THE BEST IS ON ITS WAY

The other day a reader was asking which brand/model display measuring device he should get, indicating he wanted the best. That was when I was getting the first news of X-Rites new iOne Pro line of color management tools. That’s the best of what the world’s largest color management company has to offer. But because only a few of my readers indicate they can afford the best regardless of cost, I usually do my work with tools the majority can afford. But this reader said I needed to do a shoot-out of all display color management makes and models. To me “shoot-outs” are just too deadly, so here I am settling for a little less.

I have not yet received a loan of the new iOne Photo system from X-Rite, but do have one that is a couple of years old.  So I decided to measure my personal displays with its i1Pro spectrophotometer and the ColorEyes Display Pro software I usually use to adjust, calibrate and profile my displays, and then see if there is a difference in the result I usually obtain with a colorimeter. I started with the Dell Ultrasharp U2410 I reported on in the current issue of Shutterbug. And I followed up adjusting, calibrating and profiling my Eizo Flexscan S2242W. So did the X-Rite I1Pro spectrophotometer improve on my past results using a much less costly colorimeter?

The wider color range LCD displays I have recently been recommending for computers to do serious digital photography editing reproduce over 95% of Adobe RGB (1998). I use the Adobe RGB workspace profile in Photoshop to do editing and my digital camera is set to output Adobe RGB, as well as my scanners; so it is the color range standard I want my display to emulate. As the 2D Apple Colorsync profiles I have included, the top one illustrates the profile made with the Dell U2410 display using the X-Rite i1Pro spectrophotometer, the one under it is a 2D graph of the Adobe RGB (1998) profile. My new display profile is a close match, and to me that’s ideal for my workflow. I also use my other LCD display, they are only about five feet apart I my lab, and the Eizo Flexscan S2242W profiled with the i1Pro spectrophotometer was just as close a match with the Adobe RGB profile.

So if you are like the reader who wrote me and was interested in the best, I hope to be working with X-Rites new iOne Photo system before long, and I will continue to report here in my blog about that experience as it develops.