quotes…

“More than 95% of monitor buyers are satisfied with their screen, so the winner of this category must be truly exceptional. Step forward EIZO.”

The whole team would like to thank all of its customers who voted for EIZO in this year’s awards. It is a true testament to the experience, expertise, reliability and service which is crafted into each and every EIZO monitor.

You can find details of all Eizo's monitors on the Native Digital website.

Having Your Cake and Profiling It!

2010-09-30T11:07:00.004+01:00

Over the years I’ve colour managed printing onto a wide range of different materials, including ceramics, cloth and leather, but recently I’ve been working on my first edible media.

A company approached us that produce cake printing systems for supermarkets. They manufacture a booth that customers can use to upload their photos from memory cards or mobile phones and the booth even has a scanner. Alternatively the customer can choose from a standard cake design. The customer can then add messages to the design and then it’s printed in the store bakery. The printer used is a customized inkjet printer that uses, of course, edible inks and prints onto thin sheets of icing that are then put on top of the cake. The colour results had been good but recent changes to food standards has forced them to change their ink recipes and this caused them some colour reproduction problems, hence their approach to us.

Since the system is based on a conventional inkjet it was actually relatively easy to profile. The main problem I had was the drying time of the ink on the icing. I had to leave the sheets for about an hour before measuring them with an i1 Pro - I wasn’t about to try putting sheets of icing through my X-Rite iSis. Initial results were encouraging but I had only used a small set of colour patches and there were some colour casts at various points along the grey gradation on my test image. I re-profiled using nearly 1000 colour patches and got a much better result. Normally there isn’t much benefit to profiling with a larger number of colour patches but when a device isn’t printing in a very linear or predictable manner then more patches can help.

All the testing had been done with Photoshop implementing the profiles, however the booth prints using the company’s own software and it couldn’t implement ICC profiles. We did try implementing the profile in the inkjet driver and Windows but neither result was anywhere close to Photoshop. I’ve never found applying profiles in Windows or printer drivers to be of any use. The company has gone back to their software developer and are updating their system to include the ability to apply ICC profiles. They are very pleased with the improvement to the prints and are back to the standard of print they had with the old ink set.

Datacolor SpyderCheckr

2010-09-22T17:20:00.001+01:00

Looking suspicously like a slightly inflated version of the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport, the new Datacolor SpyderCheckr has just been launched at Photokina.

I haven't actually seen or used it, but it appears to have 24 colour patches (in a different layout to the X-Rite Passport / Macbeth chart) on one side, with greys, skin tones and other subtle colours on the other. The actual patches are reversible (the rear has larger grey patches) and replaceable. There is a tripod mount at either end of the hinge which enables easy positioning.

Datacolor say that the small red dot on the bottom left is a fade indicator, which will alert the owner that the patches need replacing in order to maintain colour consistency. Replacement patches are scheduled to ship during 2011.

As well as the physical product, the SpyderCheckr also comes with software that works with Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Lightroom to create presets which will actually perform the colour adjustments required to get your cameras back to 'perfection' as far as colour is concerned. Notice that this is not the same as a profile, which is valid only for certain lighting conditions, although I believe that the software can also create a profile for specific conditions.

The SpyderCheckr is also available as the SpyderCheckr Pro which ships with the SpyderCube for additional checks and tests. UK prices have not yet been announced, but from the £ and € versions, it's looking to be around £99 which prices it above the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport.

Will it sell? Well the price could be a problem for Datacolor. Although there are differences between it and the X-Rite Passport, most people will just see the SpyderCheckr as a large Passport. Datacolor's job is to ensure that they can differentiate it and communicate the specific advantages and benefits of the SpyderCheckr.

As soon it it's available, we'll be listing it on http://nativedigital.co.uk

Jan 2011 Update: now available. Find the Datacolor SpyderCheckr on Native Digital.

SpyderLensCal

2010-09-21T12:08:00.002+01:00

The US/Swiss colour management giant, Datacolor have just started shipping their latest product, the SpyderLensCal. It's an interesting product, not just for what it does, but it shows that Datacolor are looking beyond colour management into other useful goodies for the photographer.

