I understand it is possible to built profiles for my CG241W monitor with i1Profiler, something not possible with i1Match.
Are there any benefits to going this route or is is better to stick with ColorNavigator.
I am using a i1Pro device.
tks, louie
As far as I know there are absolutely no benefits to using anything other than Eizo’s own ColorNavigator when building profiles for an Eizo CG screen. Perhaps some may say things like the flare control (which I’ve not bothered to try yet) or some other (somewhat) obscure setting which is in i1Profiler but of course, the people who manufacture some of the most highly regarded screens in the industry and some of the highest level of accuracy screens available are most definitely going to be able to profile their own screens better or more accurately than just about any other company producing profile creation software.
Remember, not only does Eizo produce some of the few screens on the market which incorporate a 3D LUT (although, unfortunately you missed out, my CG242W on the other hand, does include a 3D LUT) but they actually design and code up their very own ASIC chips. So, no other company would have any idea of the source code and designs that go into building these very important and incredibly useful parts of most CG range screens.
I also doubt very much that any app besides ColorNavigator is going to be able to program, manipulate and correct the screen’s internal LUTs and therefore, the screens final output colours for each pixel, to as high a degree of accuracy as would the Eizo software.
But having said all that, the only judge who matters one tiny bit is youself and your eyes. If you find that i1Profiler produces profiles with better colour accuracy or much smoother transitions between colours or you simply just prefer the look of the X-Rite profile, then it matters not one little bit what sort of advantages any other app might have if you have a definite preference for the X-Rite or just any non-Eizo profile.
To me, it’s kind of like asking something like: "I’ve just bought a new Ferrari but I’m wondering if I should maybe change the ECU or engine or gearbox to a (insert whatever car company you like) brand ECU/engine/gearbox. Doesn’t sound like such a wise idea, does it? I firmly believe the same holds true for any hardware calibration screen - I definitely wouldn’t be using ColorNavigator to profile my screen if I happened to own an NEC PA271 or similar. It just doesn’t stand to reason that a company which spends so many millions of R&D $$$ on thinking of, designing and finally manufacturing extremely colour accurate, professional level screens would release an inferior software product when it comes to profiling said screen. If that were the case, then how could the company in question brag about their screens if they couldn’t even extract the absolute maximum performance from their own products.
But, as I previosly mentioned, regardless of what I or anyone else ever tells you, the only one you can trust is you and your eyes because only you know exactly what you like best and if you visiion is not “perfect” (whatever that may mean) and you see some colours stronger or easier than those of another hue/frequency, and just by sheer stroke of luck, the profiling app you choose also creates a colour cast or some other anomoly which perfectly agrees with your eyesite and vision, again, it may perhaps look better on your screen in your opinion.
Finally, you should definitely consider buying an i1d3 and using that to profile your screen instead of your i1Pro. I have both devices and have previously owned a CG241W and even with an i1d2 (which was all that was available from X-Rite for a very reasonable priced colorimeter, at the time the CG241W came out and became popular), I would get more accurate profiles, better smoothness/less banding, not such harsh transitions as I would if using the i1Pro. Especially since the CG241W can create a neutral black value well below 4cdm (I think I read somewhere that if using an i1Pro with any screen it is best not to ask for a BP any darker than 4cdm as that’s when the S:N ratio of the i1Pro, when it’s measuring very dark tones, really starts to get out of hand and give some quite strange results at times). And also the i1d3 is such a very highly stable instrument, has excellent repeatability and also inter-device agreement, certainly much better than that of the i1Pro when referring to said specifications being measured in an emmisive environment. Who knows, perhaps when it comes to measuring printed samples, the i1Pro might have just as good or better performance when given the optimum conditions. But a screen is not optimally measured with an i1Pro. The original device has now definitely been surpassed by the i1d3 for emmisive measurements. I can’t comment on the newest i1Pro 2 device.
Not sure you’re aware, butX-Rite’s i1Profiler (i1Publish)monitorcalibrationmodule now embeds the primary components of the Eizo Color Navigator SDK (Software Developer Kit). That means that you can hardware-calibrate a ColorEdge-level Eizo without Eizo’s Color Navigator software while using an i1 Display colorimeter or i1Pro spectrophotometer device. One note: although i1Profilerdoes cover the essential calibration controls, it does not have the comprehensive suite of functionality that Color Navigator does.
A benefit of the i1Profiler solution is that it can help streamline the calibration component to one software for those with Eizo’s plus other mixed monitors in the same environment.
We announced this in ColorNews issue # 47 in February 2012 <http://www2.chromix.com/colornews/index.cxsa>
Rick Hatmaker
CHROMiX, Inc.
Thanks for your feedback. This last bit about capability of the i1Pro to deal with dark tones may be why my profile validations have always shown larger ∆E values for the dark grey and dark blue patches. I hadn’t paid this much mind since I was so please with vast improvement from my Apple LCD especially when showing the dark tones.
When you say i1d3 are you referring to the i1 Display Pro?
-louie
Yes, the i1d3 is sort of a nickname for the i1Display Pro. Before it got its official name from X-Rite, there were enough people beta testing the prototype that they would refer to it as the i1D3 to distinguish it from the i1D2.
I dealt a little bit about the differences between calibrating using a colorimeter vs a spectrophotometer (and how that relates to black) in a newsletter article from a while back:
colorwiki.com/wiki/Profiling … r_Monitors
Patrick,
Thanks for pointing me to your article on this subject. I learned some stuff I didn’t know.
