| RESULTS
The Eye-One was used to calibrate the monitor and printer of the
system I use for photo editing.
The monitor is a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 700e, which offers a range
of preset colour temperatures or full control over the individual
RGB levels. I profiled it using several of the different methods
offered by i1Match: the 'Easy' method (with the monitor set to
5000K), the 'Advanced' method using the monitor's native whitepoint
(with the monitor set to 9300K) and the 'Advanced' method specifying
a 6500K whitepoint. In each case the profiles gave visually accurate
colours with the only obvious differences being the change between
the 5000K warm white, 6500K medium white and 9300K cool white.
There are three points I feel it's worth noting: firstly the Eye-One
did appear to be slightly influenced by external light sources
(the design of the monitor may affect this), so it's best to avoid
having a light source pointing directly at the screen during profiling;
secondly the process of adjusting the contrast and brightness
to their optimal values resulted in a very bright image - I have
some concerns about how this will affect the longevity of the
monitor; and finally the suction cup of the CRT monitor holder
tended to leave a faint mark on the anti-glare coating of the
screen, although this could easily be cleaned off using a diluted
detergent solution.
The printer is an Epson 2000P. This printer (the predecessor to
the 2100/2200) has several issues that make it comparatively difficult
to produce accurately coloured output: its gamut is smaller than
that of the dye-based printers (or the 2100/2200) and the inks
used suffer from metamerism on glossy papers which can give prints
a slight greenish cast under certain lighting conditions. In the
time I've owned it I've become resigned to the fact that I usually
need to make several test prints to get a really good result -
primarily because prints tend to be darker and more contrasty
than the image itself so shadow detail is often lost - and that
papers not recommended for use in the printer are best avoided:
Epson's own Premium Glossy Photo Paper, for example, suffers a
slight green cast with blue skies becoming somewhat cyan and vegetation
becoming rather too intensely green. As such, I thought this printer
would represent an interesting challenge for the Eye-One.
I chose to profile three papers recommended by Epson for use in
the printer: Archival Matte Paper, Premium Semigloss Photo Paper
and Glossy Paper – Photo Weight, plus the previously mentioned
Premium Glossy Photo Paper. The standard Epson pigment-based inks
were used in all cases. I found it was necessary to be careful
when scanning prints on papers where the ink remained on the surface
(for example Premium Glossy Photo Paper) since it was possible
to scratch the print with the head of the Eye-One as I ran it
along the scanning ruler.
Once again, i1Match generated profiles that gave visually accurate
colours, and the significant differences in the whiteness of the
various papers (Premium Semigloss has an ISO brightness of 93%
compared to Archival Matte’s value of 104%) didn't seem to upset
the overall colour balance. The big surprise was that all traces
of the green cast were gone from prints made on Premium Glossy
Photo Paper, and that results on this paper were arguably the
most pleasing of all.
The match between how colour appeared on the monitor (using Photoshop's
proofing facility) and printer was very good. The main visual
differences were down to the comparative whiteness of the papers
versus the whitepoint of the monitor (but given the ability to
change the monitor’s whitepoint this could doubtless be optimised
to make the on-screen image match the viewing conditions for the
prints) and the fact that colours appeared slightly less vivid
on the matte paper.
Amongst the additional facilities offered by the package, the
spot colour and ambient light measurement together with the lightbox
simulation offered by i1Share proved particularly instructive
by giving the means to measure the actual colour of an object
and the characteristics of different types of lighting, and showing
how the two interact.
Finally, we intend to extend this section of the review; I have
recently used the Eye-One to create a series of profiles for the
Epson 2200 belonging to Nikonian BJ Nicholls, and we will be including
a comparison between the Eye-One generated profiles and the standard
Epson profiles in due course. |