The SpyderLensCal is essentially a precision plastic target and graduated scale that measures the focus performance of your camera/lens combination. If your autofocus is slightly wrong, you can then make adjustments using the autofocus correction facility found on some modern DSLR cameras.

Supported cameras include:

Canon (50D, 7D, 5DMkII, 1DMkIII, 1DMkIV, 1DsMkIII, 1DIV)
Nikon (D300, D300s, D700, D3, D3s, D3x)
Sony (A900, A850)
Olympus (E-30, E-620)
Pentax (K20D, K7D)

Here's what Datacolor have to say...

SpyderLensCal™ provides a fast, reliable method of measuring the focus performance on your camera and lens combinations. It allows photographers to obtain razor-sharp focusing or check to see that their lenses are working at their peak performance. This device is compact, lightweight and durable, with integrated level and tri-pod mount.

The problem:

Photographers have enjoyed the benefit of autofocus for 25 years now, but many still struggle with its accuracy and repeatability. Auto-focus is a great convenience, especially in fast shooting situations. But typically the first step in reviewing files from a shoot is tossing all the images where the focus isn’t quite right. This can be motion blur or other issues, but one of the most frequent causes is auto-focus error. We tend to blame this on the camera choosing the wrong object, or the wrong point on the object as the focal point, but there is another possibility, one we hate to consider, given the price of the hi-end lenses we use: the auto-focus of our lens may simply be off. When you take a simple shot of a flat object perpendicular to the camera, and it still isn’t quite as sharp as it should be, you have to accept that this may be the cause.

The solution:

Many newer DSLR cameras now offer a method to correct this issue: they allow you to store auto-focus correction data for several of your most important lenses. This feature is likely to become more common, and appear in other camera types.

SpyderLensCal was designed to aid in correcting the auto-focus on your camera and lens combinations and storing them in your camera’s custom settings.

Features

Fast, easy solution for your interchangeable lenses and recent DSLR bodies provides razor-sharp auto-focusing, using modern DSLR autofocus micro-adjustment technologyCompact, lightweight and durable, with integrated level and tri-pod mount, making this the most convenient way to adjust your own camera gear
Save time and hassle of sending your equipment in for service. Now you can check or calibrate your own lenses
Accurate and repeatable Calibration of your lenses and recent DSLR bodies
Worthwhile investment to ensure your camera is focusing your lenses as precisely as possible

You can buy the SpyderLensCal online at Native Digital.

Update to ColorNavigator for Windows

2010-08-16T11:57:00.000+01:00

Eizo have announced an update to ColorNavigator for Windows from 5.4.3 to 5.4.4
- Problem fixed where the correlation value of the built-in sensor is changed.

Supported models: ColorEdge CG245W, CG243W, CG242W, CG301W, CG210-N, CG221, CG210, CG19, CE240W, CG303W, CG223W, CG232W, CG222W, CG241W, CG211, CG220, CG21, CG18, CE210W

OS: Windows 7 32-bit, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

We recommend all users of ColorNavigator 5.4.3 on Windows should download and install the updated software from the Eizo website.

http://www.eizo.com/global/downloads/software/index.php

Eizo CG243W wins TIPA award

2010-08-13T17:46:00.004+01:00

The much sought-after TIPA award for Best Photo Monitor of the year went to EIZO again. The CG243W convinced the jury with a 3D look-up table, automatic colour drift correction and IPS-LCD panel for excellent colour reproduction. These features do not only convince professionals but are also relevant for amateur photographers.

Besides two DVI-I inputs the EIZO ColorEdge CG243 offers a DisplayPort that enables the user to work with 10-bit colour*. So the monitor displays over one billion colours and the finest differences in tone. 16-bit internal processing produces smooth display of greyscale tones and brings out a very high level of detail in dark areas. The advantage: colours are differentiated true to the original. The Digital Uniformity Equaliser (DUE) is responsible for brightness and chroma uniformity on the whole surface of the display, so each colour is the same wherever you look.