The question I’m left with is, "Will I get noticeable improvement in my ability to see and control shadow detail if I use an i1Display Pro to calibrate my CG241W? This is the one area where I experience the most difficulty. I can get the image nicely adjusted in Lightroom but when I go to print (using my own custom profile from iProfiler) the shadows will be blocked up in comparison. Seems like am always having to go back and open the shadows substantially to get them to print with acceptable detail.
This may just be due to the differences between emissive and reflective media. But could it also be due to some inaccuracies in the monitor profile?
-louie
That all depends… It depends on what you are settings you’re calibrating your screen to before profiling it.
For example, I have my screen set to the following for any kind of photographic use: Full/Native Gamut, BP-0.4cdm, WP-100cdm 6000Kish (can vary depending on media in use, from around 5700-6500), L* TRC, Grey Balance Priority (can’t remember if there are any more settings, I’m on my laptop atm 
. You might notice that 0.4cdm is not very dark/black as far as what most screens are capable of and you’re right, it isn’t very dark. I have it set to minimum BP for things like watching movies or gaming and then it’s around 0.10-0.15cdm, but for photographic and especially printed work, there’s simply no point in having the BP so dark because it is completely unrealistic that printed output could ever look similarily as dark.
The reason I have my BP set to 0.4cdm also ties in with my WP set to 100cdm so the resultant contrast ratio is around 1:250, about the absolute best case scenario one could expect when printing to a gloss/lustre surface. Even that might be a stretch but there is certainly no point in having any greater contrast ratio. If printing to a matte/fine art surface, I use settings with an even lower contrast ratio, perhaps around 1:160 or so, with a BP of 0.6cdm and the same 100cdm WP and that brings the screen down to 1:166 if the WP and BP are exactly spot-on.
What settings are you currently calibrating your screen to in ColorNavigator 6 before creating your profile?
Hi aaron125,
I have just been using the provided Photoghaphy target supplied by the application.
Brightness 100 cd/m2
Black level: Minimum
White point: 5500K
Gamma: 2.20
I will give it a shot an make a new target with the Black level set to 0.4 cd/m2.
Thanks for the additional information. I had never considered changing any of these parameters but what you say makes sense.
-louie
Patrick,
Any update on to this article with respect to the new i1Pro 2? I am wondering if I should upgrade and this could have some bearing on my choice.
tks, louie
So I’ve been trying out making some different targets in ColorNavigator for my monitor. Up to now I’ve simply been using the provided “Photographic” target.
For one I can definitely see the difference in the overall display when I set the black level to 0.4. However, when looking at images that have a lot of shadow detail it doesn’t seem to translate to better or worse detail.
One question I have is what is the practical difference between a gamma of 2.2 and L*? I’ve briefly tried both and can’t tell the difference.
Finally for every profile I’ve made I’ve run a validation and consistently I’ve had large delta-E values for very dark blue and dark grey patches. How do I figure out if this is an issue with the display or with my i1Pro?
This unit was just returned from Xrite for re-validation where it failed and I had to pay for a complete replacement. Since this unit has come back the delta-E values have increased not decreased. It makes me wonder what 's going on.
-louie
Personally, I’ve yet to get my hands on an i1Pro 2, so I can’t comment on it from personal experience. Love to do so one of these days.
L* is intended to be visually linear. So each step up the scale of color or brightness will have about the same amount of change to your eye as every other step. Gamma 2.2 would have darker mid-tones. But having said that… you can pretty much ignore it! If you are working in a color managed application, you will not see any difference between the two, because the program (like Photoshop) will take your monitor profile into the equation and sort of zero out any gamma correction. Your choice of gamma makes no difference in what you see when viewing in Photoshop.
Darker patches are going to give you higher dE values in the validation - so that might be expected. If you have numbers less than than 3 dE or so that’s generally not a problem. You can try covering the display and i1Pro with a dark cloth while it’s going through its profiling and validation. That prevents any stray light from sneaking around and into the sensor while it’s measuring. Usually results in better black measurement.
The validation procedure is really more of a “consistency” report - so if there are large discrepancies after a validation that takes place immediately after a profiling, it just about always ends up being the measurement’s fault, rather than the screen. If your i1Pro just got back from X-Rite then it should be in top condition! You can run it through i1Diagnotics and see if it passes.
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for the additional feedback. For my purposes I will stay with the canned Photographic target provided by ColorNavigator. I may play around with Black setting as Arron has suggested to see how that plays out. However, now that soft proofing now available in LR 4.1, that is probably sufficient for what my needs.
Following up on your suggestion to hang a dark cloth over the monitor, last night I tried creating a new profile and validation it in a dark room. And volia the the delta-e values for the dark patches dropped to mostly 2 and below with only one a little over 3 for same dark patches that were previously giving values of 11+ before. So even with my i1Pro firmly pressed to the screen and the screen hood in place there is significant leakage from the ambient room light.
This test also indicates that the repaired device now has a significant increase in sensitivity. Previously it only gave about 6 delta-E and now giving 12 delta-e in similar environments. I don’t know if this is a linear or geometric scale but in either case this is a significant improvement in sensitivity.
-louie
like
X-Rite released an update of i1Profiler not too long ago. Some of the new features are nice (new paper sizes, White point editing, and i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer added support for monitor, projector, and printer profiling).
It also supports new video standards: http://eduardoangel.com/2012/04/16/i1profiler-update-supports-video-standards/
Also, here is a great interview and video from X-Rite Coloratti Eduardo Angel, where he talks about the importance of color management while demonstrating how to use the i1 profiler software:
http://eduardoangel.com/2012/07/20/great-interview-with-x-rite-coloratti-on-color-management
Hope this helps in your decision making!
i1Profiler is also still fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.8, 10.6 and 10.7 =)