The PrintFIX Solution
Initial thoughts
The PrintFIX device is a small elegant patch reader that comes with a manual, a CD, some plastic scan "wallets" or sleeves, and calibration sheets. The wallets consist of a thin plastic sheet attached at one end to a card. Their purpose is to hold your sample print during processing and to keep ink from coming off your print into the reader. Keep the box for PrintFIX--profile building needs accurate equipment; dust won't help.
ABOVE: PrintFIX is a compact, innovative solution for making pro-quality prints.
Ease of installation
All of my testing was done on an Apple Macintosh G4 using OSX 10.2.6. The installation was a breeze on the Mac, with the software (a Photoshop plugin) installing into the PS plugins folder. The manual is quite clear, although the printed copy has a bit of a version 1.0 feel about it.
• Don't forget that you need Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Photoshop to use PrintFIX since it works as a plugin...
Some first tests
The system is very easy to use. First, you simply select and print an appropriate colour-patch target for your printer from the menu of the PrintFIX plugin.
This print (when dry!) is then trimmed to the appropriate size and placed in the wallet or sleeve to be scanned or "read" by the patch reader. (Before doing this for the first time, you should run the supplied calibration sheet through the reader--an option to do this is available from the plugin.)
After setting PrintFIX's defaults, you do the read or scan (this worked flawlessly on my Mac, but there have been some comments about the PC version not correctly remembering settings). The image will need some cropping so that there is only white paper surrounding the coloured patches (729 in all, or 728 if you don't count the white one in the bottom corner).
ABOVE: A sample Calibration Chart display (much reduced here) after cropping and readying to make a profile. It is important to leave only white space around the patches (the reader covers a larger area that could include some text or the edge of the print). Presumably, the software relies on this white area to get the paper-white colour correct.
With the cropped Calibration Chart open, you call up the plugin and the software will do its stuff, inviting you to name your new profile. You may well be producing several, so give it a meaningful name. You will then need to quit and restart Photoshop, or it will not see your new profile.
Now, to see the results... A convenient PDI test image (see below) is included for you to try. At this stage, it's best to use one like this rather than one of your own.
ABOVE: A reduced version of the PDI Test Image (from PhotoDisc) supplied.
Now comes the really tricky part... how to show you, on a monitor and system I don't know, some very subtle differences in prints. I'll try to illustrate. The printer used was an EPSON 1290 with Epson OEM inks.
I compared a print on EPSON Premium Glossy Photo Paper between the EPSON PGPP profile and the PrintFIX one, and similarly a generic matte photo paper (I had a sample pack with several A4 sheets) using the EPSON Photo paper profile and a PrintFIX version.
Both PrintFIX profiles looked a trifle too green in the highlights and a little light. However, the deficiencies were minor, and the saturation of colours was excellent, with yellows in particular being much better than the EPSON profiles.
The range of colours available to print ("gamut") was larger in the PrintFIX profiles, and although size of gamut is only one factor in profile quality, it is important if your image contains out-of-gamut colours.
An example...
ABOVE: This image (Old John, Bradgate Park) shows four instances of a colour photo opened in Photoshop. Using soft proofing, out of gamut pixels are replaced with red ones. Four different profiles have been used. They are (clockwise from top left):
1. EPSON 1290 Photo Paper
2. PrintFIX generated
3. EPSON Pro Gloss Photo Paper
4. EPSON Photo Quality Inkjet
The PrintFIX-profile image (top right) has only a few red pixels at the top right-hand side, while the PGPP (bottom left) has a few in the shadowed wall as well. The PrintFIX profile was created for a light 140gm glossy photo paper (I went to a local ink/paper supplier and asked for their best-selling glossy photo paper).
If you were using this brand of paper you would have to experiment with your available profiles anyway to see which best suited your printer, so the number of test prints involved in generating your own profile starts to look less daunting.
My first test of the PrintFIX profile used above showed it to be a bit light and a tad too green. The plugin has adjustment sliders that you can use to alter the overall tone and brightness of the profiles. This is very useful, but you are faced with the problem that the sliders are marked in arbitrary units, and there is no live onscreen feedback available on what the effect is going to be.
ABOVE: Six adjustment sliders allow you to make profile edits. Note to ColorVision: There's plenty of space in the dialog box to add some new features!
