Alpha Lam

Alpha Lam

Fremont, CA

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  • Alpha Lam
    Alpha Lam
    Participant
    Posts: 4
    Can the myiro-1 measurements be used for profiling with ArgyllCMS?
    on: April 1, 2021 at 1:18 pm

    Thanks Mark for the comments and the excellent and comprehensive review of the MYIRO-1 device. I wouldn’t have purchased the device without your review. I edited to remove the cruft from the original post.

    The device is indeed very good, albeit needing some constant recharging for display profiling over WiFi. Using ArgyllCMS to profile does fulfill my needs for RGB printing with excellent results.

    Techkon USA was running a discount in March for $1200 of the essential package and $2000 for the profiling package with a discount code. One has to contact them to get the discount code. Anyway I saved $800 in the process with ArgyllCMS and would instead donate to Graeme Gill’s excellent effort.

    Alpha Lam
    Alpha Lam
    Participant
    Posts: 4
    Re: Can the myiro-1 measurements be used for profiling with ArgyllCMS?
    Reply #1 on: April 1, 2021 at 11:59 am

    My last post seems to be lost so posting it again.

    I ended getting the MYIRO-1 one with essential package (just the device, display profile and measurements) and successfully used ArgyllCMS to profile the printer. I included the instructions in this post. I got the device from Techkon USA with a discount of $1200, while the profiling package is having a discount of $2000. I cross-validated the profile generated with two sets of test charts and verified the average error to be less 0.67 and maximum error less than 1.85. Without the cost of the profiling software, the economics of the MYIRO-1 device is quite appealing if you don’t mind running commands and using the excellent ArgyllCMS software. The software supports CMYK profiling which I did not need. The profile generated by MYIROtools is also in ICC v2 and does not have a clear advantage over the ones created by ArgyllCMS. Disclaimer: I am a private user and am not related to any of the companies mentioned above. I am sharing this information for the benefits of the fellow photographers.

    First run Adobe Print Utilities to print the MYIRO test chart that can be downloaded online. Make sure there is no color management used for printing. I printed both the test chart with 420 patches and 840 patches to 8×10 papers of 3 pages. Paper used is Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster. Second step is to measure the patches using the MYIRO device using standard procedures. Third step is to export the measurements into a CGATS file. I’m using the M1 condition. 

    Now we can switch to use ArgyllCMS to generate the profiles. First convert the CGATS into the TI3 file format that ArgyllCMS takes.

    txt2ti3 -v rgb_840_m1.txt rgb_840_m1

    Then run the colprof tool to create a ICC profile. I’m setting the source profile as AdobeRGB for gamut mapping. This allows perceptual intent rendering when printing. If you do not need perceptual and saturation rendering intent, for example you only use relative intent you don’t need to provide a source profile.

    colprof -v -qh -r0.5 -s Adobe\ RGB\ \(1998\).icm -cmt -dpp -D “Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster 2021-03-26” rgb_840_m1

    -qh creates a high quality profile
    -r0.5 smoothes the curves and while sacrificing accuracy
    -s Adobe\ RGB\ \(1998\).icm -cmt -dpp specifies the source ICC profile and sets the optimization for source device as monitor and target device is a printer
    Next step is to perform a sanity check of the created profile by using the measurements we just created. After installing the profile to a different location I used the measurements from RGB 840 test chart and verified the accuracy of the profile.

    profcheck -k -v3 rgb_840_m1.ti3 ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Epson\ Ultra\ Premium\ Photo\ Paper\ Luster\ AdobeRGB\ 2021-03-27.icm

    The average chromaticy error was 0.18 and maximum error is 0.98, which is very good. It is also good to cross check with a different test chart to cross-validate with a sample set that the profile generation didn’t see. Here I feed the profcheck tool with the measurements from 420 patches test charts.

    profcheck -k -v3 rgb_420_m1.ti3 ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Epson\ Ultra\ Premium\ Photo\ Paper\ Luster\ AdobeRGB\ 2021-03-27.icm

    Average chromaticity error (CIEDE2000) is 0.67 and maximum error is 1.85, which again is very good. The error is also inline with the numbers reported by Mark Segal in excellent and extensive review.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by Alpha Lam.
    Alpha Lam
    Alpha Lam
    Participant
    Posts: 4
    Re: Can the myiro-1 measurements be used for profiling with ArgyllCMS?
    Reply #2 on: April 1, 2021 at 12:55 am

    Thanks for all the responses. I did end up getting a MYIRO-1 device with the essential package from Techkon USA. It was running a discount of $1200 of the essential (device, display profiling and measurements), the profiling packaging was running a $2000 discount.

