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.