There is a potential problem here in that you can keep adjusting and producing test prints and never feel that things are quite right. A lot of it will depend on your own degree of perfectionism and what is "good enough." Given that my first profile was pretty good, I only needed to make a few adjustments. I ended up moving two units towards Magenta and one less in Brightness. Incidentally, do remember to let everything dry properly before comparing prints--I left them overnight.
The results on the image of Old John were very good. In particular, the PrintFIX profiles got far more detail out of the shadowed wall, where all of the EPSON profiles tended to produce a brownish-greenish mush (see below). The paper was not one I'd have chosen myself, but I wanted to try out something different.
LEFT: EPSON PP profile, RIGHT: PrintFIX profile. These are digital-camera photos of actual prints and give a feel for the quality differences, although it's hard to see at this scale.
• Did I mention writing the profile name and paper type on the back of each print before you forget which is which?
• ...and to make sure you have a good supply of paper and some spare ink before starting out?
Some Possible Issues
• The plastic sleeves are absolute dust magnets (static electricity), and the PrintFIX reader will show up dust.
• There is noticeable "interference fringing" (see image below) introduced by having the plastic layer over the Calibration Chart print (with glossy paper). I'm not sure how this affects accuracy and repeatability of profiles. (ColorVision does suggest that you can clean up minor blemishes to the scanned image with Photoshop.)
ABOVE: A much-magnified portion of a PrintFIX reading made on glossy paper, showing the visible "interference fringes."
• One of my print sleeves quickly started slipping in the scanner and refused to feed correctly (ColorVision support promptly answered my request for a replacement sleeve).
• The PrintFIX profiles handled some seriously out of gamut colours less gracefully than the EPSON ones. I would normally check for out-of-gamut colours with PS soft proofing before doing a print, and make any adjustments needed. This is not a problem, it's just part of the trade-offs that can go into profile-making.
• Adjustments using the edit sliders need to be re-entered each time you make a change; a feature that allows you to save name sets would be nice. Otherwise, just remember to write them down.
• The reader's calibration seems to be limited to black-and-white levels (from the Calibration Card). Perhaps a slightly more complex card (with a mid-grey, for example) would increase initial accuracy?
• PC users: sorry--we did not have any PCs in the building to test the PrintFIX.
Where It Gets Tricky
• If you've looked at much of the rest of my site, you'll see that I do a lot of black-and-white. Now, B&W profiling is one area that takes really good ($$$) equipment to get right, and some printer/ink/paper combinations will probably never give a good gray scale. You may get a good B&W profile with minimal tweaking, but then again you may not. My own solution is to use a printer devoted to B&W with special inks (Lyson SG for the prints on my site). Most of my commercial colour work is fully digital, with images being sent electronically for reproduction. There are software tools to help you refine the profiling process, such as DoctorPRO (also from ColorVision), but this is starting to get into some serious stuff. If you feel like going this far, you should already know quite a lot about colour management; if not, it's time to learn. (See postscript at end of this review for latest DoctorPro info)
• Many of the finer adjustments relating to colour depend on your own colour vision. It can be worth checking others' prints and results.
• Remember to compare test prints under similar lighting conditions in which they will be viewed.
Summary
What PrintFIX Is Good For
• Third-party inks and papers. Despite what the printer manufacturers say, most third-party solutions will not cause your printer to burst into flames. To get the best results, you need a good printer profile. PrintFIX will (with some work) probably allow you to get better results. Some papers and inks just won't work together, and no amount of profiling will fix that (an example would be some pigment inks on certain glossy papers--the ink just won't stay put).
• I'm going to be using PrintFIX as part of my Photography teaching. The process of creating profiles will certainly help explain some aspects of colour management.
• I can see PrintFIX as a useful resource for Photo Clubs and groups, enabling people to try out profiling on their own printers (also good for an additional topic of discussion at the bar!).
• Testing new printer/ink/paper combinations for short runs, where the expense of a custom profile is not justified.
• Profile-building is not some arcane guild secret. It seems to be possible to get very good profiles with this DIY approach. Certainly, any potential purchaser should have realistic expectations and be aware of the limitations, but it is reassuring to see that ColorVision offers a money-back guarantee on the product. There are some features that could be improved (feedback on adjustments and those plastic wallets), but overall, I found it a good product.
And Where It's Not (yet)
• Black-and-white printing will be somewhat hit and miss.
