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Spectrophotometer recommendations

I'm on my 3rd Epson 3880, and the first one that doesn't match the color of the others. In the past the generic profiles for my papers were plenty good enough. Not any more.

So, I'm looking for a good profiling solution. My budget is only a few hundred bucks, so a used one may be necessary.

Besides a previous generation i1 pro, any other recommendations? Anything I should keep in mind, regarding compatibility, software, etc.?
 

Jeffg53

Member
I'm on my 3rd Epson 3880, and the first one that doesn't match the color of the others. In the past the generic profiles for my papers were plenty good enough. Not any more.

So, I'm looking for a good profiling solution. My budget is only a few hundred bucks, so a used one may be necessary.

Besides a previous generation i1 pro, any other recommendations? Anything I should keep in mind, regarding compatibility, software, etc.?
First thing that I would do would be to have a very good look at my environment If the profiles worked on previous 3880s then they should work on the new one. Pro level printers are meant to have much closer tolerances and so be able to use canned profiles. Have you printed any of the zillion test prints that are available? Have you run a nozzle check?

Profiling and a few hundred dollars aren't normally heard together. I'm a bit rusty but the Munki used to be the cheapest thing around. OTOH, you could always have a custom profile made for your printer.

I'd still look very hard at your environment first.
 
Thanks Jeff. It's possible that something's up, but I doubt it. I reprinted a few prints that I'd made on the old printers, on the same paper (same batch). Dim possibility that my settings were wrong, I was pretty careful. With previous 3880s differences were insignificant. You'd literally only see them holding prints side by side in good light. These are significantly off.

No nozzle check issues, etc...

I'll call Epson before I do anything major. I like the idea of a profiler in part because I want the option of soft proofing with QTR.

There have been previous generation i1pro kits available on ebay in the $400 range.
 

Jeffg53

Member
That's really odd. What you describe with the previous 3880s should be the same on this one. Is it under warranty? I would still do a test print. Here's a link to one that i have used: Printing Insights #49

I would think that an i1Pro for $400 would be good but do they come with software? I have a couple of them (long story) and, from memory, the i1Pro contains the licence key. Again, I may be out of date.
 
It's under warranty, but I hate the idea of continuing to play printer roulette. I compared a couple of prints again last night. Even in dim room light I could see a slight red cast in the print from the new printer.

Someone in another forum recommended the Spyder Print system. The whole shebang including pretty good software for $290.

An advantage of the i1 is that so many different software packages support the hardware. But a disadvantage is that I have to then compare, choose, and pay for the software, and then hope everything's actually compatible.

Assuming the printer doesn't have a serious problem, I'm leaning toward the Spyder system.
 
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