In an earlier review, I looked at X-Rite's new product called the ColorMunki which really blew me away with the quality and performance of this product. Over the course of several articles, I will now look at X-Rite's all new i1 product line that was just showcased at the photokina in Cologne Germany in September and at Graph Expo in Chicago, IL in October.
There are two fundamental paths that you can take with the i1 line, i1 Basic and the i1 XTreme. The i1 Basic, which is marketed as an affordable, upgradeable, professional spectral color measurement solution and monitor profiler. With the i1 Basic, creative and prepress professionals can scan spectral color, obtain accurate color on all displays, linearize their printers through support of leading RIPs, and easily add new profiling functionality to meet their growing needs with new affordable upgrade modules.
In this first part I will look at is the i1 Basic. In future installments, I will look at the modules that can be added on to the i1 Basic or can be purchased as a whole with the i1 XTreme.
What does it take to run the i1 Basic? Either a Windows 2000, XP, or Vista with a 300 MHz PC or better, or Mac OS X (10.3 or higher) Power G3 or higher processor, a powered USB port, 128 MB RAM, and 100 MB of hard-drive space.
The i1 Basic comes with the i1 Pro spectrophotometer and the i1Match Monitor profiling software. The i1 Basic will let you scan spectral color and obtain accurate color on all of your displays. You will be able to linearize your printers and by purchasing upgrade modules, and you can add profiling functionality when you need it.
When working with the i1 Basic you can profile CRTs, LCDs, and laptop displays. There are two modes available to you. The first is easy mode which will give you a quick accurate profile based on the defaults for your type of display. Advanced will let you choose the setting and really drill down for a much more accurate profile.
With the i1 Basic the first thing that you will want to do is to profile your monitor. What this does is to take a reading of how your monitor displays a specific color and compare them to what the actual color should be. To do this, you plug in the i1 Pro Spectrophotometer into a USB port and then start up the software.
When the software starts up, you will choose the display module. Please note that although there may be other modules visible, they will not be active unless you purchase the addon functionality, or have purchased the i1 XTreme. Also note that on the right of the screen is the context-sensitive help.
While choosing easy mode may be the best place to start for basic needs or for those new to profiling, it is the advanced mode that will let you bring out the most accurate color profiles. Keep in mind that it also requires more knowledge and experience to do it well, where easy mode makes the choices for you.
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