    I end up using this device, the test charts provided by Konica Minolta and ArgyllCMS on OSX to generate ICC profiles. The measured error was also very good. Here are the steps in case it may help someone who is interested in this device. The end result was very good. The average and maximum profile error from the original 840 patches test chart are 0.18 (dE2000) and 0.98 respectively. I cross validated with the 420 patches MYIRO test chart which is a different set of data from profiling creating and had 0.67 (avg) and 1.85 (max) in dE2000. The MYIROtools software does support CMYK profiles which is also supported by ArgyllCMS but I didn’t test this use case. The MYIROtools creates ICC v2 profiles which does not have an advantage over ArgyllCMS. Without the additional cost of software this makes the economics of MYIRO-1 device very appealing. One can even take advantage of the sale they are running with Techkon. Disclaimer: I’m just a private user and have no association with any of the companies mentioned above.

    Instructions as follows:

    First run Adobe Print Utilities to print the MYIRO test chart that can be downloaded online. Make sure there is no color management used for printing. I printed both the test chart with 420 patches and 840 patches to 8×10 papers of 3 pages. Paper used is Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster. Second step is to measure the patches using the MYIRO device using standard procedures. Third step is to export the measurements into a CGATS file. I’m using the M1 condition.

    Now we can switch to use ArgyllCMS to generate the profiles. First convert the CGATS into the TI3 file format that ArgyllCMS takes.
    I am using the following command which produces a rgb_840_m1.ti3 file.
    txt2ti3 -v rgb_840_m1.txt rgb_840_m1

    Then run the colprof tool to create a ICC profile. I’m setting the source profile as AdobeRGB for gamut mapping. This allows perceptual intent rendering when printing. If you do not need perceptual and saturation rendering intent, for example you only use relative intent you don’t need to provide a source profile.


    colprof -v -qh -r0.5 -s Adobe\ RGB\ \(1998\).icm -cmt -dpp -D “Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster 2021-03-26” rgb_840_m1

    -qh creates a high quality profile
    -r0.5 smoothes the curves and while sacrificing accuracy
    -s Adobe\ RGB\ \(1998\).icm -cmt -dpp specifies the source ICC profile and sets the optimization for source device as monitor and target device is a printer

    Next step is to perform a sanity check of the created profile by using the measurements we just created. After installing the profile to a different location I used the measurements from RGB 820 test chart and verified the accuracy of the profile.

    profcheck -k -v3 rgb_840_m1.ti3 ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Epson\ Ultra\ Premium\ Photo\ Paper\ Luster\ AdobeRGB\ 2021-03-27.icm

    The average chromaticy error was 0.18 and maximum error is 0.98, which is very good. It is also good to cross check with a different test chart to cross-validate with a sample set that the profile generation didn’t see. Here I feed the profcheck tool with the measurements from 420 patches test charts.

    profcheck -k -v3 rgb_420_m1.ti3 ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Epson\ Ultra\ Premium\ Photo\ Paper\ Luster\ AdobeRGB\ 2021-03-27.icm

    Average chromaticity error (CIEDE2000) is 0.67 and maximum error is 1.85, which again is very good. The error is also inline with the numbers reported by Mark Segal in excellent and extensive review.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by Alpha Lam.
    Alpha Lam
    Alpha Lam
    Participant
    Posts: 4
    Re: Printing Colour Management
    Reply #3 on: March 18, 2021 at 12:28 am

    Thank for the such an in depth review of i1pro and Myiro-1. (https://photopxl.com/is-there-a-spectrophotometer-in-your-future-myiro-1-or-i1pro3/)

    I’m very interested in the myiro-1 to profile my display and also prints. While I own a spot colorimeter, having one that does the profiling automatically is definitely more convenient. I’m also interested in profiling my Epson P800 printer. In particular I know the myiro-1 can output measurements and I wonder if it can be used with ArgyllCMS instead of the built-in profiler. The consideration is due to cost, since the essential package without the profiler is $1300 less. I am also very handy with command line programs.