Adobe Color Printer Utility

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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!

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.

Eizo CG245W available shortly

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