Having Your Cake and Profiling It!

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

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

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.

Update to ColorNavigator for Windows

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

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

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!

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.