PrintFIX PRO Suite

Computer users who deal with colour in a professional capacity, such as designers, illustrators and photographers, should be aware of the importance of correctly calibrated output devices, but often don’t bother. Brave souls may try to use Adobe Gamma or Apple’s own calibration software, hidden away in System Preferences under Displays.

The chief problem with software-only solutions is that the results are based solely on the user’s ability to judge colour accurately, so the outcome can be hit and miss. What’s needed is something that takes the fallibility out of the equation, and that’s where ColorVision steps in.

The PrintFIX PRO Suite comprises a USB-powered spectrocolorimeter and PrintFIX PRO software – which together tackle any output from an RGB-driven colour printer – and a USB-powered colorimeter and Spyder2PRO software for calibrating CRT and LCD screens. The two products are available separately, but the suite combines them for a considerable saving.

Getting plugged in
The software is Mac and PC-compatible and supplied on two CDs. It’s definitely advisable to check through the rather brief manuals and guides to ensure that you’re not tempted to plug in the hardware devices until you’ve installed the software. The installation process itself is easy and mercifully brief.

Once the software has been installed, you can begin the process of creating colour profiles for your monitor and printer. ColorVision recommends that you calibrate your monitor first, which makes sense because you’ll be comparing what’s on screen with your printed output when you create a colour profile for your printer.

Before you start, make sure that Adobe Gamma and any other third-party monitor calibration software is disabled, and set the display resolution to a minimum of 1,024x 768. In Windows, ensure that Hardware Acceleration in the Display Properties control panel is set to Full and that Anti-virus and Screensavers are both switched off.

The next step is to plug the Spyder2 Colorimeter into a powered USB port, such as one directly on your computer. Plugging into your keyboard or a non-powered hub is not advised. The USB cord on the Spyder2 is generously long, so it should easily reach your monitor, even if your computer is sitting on the floor several feet away.

Firing up the Spyder2PRO software will then take you through a series of steps, beginning with sticking the Spyder2 hardware to the screen with the aid of three small suction cups. Then you’ll need to set up your monitor’s optimal brightness and contrast, and let the software know what kinds of adjustment controls your display has. In our tests, we found our Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 220 allowed individual control of the RGB channels. Manually adjusting those so that they were all uniform was easily the most fiddly part of the process.

Once that section is complete, the software takes over and displays a series of colours under the Spyder2’s sensor. This takes a little while. When the software has finished cycling through the colours, it creates a new display profile and asks you to name it. It finishes by comparing your freshly minted profile with your previous settings, and the results can be startling.

We found that our old settings – created with Apple’s built-in calibration software – were overly dark and blue. The new profile initially seemed too warm, but that was because we were so used to staring at our artwork through cyan-tinted glasses. It was impressive stuff, but could the printer calibration be as quick and painless?

Printing solution
The technique is much the same: print off a sheet containing dozens of different coloured swatches and run the spectrocolorimeter over them to create a tweaked colour profile to drive your printer. The first thing to do with inkjet printers is to ensure that all the print heads are working correctly. Be prepared to waste ink, paper and time getting your printer up to speed. PrintFIX PRO usefully allows you to print a test matrix of colours onto a single sheet of paper up to four times, but can’t drive the printer’s head-cleaning routines, which can mean having to hop back to Epson’s Printer Utility to fix things.

When all the print heads are running correctly, the software gives you the option of printing out one of several profiling targets: a Fast Target, made up of 150 patches on one sheet; High Quality Target, made up of 225 patches; or an Expert Target made up of 729 patches spread over three sheets (or on a single sheet for roll or cut-sheet printers). You then use the spectrocolorimeter to click on the patches, in turn prompted by the software. If the thought of doing this even 150 times seems daunting, the good news is that it doesn’t take as long as you might think.

On completion, PrintFIX PRO builds a profile and asks you to print out a test sheet to compare it with the image on screen. In our tests, we had to try the process several times until we got bright, saturated images with natural tones and accurate colours. The results were good, but we couldn’t shake the feeling that it was slight overkill for our little inkjet printer. However, the time and trouble it takes to get first-class prints is definitely worth it for a busy office inkjet or wide-format printer where colour accuracy and consistency are paramount.

Although the software has none of the interface polish or gloss of OS X or Vista, it works remarkably well. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how the process could be any simpler. Calibrating your monitor with the Spyder2 in particular is quick and easy, and could be done by someone with no experience of calibration. Creating a profile for an inkjet printer is slightly more fiddly, but if it can convince the old Epson we were using to turn out decent prints, it should work for just about everyone.

Now there’s no excuse not to have affordable colour accuracy as part of your everyday workflow.