ColorTune

[Lukas Engqvist]

Struggling to get back on top of ColorTune. We have had it since the begining, and there has allways been a promise that the next version will solve our problems…Â*Only now I find myself with a version that seems to work until I try to generate a Profile at wich point I get the message that it required a licence.
So back to digging up backups, and I find my CT 4.2, no licene problems, but it is refusing to read measure data…Â*what was the trick, such a long time since I used it?

Rant:
(the problem I have is that my Sherpa24 is infact an EPSON 7500, wich was not a problem untill I need to do some posters on another paper quality) Wh should it be so difficult to stay compatible? I am not allowed to linearise the paper and now not able to make an ICC, this really is a sour situation.

 

[Colorblind]

Hi Lukas, over the last 18 months or so I've been using ColorTune Profile 4.2 to build (and edit) profiles from measurement files along with Sherpa CMS to print and measures targets to end up getting such measurement files. When we decided to stop using Agfa proofing paper (because of it's high cost) last year, I had to buid a new profile for our new proofing paper. These 2 softwares do what they should but there are a few glitches. 1st: to profile your Epson, use the target named something like "allink250max", it has about 4000 patches. Using the other similar but not 250% ink limit target will result in a measurement file that ColorTune won't read (been there, done that: wasted hours). 2nd: when printing the target, limit your page size to 11x17 or Sherpa CMS may not recognize your spectro readings. 3rd: once you saved your .txt measurement file from Sherpa CMS, you have to drag it to one of the script bundled with ColorTune Profile (don't exactly remember the name but there is one script for profiles and one for measurement files). Then you'll be able to create a new profile with ColorTune Profile. Good luck!

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Thnx, I did get the licencing issue sorted, so I'm w8ing to get my key.
But I'll check for the scripts.

 

[ErnieLail]

Hi Lukas, over the last 18 months or so I've been using ColorTune Profile 4.2 to build (and edit) profiles from measurement files along with Sherpa CMS to print and measures targets to end up getting such measurement files. When we decided to stop using Agfa proofing paper (because of it's high cost) last year, I had to buid a new profile for our new proofing paper. These 2 softwares do what they should but there are a few glitches. 1st: to profile your Epson, use the target named something like "allink250max", it has about 4000 patches. Using the other similar but not 250% ink limit target will result in a measurement file that ColorTune won't read (been there, done that: wasted hours). 2nd: when printing the target, limit your page size to 11x17 or Sherpa CMS may not recognize your spectro readings. 3rd: once you saved your .txt measurement file from Sherpa CMS, you have to drag it to one of the script bundled with ColorTune Profile (don't exactly remember the name but there is one script for profiles and one for measurement files). Then you'll be able to create a new profile with ColorTune Profile. Good luck!

I know this topic is old as dirt, but im having some problems profile a Epson 9880 using colortune. First i calibrated my spectrophotometer, then i printed the alllink250 target through my proof workflow turning off color management under the Epson TP, scanned using sherpaCMS, created a new profile in colortune, using 9300K and my purples are coming out blue. Any clue what im doing wrong?

 

[Colorblind]

Except for the 9300K part (I use 5000K) your process seems OK to me. Did you upload and activated your new Epson profile into Epson TP and turned on Color Management? Is your Epson TP profile intent set to "absolute"? What profile do you use in your press TP? What is the difference between the measured value of your blues and what it should be according to your press TP profile? My experience is that after profiling, you usually get pretty close but still have to edit your proofer (Epson) profile to get closer. For some reason when trying to proof for Gracol C1, I couldn't get my solid and near solid magenta dead on so I ended up fixing it using color correction tool (wasn't moving using the Pure Color tool). Hope this helps.

 

[ErnieLail]

Except for the 9300K part (I use 5000K) your process seems OK to me. Did you upload and activated your new Epson profile into Epson TP and turned on Color Management? Is your Epson TP profile intent set to "absolute"? What profile do you use in your press TP? What is the difference between the measured value of your blues and what it should be according to your press TP profile? My experience is that after profiling, you usually get pretty close but still have to edit your proofer (Epson) profile to get closer. For some reason when trying to proof for Gracol C1, I couldn't get my solid and near solid magenta dead on so I ended up fixing it using color correction tool (wasn't moving using the Pure Color tool). Hope this helps.

Yeah i figured out that i needed to switch it to 5000K and pulled a profile with more magenta. But it still seemed like i didnt have enough magenta when comparing spot color conversions to process equivalents in my pantone book. I then switched my Gracol press profile to StandardSWOP and now the red looks tons better. The purples look good now, but some of the other colors are slightly off. All in all, its pretty close now compared to before. i would like to tweak it a lil more, but i dont know much about manually adjusting profile.

 

[Colorblind]

Not sure I would use the Pantone to process values of your Pantone book as a reference to determine if your proofing profile is good or not. The only way you can really tell is by measuring your proof and compare to a specific colorimetric dataset (such as Gracol C1 dataset you can download from IDEAlliace) or visually compare with a press sheet. Gracol blue overprint looks less purple than older SWOP flavors. To edit and tweek profiles made from Sherpa CMS, you need ColorTune Profile.