X-Rite i1 Basic Pro 2

[sheitmar]

I've been trying to dig into past threads in regards to spectrophotometers without much luck, so I apologize if this has been hashed out before.

Basically, I'm tired of having to manually color match customer colors to a bunch of different color swatches we have printed and stapled to the walls. We don't have proper color calibration tools. For most of the stuff we output, it's not a big issue - but now and again a customer who requires output of a specific color, I have to re-invent the wheel and try to do match manually.

Our set-up: Roland XJ-540 printer, Camm-1 GX-640 plotter, and an Agfa Anapurna M4F hybrid flatbed. For the Roland products we run Versaworks, the Anapurna we use Softrip.

I have roland color swatches printed on a few different vinyls, and agfa color swatches printed on a few different substrates. In order to achieve a consistent color between both printers, I print the color on one printer and then color match to the second. I have to make sure that I itemize in my files which colors apply to which printer for future print jobs.

I'm eyeing up the X-Rite i1 Basic Pro 2, and going to push the boss hard to profile these printers properly. What I want to know is will this work with the current setup we have, using versaworks (4.8.2) and softrip (7.0)? While I would love to have a centralized RIP running both printers, that's a problem for another time.

If you guys have any other suggestions to help save me time in the future, that would be awesome.

 

[P Wagner]

Both of the RIP products that you are using (Roland Versaworks and Wasatch SoftRIP) do not contain a module to generate the ICC output profile, but they do allow you to perform the prior steps (ink restrictions, linearization, total area coverage). You would need the XRite i1PublishPro 2 product which contains the ability to create printer ICC profiles for each of these RIPs, if you want to create custom media profiles.

 

[Hotspur]

It's not just a case of investing in the kit - its your time in understanding all the different ways your less-than-ideal rips work with their profiling process up to the point of icc build and then getting the results to look similar and understanding the i1 software too - at your stage this is a mountain of work and trial and error with huge waste in terms of media and your time.
Although your boss doesn't want to pay for a proper RIP (Onyx or Caldera) he will pay thousands more for not doing so in terms of your wasted time, media and missed opportunities with customers.
Color is something that can be fixed easily with a good rip and an i1 with a few days training. After that you can profile your monitors and recalibrate your printers occasionally and then you can get on with making money.
Or you can save a few thousand and spend your life chasing color instead of new business. The easiest way to save your time is to convince him to invest in what really matters.

 

[YoyoPonto]

I've been trying to dig into past threads in regards to spectrophotometers without much luck, so I apologize if this has been hashed out before.

Basically, I'm tired of having to manually color match customer colors to a bunch of different color swatches we have printed and stapled to the walls. We don't have proper color calibration tools. For most of the stuff we output, it's not a big issue - but now and again a customer who requires output of a specific color, I have to re-invent the wheel and try to do match manually.

Our set-up: Roland XJ-540 printer, Camm-1 GX-640 plotter, and an Agfa Anapurna M4F hybrid flatbed. For the Roland products we run Versaworks, the Anapurna we use Softrip.

I have roland color swatches printed on a few different vinyls, and agfa color swatches printed on a few different substrates. In order to achieve a consistent color between both printers, I print the color on one printer and then color match to the second. I have to make sure that I itemize in my files which colors apply to which printer for future print jobs.

I'm eyeing up the X-Rite i1 Basic Pro 2, and going to push the boss hard to profile these printers properly. What I want to know is will this work with the current setup we have, using versaworks (4.8.2) and softrip (7.0)? While I would love to have a centralized RIP running both printers, that's a problem for another time.

If you guys have any other suggestions to help save me time in the future, that would be awesome.

If you own an I1 Pro you can use the software: Coloris to create your ICC Profiles
You can create CMYK and RGB profiles to use with a driver or a RIP
This software is free, it's an ArgylCMS Graphic User's Interface under GNU licence.
With Coloris you can also find a spot color from a Swatch Book (PANTONE, RAL, Custom Color like Vinyl Swatch Book, etc...)
You can control your light, display gamut with Gamut Viewer...

You can download this software at the following web site: Coloris | ArgyllCMS GUI

 

[dypinc]

Both of the RIP products that you are using (Roland Versaworks and Wasatch SoftRIP) do not contain a module to generate the ICC output profile, but they do allow you to perform the prior steps (ink restrictions, linearization, total area coverage). You would need the XRite i1PublishPro 2 product which contains the ability to create printer ICC profiles for each of these RIPs, if you want to create custom media profiles.

I am not a fan of i1PublishPro 2 for creating CMYK profiles. I can create great RGB output profiles with it but have never been happy with it CMYK output profiles. I have tried a lot of settings but maybe I just never hit on the right ones. I have Fiery Color Profiler here and the Profiling engine with the Colorgate RIP that I get far better CMYK profiles from. But I guess if you get a new i1 Pro 2 you will get i1PublishPro 2 with it. i1Profiler shows the latest is Version 1.7.1. It might be worth trying Coloris.

 

[YoyoPonto]

Coloris is based on ArgyllCMS and the CMS used is Profile Maker...

 

[ProPDF]

Switch to Flexi Cloud and pick up a used X-Rite Device online. Flexi is on a subscription based model now so no huge investment if you don't like it. Flexi has it's own wizard that just requires a device to plug into the computer and will run all your devices.

 

[ikarasu]

Switch to Flexi Cloud and pick up a used X-Rite Device online. Flexi is on a subscription based model now so no huge investment if you don't like it. Flexi has it's own wizard that just requires a device to plug into the computer and will run all your devices.

[Edit] Replied to the wrong thread.... Thread bumping a 4 year post isn't good, guys!