For calibration the Eizo ColorEdge CG243W comes with EIZO's ColorNavigator software that is used for setting the target values for brightness, white point and gamma. The monitor's precise and reliable colour reproduction reduces correction steps and shortens the professional's valuable production time.

Eizo CG243W - TIPA 2010 award winner

TIPA Award Best Photo Monitor 2010 as seen by the TIPA jury:

Designed to handle both still and moving images equally well, the 24.1 inch widescreen Eizo ColorEdge CG243W monitor features an in-plane switching (IPS) LCD panel with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. The monitor boasts wide 178 degrees horizontal and vertical viewing angles. Its wide gamut reproduces 98% of the Adobe RGB colour space. The ColorEdge CG243W offers hardware calibration, so the monitor itself is calibrated rather than the computer.

Native Digital comment - we have to agree with TIPA, the Eizo ColorEdge CG243W is an excellent professional display for people who want to be able to see and edit with a true representation of their photograph or image on screen. We'd also add that the CG243W is exceptional at showing shadow detail and deep blacks. It also comes with 5 year 'advanced exchange' warranty in the UK.

You can find the current price and availability of the CG243W on the Native Digital website: http://www.nativedigital.com/products/Eizo-ColorEdge-CG243W-Black.html

* a 10-bit video card/output is also required.

Writing

2010-08-05T09:13:00.003+01:00

I've always enjoyed writing, I'm currently on my third novel, and this week I've been busy at the keyboard rather than the spectrophotometer. I'm currently writing the third edition of Practical Colour Management and we hope to release it sometime next month.

We've been amazed at how many people have downloaded the second edition from all around the world and it's been a challenge to put enough new stuff in the third edition to make it worth people downloading or buying the new version. So far I've updated the Photoshop chapter to reflect the changes in CS5, heavily revised monitor calibration and completely rewritten the digital photography chapter. I've also added an appendix on understanding monitor specifications. If anybody has any other recommendations for changes or revisions then please email them to info@nativedigital.co.uk or comment on this blog.

I'm also writing the third article in a series for the Royal Photographic Society Journal. I've covered monitor calibration and RAW processing in the previous articles and this time I'm trying to give some guidance to help readers get better results when supplying images to photo labs and photo book printers. I've sent test images to a selection of labs and websites such as Blurb and so far I'm very satisfied with most of the results I've got back. Again if you have some good or bad experiences of sending images to others to print I'd love to hear them.

You can download 'Practical Colour Management' (or buy the book) at the Native Digital website.

EIZO ColorNavigator 5.4.3 Launches!

2010-08-03T16:20:00.000+01:00

EIZO's own developed ColorNavigator software version 5.4.3 has just been released - updated to support Photoshop CS5.

To upgrade your software today, please click here.

ColorNavigator makes calibration both simple and accurate. Instead of having to judge colours and do time-consuming inputting, all you need to do is input target values for brightness, white point and gamma. ColorNavigator works with a wide range of measurement devices to directly utilise the 12 or 10 bit Look-Up Table of EIZO's ColorEdge monitors for reliable calibration in minutes.

Eizo CG245W available shortly

2010-07-06T12:04:00.001+01:00

After what seems like an age, Eizo UK have announced that the Eizo ColorEdge CG245W will start shipping week commencing July 19th 2010.

What's special about the CG245W is that it's the first display to have a built-in, swing-down calibrator. This makes calibration and profiling exceptionally straight-forward, and in some cases, can even be set to happen automatically at a set time and/or date.

The basis of the CG245W is the best-selling CG243W (which will continue to be available). This means you have a high-quality IPS panel, 98% Adobe RGB gamut coverage (note that the gamut size is > 100% Adobe RGB, but the actual coverage is 98%), 10-bit input capability and much more.

The CG245W also comes with a new stand and a hood that can be used when the display is in its portrait position.

Update: product now available at : http://www.nativedigital.com/products/Eizo-ColorEdge-CG245W-Black.html