Not bad. But I could wish for...

Note: This is a somewhat complicated review as it must cover quite a bit of ground


The ColorVision PrintFix PRO is a modest cost handheld spectrophotometer for profiling RGB-driven printers. It is either available as a stand-alone kit, to profile printers only, or accompanied with the Spyder2 photometer in the PrintFix PRO Suite to profile the printer and calibrate your monitor together (the review unit was purchased in the Suite package).

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If you have never studied color, in any form, I believe some basic explanations are in order so you may understand the balance of the review. Skip this (non-expertly written) introduction if you wish. This review may get a bit...complicated...in order to best explain the PrintFix PRO's operation.

Objects that reproduce color are rarely accurate. The ColorVision products are measurement devices meant to bring the measured units - either a printer or a monitor - towards a 'reference standard'. This will allow you to view, or print, more accurate results.

The PrintFix PRO is a spectrophotometer designed to assist in profiling a computer printer. It measures test prints that you create with the printer, then creates ICC profiles that tell your computer how the printer interprets commands to print specific colors to make them appear in real life. This may seem a bit foreign, as you would think a printer should take a command from a computer that says "Print Blue" and actually print “Blue", but the real world is much more complex than that.

Every color device has a gamut, a range of colors it can, or cannot ("out of gamut"), reproduce using its technology. The PrintFix PRO measures this ability to inform the computer what the printer is actually doing with color commands given to it by the computer, rather than "hoped for", so the computer (using the proper software and workflow (how you, the user, uses that software), can make corrections to better get what you want.

Profiling means that the PrintFix PRO does not change the way something works - it only explains how it is doing it. This is still very useful to allow the computer to make as many corrections as possible. The inverse is calibrate, which does indeed change the operation of the device.

And now, on to the review.

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Introduction:

The PrintFix PRO is a midsize handheld device that weighs less than 1/2 pound. The top surface, which is a black area inset into the main body's silver, acts as a "trigger" to function during readings if you wish to use it instead of your keyboard's "Enter" key. The built-in LED at the top notifies you that the unit is taking a reading. The bottom surface of the unit has a cone-shaped region, ending in an opening, where the actual readings take place.

The PrintFix PRO only profiles "RGB" printers. Now all printers use subtractive colors - CMY(K) - for printing, not the additive colors of RGB. This requires explanation - the PrintFix PRO's software only creates profiles for printers who's drivers derive the proper CMY(K) data after being given "RGB" data from the computer. This is, internally, how many inkjet and some other printers - like PCL6 laser printers - are handed data from the software via Windows / MAC GDI (Graphic Device Interface) subsystems.

The software tells the OS to create a printable image from the data that is located in the GDI (the same data that makes your display, just through a different "final pipeline"), and then the OS hands that data to the printer's driver. The printer's driver converts the RGB data to CMY(K) data that actually drives the printer.

But this means that the PrintFix PRO cannot create profiles for printers not driven, initially, with RGB data such as PostScript printers and such - even though your printer may offer both options (some laser printers, for instance). In that case it can only create a profile for the PCL driver - not for the PostScript driver.

To make measurements you place the cone-shaped area over a target zone, then press either [your choice of] the keyboard's "Enter" key or the top built-in "trigger" button area. The unit will take a reading and feed it to the computer via a removable, approximately 1.25m USB cable (straight, not coiled).

The unit comes with its own software, along with a stand that also acts as a calibration target to "align" the sensor prior to each use.

Using the device:

Installation is relatively straight-forward and simple - run the software disk's installation, then plug in the PrintFix PRO sensor. The unit comes only with a printed "Quick Start" quide and not a full manual. From there run the program.

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I would make some recommendations however, that are NOT in the "Quick Start" guide, prior to running the software.

I. Delete any associated profile links in the printer you wish to profile Control Panel (that is, in Windows remove any profiles showing in the "Color Management" tab of the printer).

II. Manually set, in the printer's Control Panel, "No ICC Adjustment" or "CMS via Application" (or similar) - plus any paper adjustments you need to set. This will make life simpler later!!

III. Set any resolution or secondary options NOW, in the printer's driver, rather than wait to do it from within the software.

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Once in the software you enter in your printer's information for later reference, then print a simple chart to check the printer's linearization - how the printer reacts to stepped changes in color "commands". This can also act as a "nozzle check" for those pesky inkjets that always clog up just when you need them, so go ahead and print the target. Check to see what the printer is doing.

The next step is to print a non-profiled "target" with fleshtones and color steps. This will give you a reference for later, when the printer is profiled, to see how far you've come or, on system with calibrated monitors, see how far the printer is off! Print this target - and the software give you the option of moving the aforementioned 2 targets in 4 different quadrants of the page, saving paper. Very handy.

From here you choose what target complexity to print - Fast, High or Expert - which will then serve to make measurements from.

Once your target is printed - AND DRIED! (sometimes up to 24 hours) - you continue on, calibrate the sensor (which you can do anytime from the drop-down menus, as well), and read all the color "blocks" one at a time into the software.

A tip here – not mentioned anywhere in the software! – is that if you are using very “thin” paper place the target page on a stack of blank pages to prevent the underlying surface from affecting the readings.

From there the software calculates the profile and builds it, with personal "tweaks" if you so prefer via a control panel page. You can then "check" to see if it meets your approval via a reprinting of the "flesh tone with steps" target.

Opinions:

This is where, well...I could wish the PrintFix PRO would do better.

The PrintFix PRO, with associated software, does not have the ability to linearize a printer separately from the full profiling technique.

Why is this important?

Some printers - good and high-quality, modern "photo" inkjets - are fairly linear and stable. That is, if given a command to print a shade of "blue" then given another command to print "blue, this much darker", they respond (somewhat) accurately. Their inks are also consistent from fill to fill.

However if you are profiling a color laser, these devices are NOT "linear" or very "consistent". Their color does not respond in a perfectly predictable manner to the aforementioned "examples" of 'blue, this much more'.

The software does not have the ability to separate the two functions of making the printer "linear" and making the printer "accurate" in color. They are integrated into 1 target.

This creates some huge problems with the laser printers, as I found out. Using the "High" target - over 250 readings, all made by hand - upon printing difficult images I discovered large non-linear color response areas and verified this with the "Granger Rainbow". Tremendous errors had crept into the profile calculations - which I now hope to remove using the "Expert" target.

Which prints on 3 sheets with over 700 targets, it is so large.

So the software has some limitations - no CMY(K) profile builds, no linearization system, too small target printouts, designed for a "normal" user but needs more controls.

The hardware - the sensor - is pretty good but somewhat "bulky" around the area of the sensor aperture, which makes situating the sensor on the color patches more difficult than it needs to be. I solved that issue by holding, and therefore reading, the patches upside down, with the sensor nearest me instead of ahead of my hand. Issue solved - but the sensor's aperture is somewhat "large" in comparison to the color patch size, making that locating act a touch more trouble than if they reduced the aperture slightly, or increased the patch size.

So overall a decent rating mostly held back by the software more than the hardware (which could use just a touch of improvement, via a slightly reduced measuring aperture for increased ease of placement). At about 1/2 the price of the competition it could easily control a significant portion of the SoHo / small office profiling market with software refinements and a few other (small) changes to target usability and "above average" users.

Close, but not perfect.