ColorMunki for Laser???

[kdw75]

We need something to calibrate our laser printers. We have a SpyderPrint Elite that we use for our inkjets, but apparently they won't create a CMYK profile.

Is the ColorMunki the best option if we aren't wanting to spend more than $700?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Just wondering how stable and consistent your devices are from day to day, calibration to calibration. Do they visually look the same?

Stephen Marsh

 

[kdw75]

Yes they seem to be pretty consistent. We have 8 devices and need to make sure that a file we run on one matches the others.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Consistency is the first requirement, otherwise you will be making a lot of profiles, perhaps daily.

The ColorMunki device will let you generate profiles for each device, so you can make a profile for DEVICE A, DEVICE B etc.

Do you use a RIP? Does it have any issues with v4 ICC profiles? Are you printing a "simulation" press colour or the device's native colour?

This does not mean that the output from DEVICE A would match DEVICE B etc...even if all 8 units are the same make and model.

You may need to invest more than $700 in software if you require 8 different devices to match. You may also find that you need different hardware too and that the munki won't cut it for this task.


Stephen Marsh

 

[kdw75]

I appreciate your advice Stephen. We aren't doing any super critical work on these machines. Basically used for short run color jobs. The customers we use these on just want color that is pretty close to what is sent to the machines. We have a few that are over saturated and some that match colors better than other. We want to get them all to be as close as possible without getting too obsessed over it. For the real quality work that needs precise color we run that on the presses.

These printers are all level 3 Postscript, but have no external RIP.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Does each device have some sort of internal calibration routine, so that they can be brought back to a known/stable "baseline" condition? This is the condition that you wish to profile with the ColorMunki. Rather than continually re-profiling, you can recalibrate back to where you were when you originally profiled. Generally a calibration requires a measurement, I am not sure if the ColorMunki would be supported by your hardware for calibration? Otherwise you may have to re-profile these machines daily, hourly or whenever you determine is appropriate for the colour expectations that you and your customers have.

Profiling each device is a good thing if the output can use the profile and it should help to smooth out their behaviour. That being said it may not mean that each device "matches" the others.

I presume that the colour is driven by the printer driver. Does the driver have "simulation" settings such as to emulate SWOP, ISO Coated, GRACoL or other press colour spaces? Does the driver have an option to use an ICC profile? And if it does is it OK with v4 profiles?

I would hate you to purchase the ColorMunki and then find out that it will not do what you hoped. Have you talked with your hardware vendor/support about options or solutions?


Stephen Marsh

 

[kdw75]

Yes the printers have the ability to use ICC profiles. Some of the machines are as follows: Xerox ColorQube 92xx series machines and Xerox 7760 machines.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

There are ICC profiles and there are ICC profiles. Specifically v2 and v4. I believe that ColorMunki creates the v4 variety. This should not be a problem - except for when it is a problem (usually older software)! I presume that these Xerox machines have an embedded controller of some kind, rather than a separate RIP box. I am not sure if I can offer any other advice. Perhaps somebody else will step in.

Good luck and all the best with your colour!


Stephen Marsh

 

[kdw75]

Would this product be a better option for us?

i1Publish Pro 2

 

[rich apollo]

kdw75, you've heard the expression, "You get what you pay for." i1 Publish Pro 2 will be a more robust solution, but you have other issues in play.

Do you know if the drivers are CMYK or RGB?

An external RIP would make your world a lot nicer to live in. By not paying for an external RIP, you pay for it over and over and over and ...

 

[kdw75]

kdw75, you've heard the expression, "You get what you pay for." i1 Publish Pro 2 will be a more robust solution, but you have other issues in play.

Do you know if the drivers are CMYK or RGB?

An external RIP would make your world a lot nicer to live in. By not paying for an external RIP, you pay for it over and over and over and ...

I am not even sure that some of these lower end printers even offer an external RIP, such as the Xerox 8860. All of these printers drivers use CMYK which is why our SpyderPrint Elite won't work. It only does RGB profiles.

You can bet that when we upgrade to a higher end machine we will get a RIP with it.

