color profiling with flexi cloud

[buzzgraphics]

Who's using the built in profiling tool? What spectrophotometer are you using? Is it working well for you? thanks in advance!

 

[SightLine]

We have an i1 Pro and have been making our own profiles for years with Flexi. Its the only way to go if you really want top notch quality and color! It can be a bit tedious creating a profile no matter what profile creation software you use though. Fortunately its not something you have to do a lot. One thing that most places skip though - which adds extra time is on the final step when you have your color swatches all printed and ready to scan in..... let the print dry and then laminate it first. Then it accounts for the slight color shift from the laminate.

 

[FrankW]

We use i1 and Barbieri devices (Spectropad and Spectro LFP) with Flexi.

 

[buzzgraphics]

thanks for the info. can i get away with a used eye 1 unit off of eBay? One of the gray older style units or do i need a new pro2 kit?

 

[Pauly]

We have an i1 Pro and have been making our own profiles for years with Flexi. Its the only way to go if you really want top notch quality and color! It can be a bit tedious creating a profile no matter what profile creation software you use though. Fortunately its not something you have to do a lot. One thing that most places skip though - which adds extra time is on the final step when you have your color swatches all printed and ready to scan in..... let the print dry and then laminate it first. Then it accounts for the slight color shift from the laminate.

Yes you have to do all measurements exactly the way it will be viewed as the final product. Even for ink linearisations or restrictions.

 

[SightLine]

thanks for the info. can i get away with a used eye 1 unit off of eBay? One of the gray older style units or do i need a new pro2 kit?

The older ones will work just fine. That is the one we have..... One thing to keep in mind though, if it has had a TON of use they get less accurate and might even fail their own self test software for accuracy. They have a small halogen bulb in them that like any bulb changes over time. Think of an old bulb that still works - often times there will be some darkening or discoloration of the glass. That being said you can also send one off to X-Rite to have one re-lamped. Been quite some time since I looked into it but I think its a couple hundred bucks to have that done. You can however do certain things to "freshen" one up yourself though. Ours was failing some part of that self test software, I forget which part now but what I did was to screw the main lens bit off and then carefully used a q-tip to clean up inside and around the business end of it. I think it was probably dust for the most part but once done it passed all of its tests just fine again. Also need to be sure of which one you get, just don't want one of the UV Cut ones, those are for a different process. You also don't really need any of the software. The i1 Basic will be just fine (do not get the i1 "Display", that is a different device and will not work for creating print profiles, period) - you will want to download the most current drivers and software from x-rite anyways and even the most basic version will let you also create profiles for your monitors. For Flexi you don't need the x-rite software at all other than the drivers. Also - X-Rite's website can be semi-confusing for the previous i1 Pro - its under Out of Production>Calibration Solutions... As far as what can be done with x-rite software the devices are internally licensed so if you got a basic it would only do monitor profiles, an i1 Photo would do more, etc. There is also one very good open source profiling software, Argyll, that can pretty much use all the capabilities of any i1 including the basic and can create print profiles outside of Flexi if you wanted to.

There are a couple of extra hardware bits that you want though. One is mandatory and that is the color reference tile which is a grey tray the same overall size as the spectro with a small white dot, all software will ask you to first place the device on its calibration tile when you first start. Other very nice to have bits, you will see a piece that has two sections attached with a bit of black rubber, this is the part that attaches to the spectro head and has a weight to hang over the back of your monitor and it makes profiling your monitor much easier. A white tray looking thing with a clear wide plastic bar piece (or just the clear plastic bar by itself), this makes scanning in the strips a LOT easier as it has a open spot for the spectro to slide back and forth in a perfect straight line over a strip of colors to scan. There are other accessories as well like the ambient light sensor head, etc that are not nearly as critical to have (I've almost never used them).

 

[altereddezignz]

This is as well some of the info i am looking for. We ordered the i1Publish Pro 2 kit from Xrite so we will be learning with you lol..

 

[buzzgraphics]

thanks so much for this info, this is exactly what i needed.