• If you need absolute colour-accurate prints, then pay the money and get it done by a pro!
• The PrintFIX profiles are RGB ones. If you're into CMYK, then I'm afraid that more $$$ will be required. Don't forget though that the inkjet printer drivers you are using are RGB anyway (the driver does the RGB > CMYK conversion internally). PrintFIX is aimed squarely at the photographic side of things.
• If you are going to be producing large numbers of prints on the same printer with the same ink and paper, you can't beat getting a good custom profile from a reputable profilemaker.
• If your printer is not supported, PrintFIX won't work. Fortunately, there is a form on the ColorVision website (from the FAQ) where you can suggest models for them to support.
Where Will It Lead?
I'm sure that in a few years, devices like PrintFIX will be the norm, providing fast, accurate profiling at a fraction of the cost of today's custom profiles. I'm not saying the skills of the profile-builder are ready to go the way of the Linotype operator, but profilemakers had better factor this development into their business plans!
Postscript
DoctorPRO™ Update -- 1st July 2003
Editor's Note: As a Summer 2003 special, ColorVision is offering a copy of DoctorPRO (a $169 value) included with every PrintFIX device (until Sept 30th). For the demanding user who is interested in sophisticated profile editing, DoctorPRO allows editing of output profiles using virtually all of the Photoshop global editing tools. Keith's comments after trying out DoctorPRO software with PrintFIX profiles...
DoctorPRO (also supplied as a plugin for Photoshop) gives you the ability to tweak profiles with a lot more subtlety than the adjustments in the PrintFIX profile builder plugin. As I mentioned in the review above, DoctorPRO gives you very fine control with a direct visual approach. The basic technique would be to open an image and convert it to your output (PrintFIX generated) profile. This gives a version of the image that you can correct (saturation, contrast, remove colour casts, etc.) The corrections are then applied to your starting profile to produce a new one that better meets your requirements. The adjustments are carried out by recording your edits as a Photoshop Action (script). It is this action that is used to edit the profile.
I found the instructions for using DoctorPRO quite straightforward for someone who knows a bit about Photoshop--and therein lies a potential problem. If you have never used Actions (and I know several advanced users of Photoshop who have not), you had better get that manual out! Also, there are often many ways of achieving the same change to an image in Photoshop, and it's up to you to decide which is best. This is not really a criticism of DoctorPRO, since it's aimed at serious users who want the finest adjustments of their profiles (it even does CMYK profiles). If you should get DoctorPRO with PrintFIX, I'd really recommend leaving it in the box to start with--only after you have experimented with PrintFIX, have a go with DoctorPRO. When making adjustments, don't forget that you have converted your image to a printer profile, so just assuming that R=G=B=127 is going to give mid-gray and correcting accordingly is wrong (if the reason for this is unclear, you might want to find out more about profiles and colour management to get the best from a package like this).
Even with DoctorPRO, and as I mentioned above, B&W will still be a bit hit and miss. You will have to make those final tweaks by eye, so make sure you are happy with your monitor calibration and have appropriate lighting to do your tests. Very fine colour casts are not at all easy to see when distributed over a grayscale image.
DoctorPRO is a useful addition to the PrintFIX package, but it's not for the unwary!
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Data Sheet
Name: PrintFIX™
Manufactured by: ColorVision, Inc.
For: creating do-it-yourself profiles for supported inkjet printers
Color: black
Size: 7 x 2 x 1.5"
Weight: 7.5oz. (device alone)
System Requirements: OSX 10.2 or better; Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP; USB; Adobe Photoshop 5.5 or better or Photoshop Elements; supported color printer.
Supported Printers: Most current EPSON photo printers; regularly check www.colorvision.com for free downloads of new printer-specific Calibration Charts as they become available.
Cost: $352 USD (SMRP)
Available: from the manufacturer (ColorVision) or through select dealers/resellers.
About the Author:
Keith Cooper is a renowned landscape photographer in Leicester, England. Most of Keith's landscape work is sold through exhibition and personal recommendation, and to corporate and private clients. However, limited editions of his works are offered for sale by Northlight Images in a variety of sizes and mounting options. Northlight is also a gallery of Keith's B&W work, plus it includes collections of useful Mac and photography info. Keith is happy to discuss direct commissions for specific work and locations. He can be reached at enqs@northlight-images.co.uk.
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