Right now we just want our ColorQube 9202s, our Workcentre 7556, our 7760s and our 8860s to print somewhat close colors. Knowing these are all lower end Postscript machines would the ColorMunki be sufficient or do you think the i1 Publish Pro 2 would give us better results on these machines?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

There are two issues. The spectro hardware and the software. The Munki is very good hardware. I have compared monitor profiling results on an Eizo against the i1 Pro and they produce close to the same profile (even though the Munki is UV filtered and the i1 was uncut). The Munki only has a limited range of support for X-Rite and third party software (in many cases only the Munki software). For making printer profiles, AFAIK you only have the Munki software, the charts contain huge patches for hand strip reading and they use a limited amount of patches (more interpolated values). That being said most reviews of the profiles it creates state that they are good considering what the system has to work with. I have not seen or performed tests comparing the two devices (we have both). The i1 has a far, far greater range of free and commercial X-Rite and third party software support.

I am still concerned with the variable output nature of these devices and the unknown calibration support. If the devices are not stable and if you can't calibrate back to a repeatable known state, then you mayl be making profiles at daily. If I was going to be making profiles daily, I would prefer to use an automated solution for reading charts. The appeal of the Munki in this situations is that you don't have to read a lot of patches, which may be both a blessing and a curse.


Stephen Marsh

 

[kdw75]

There are two issues. The spectro hardware and the software. The Munki is very good hardware. I have compared monitor profiling results on an Eizo against the i1 Pro and they produce close to the same profile (even though the Munki is UV filtered and the i1 was uncut). The Munki only has a limited range of support for X-Rite and third party software (in many cases only the Munki software). For making printer profiles, AFAIK you only have the Munki software, the charts contain huge patches for hand strip reading and they use a limited amount of patches (more interpolated values). That being said most reviews of the profiles it creates state that they are good considering what the system has to work with. I have not seen or performed tests comparing the two devices (we have both). The i1 has a far, far greater range of free and commercial X-Rite and third party software support.

I am still concerned with the variable output nature of these devices and the unknown calibration support. If the devices are not stable and if you can't calibrate back to a repeatable known state, then you mayl be making profiles at daily. If I was going to be making profiles daily, I would prefer to use an automated solution for reading charts. The appeal of the Munki in this situations is that you don't have to read a lot of patches, which may be both a blessing and a curse.


Stephen Marsh

I just ordered a ColorMunki Design. Worst case I will return it and get something better. We have been getting by without any color management on these machines so any improvement will be welcome.

I will update on how it works out.

 

[Correct Color]

Just to jump in here a little:

First, if you've determined that you need to create CMYK profiles for your machines, then you're running them with a RIP. And given your fairly modest color management goals, you can probably push them all reasonably close together without investing in an external RIP, which with 8 devices might get pretty pricey pretty quickly.

As others have stated, it's also very important to maintain a calibration routine on these machines. Again, if they use CMYK profiles, they're all driven by some sort of RIP, and each probably has some sort of routine somewhere in it. The reason is that CLC machines are pretty notoriously unstable. Not only is it not even worth trying to profile them until you've got them in a reasonably calibrated state, you'll also never have any way to know what state each was in when you did profile it.

That said, once calibrated and profiled -- if profiled correctly -- the machines should match pretty closely. If all they're all profiled with the same profiling software and using the same profiling techniques, since they're all CLC machines and, I'm assuming, all printing on the same stock, there's no reason they shouldn't match almost exactly.

But understand that there's a fairly steep learning curve involved in getting to where you want to be. Just as a for-instance: Yes, the Color Munki will make CMYK profiles, so yes, you can make profiles for your machines with it. But I'm betting --again as others have mentioned -- that the RIP's that drive them will not run v4 profiles -- the only kind ColorMunki makes.

And they don't tell you why when they don't. They just don't run them. Sometimes pretty dramatically.

Beyond that, setting out to learn color management online is always a risky game. You'll come out money way ahead in the end if you hire someone to help you through the process.


Mike Adams
Correct Color