Anyone know Onyx well? Changing "default profile"

[pauly92]

I've been digging around in onyx's program files to see what's inside, to see if there's some reason why onyx creates the media profiles so poorly.

I found a folder (forgot the name) but it had all these default profiles listed. DefaultCMYK, DefaultCMYKO, DefaultCMYKOG ect and the rest of the printer ink configurations.
The only time i've seen this list in onyx is when choosing your ink configurations in media manager for your printer.

I also found "defaultcmyk" (lower case) in a few folders inside the main one with the defaults. the lowercase names profile looked like the default oce 480xt print profile that you get from the onyx profile/driver downloader.

Now out of curiosity, i put them through a soft proof in photoshop, and stunned.. the colour output was nearly identical to the onyx generated profiles i have made in the past. (tested a number of them) All the default profiles looked exactly the same. Muddy reds, dull blues ect, all terrible and not acceptable.

So then i decided to put them all though Color Think Pro3. This is where it got interesting. ALL of them except 1 (CMYKOVG i think) came up as 3M Match Print profiles. All identical gamut size. So then to compare i loaded up one of my onyx generated profiles. What do you know, it was much larger than the defaultCMYK (3M Match Print) profile. I also loaded up profiles made (on the same material) in i1P & Basiccolor.
all 3 are exactly the same size.

So it seems Onyx is generating it's profiles by restricting it's colour to 3M Match Print specifications. I changed some of the files to a CGATS CRPC7 profile and just renamed them to the default names. I tried to regenerate a profile and see if any changes have been made. But it was still the same.

So if some how there's a way to change this default profile to something else with a larger gamut range like CGATS CRP7, Then onyx's (award winning..) profile engine would actually create a decent profile.

 

[Correct Color]

Pauly,

Interesting stuff...

But it doesn't work that way.

Of course one of the problems in situations like this is that if I don't see something myself I don't know just exactly what happened...

But I can tell you that while I have some pretty well-documented issues with the Onyx ICC profile-making engine, what you're describing here isn't one of them.

It does not limit gamut to any pre-defined default. It makes a profile based on whatever measurements you feed into it. I've used it enough to be confident saying that. But you can certainly see for yourself just by pulling the ICC profiles out of any Onyx stock media for any printer and taking a look at them. If they're named "ICC Profile Table", you can be assured they were made by the Onyx engine. Also in either Colorsync or a Mac or in Color Think Pro you can look up the creator signature, which for the Onyx engine is "ONYX."

Just any small handful will show you they're not limited to or in any way defined by that profile.

I do know that if you create a media profile in Onyx and do not generate or import an ICC, that profile will be used as the default ICC in that media. I recognize its soft-proof from the times I've forgotten to import profiles -- or set them as the default -- myself.

But again, the issues I have with the Onyx engine mainly have to do with rendering intents. It does not do what you're suggesting here. How you got that result... I don't know, I wasn't there.

Also kind of interestingly, the lowercase defaultcmyk file is an ancient profile made in 1997 using Monaco EZ Color. And it's only got one rendering intent in it. I've never seen it before or seen it used, so I'm guessing that folder has been there for ages and just never got taken out.


Mike Adams
Correct Color

 

[pauly92]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your lengthy reply & for replying on OT also.

And yes i do understand that you cannot see it to make a real answer about it.

That is quite interesting about the defaultcmyk.
The DefaultCMYK (which i think are used for the ink config) are made by the LOGO engine as it says here. (terrible colour)
I opened the 3M Match Print v4 in the profiles/cmyk section and that's made by ONYX. (terrible colour)
One thing i didn't do is soft proof the old defaultcmyk and that's marginally better than the ONYX built ones.

To say the least on how i got these results. Oddly most of the print profiles for this printer from the oce site look similar.
But when i go to a newer machine 1200 series, with same ink config. Similar results, except the reds are more orange (similar to what chromaboost does)
Everything that comes from Oce is pretty much similar results to what i get.

The main thing i don't understand is why sell a product that doesn't work as good at the rest, then use that product to make generic profiles for inside the system.

 

[pauly92]

I forgot to add:
I suppose it's more like using Basiccolor. Where you can either let the software determine your profile, or set it to match specific profiles.
That's how i 'feel' onyx is working for me.

 

[Correct Color]

Pauly,

The DefaultCMYK (which i think are used for the ink config) are made by the LOGO engine as it says here. (terrible colour)

I suppose it's more like using Basiccolor. Where you can either let the software determine your profile, or set it to match specific profiles.

Just because it appears to me you're still looking for something that isn't there...

Onyx does not do this.

You can do an emulation in Onyx, but it's a completely different path, done in a completely different way.

And the thing is: You never really know what you'll find when you go digging around in folders in software. But just because you found it doesn't mean it does what you think it does... or that it even does anything at all. It might have been something that was in there for testing, and never got taken out, or something left over from an old version that never got taken out. I can't speak for every single profile in every single folder in that particular section of Onyx; some of them I have never seen used. But what I can say for certain is that none of them are used at any time in the manner you're suggesting.

Oddly most of the print profiles for this printer from the oce site look similar.

It's not at all uncommon for many different profiles in a stock profile set that are the same resolution but different mechanical settings to use the same ICC. Also it's not unheard of for stock profiles of different but similar materials by different manufacturers to have the same stock profile -- another good reason not to use stock profiles.

Just as an illustration, here's an Onyx-supplied stock profile situated against the DefaultCMYK profile -- a soft-proof placeholder -- that's also renamed and used as the defaut for several other inking configurations.

The stock profile is for a Seiko H2104S printing at Max Quality on gloss banner material.

As you can see, other than that they're both CMYK, they're not in any way similar, and the one was certainly not used to generate the other.

The main thing i don't understand is why sell a product that doesn't work as good at the rest, then use that product to make generic profiles for inside the system.

I have to say that's just a little bit of a reach. I counted one time, and came up with 27 different ICC profile-making engines on the market. Twenty-seven, and all of them create profiles which are at least somewhat different from each other. The Onyx engine is not my favorite, but it's far from the worst.


Mike

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[pauly92]

You're right.
I think i got fed up with onyx's icc engine i started hunting around for a solution somewhere.

It was worth a shot, but I'm not going to bother with it any more.
There's no way to have something simple to create outstanding results as i've learnt, and you already know.

I'm happy using i1P to make the profiles. Only thing i dislike about it, it feels like a game rather than a tool.