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Very Long - How to Tweak the PrintFix Scanner - (Followup to another thread)
There was another thread "Help profiling monitor with Spyder2, problem in
shadows" started on the 24th that went a bit astray after I mentioned the PrintFix scanner problem. Another asked about how I tweaked the scanner so it doesn't skew. Below are a couple of emails that I sent to ColorVison after receiving my scanner and what I did, with their permission to try and find a solution to the problem. It may or may not work on your scanner. Disclaimer. You do this at your own risk obviously and I'm not advising anyone to do this tweaking. By disassembling the scanner you will most likely void any warranty since you must break the seal covering one of the four screw holes. If your unit is still under warranty (two years), I would first suggest you contact Mike at ColorVision Tech Support and let him know you would like a replacement scanner or at least get their okay to do it so you don't void the warranty. He just may say okay. This scanner skewing is a well known problem as I've found out and I didn't get any hassles when I emailed them about my first scanner constantly skewing and jamming. I then made a suggestion for a possible fix and they said okay and try it. I then emailed them what I found after tweaking the first scanner (see below). A new scanner promptly arrived but it also has a skewing problem but I've done nothing to this one and it will be returned. I'll keep the one I tweaked so I can build some profiles and see if the software works. So with some slight modifications, the emails are posted below: .....................1st email describes the problem..................... Brand new Spyder2Pro Studio with PrintFix suite arrived this week. Calibrated monitors just fine - looking good. Next I made 5 calibration prints for (Kodak, Ilford, GP, Epson, RoyalBrights-Matte)and I let them set overnight before attempting to build any printer profiles. Had a couple of problems that are making a believer out of me that this PrintFix reader is not ready for prime-time -or- I have a bad unit. I have uninstalled the software and reloaded it and still get the same problem. I can enter the B&W and CMYK calibration prints and the reader works fine. When I take any one of my 5 calibration prints and insert them into the clear plastic sleeves, I have about a 1 in 10 chance of the print making it through the reader before it stops, jams or starts skewing. I have cleaned the unit several times (remember it's brand new) using the cleaner sheet and isopropyl and get the same results. When I cancel the read, I have to gently pull the print so it will exit. It feels as though the left side roller wheel is looser than the right side. The calibration prints I made were cut from 8x10 sheets on the dotted lines and everything was done as per the manual for Windows. Finally after many attempts, I have yet to get a calibration print through (save once) that was not skewed in some manner or slipped, or just plain stopped (with the reader still trying to move the print). I have ensured the print is the same size as the plastic sleeve, cut squarely on the lines by using a paper cutter and have positioned the print within the sleeve as far as it will go, to leaving it back from the leading edge by about 1/2". Nothing seems to work and it may be that this unit is set to tight as to not allow the print and sleeve to go through smoothly. Print was aligned with right side as per instructions and there does not appear to be anything wrong with the plastic sleeves. Are these new sleeves you're using - maybe they're to thick? Finally out of desperation, I put the prints through without using the plastic sleeves. Finally got them to go thru within one or two attempts without skewing or stopping or jamming. I physically can't see anything wrong but as I said, I noticed that the left side appears not to have the same amount of pressure on the print as the right side - causing it to skew or jam when using the sleeve. Before I say to hell with this entirely, how about someone checking out a new reader unit there, burn it in by testing it thoroughly and then sending it out to me. ..................2nd email suggesting a potential fix................... Just received the shipping notification of the replacement scanner you're sending. Now I'm sure ColorVision has probably tried a lot of things to get this problem to go away but I have an idea I'd like to try if you okay it. I've been an electronic tech and computer maintenance tech for more years than I care to remember. One of the things I used to maintain were some IBM card readers/punches which used a double pressure roller system similar (I think) to what is in this scanner. The rollers may be made from a different material but I think the fix we used back then to prevent cards from skewing may also work on this. Card alignment was critical or the old punch cards would not be read correctly and we were constantly replacing rollers and making adjustments. Finally, one of our techs came up with a fix that involved using a fine 320 grit wet/dry paper. He cut it to the same size as the cards and then glued it to a punch card. He then let this card start thru the rollers and after it started going thru, he would pull on the card slightly to make the rubber rollers abrade against the sandpaper. This tended to even out the rollers as well as remove any glazing. It solved our problem 99% of the time and became a standard maintenance practice for IBM techs. This trick may work on the scanner rollers as well. It wouldn't do any damage when the grit was against the top roller but without taking the scanner apart, I can't see how much clearance there is between the bottom roller and the LEDs. Obviously the sandpaper would really mess up the LEDs if it contacted them but if the LED strip can be easily removed or lowered and then run the sandpaper against the bottom roller to even it out, it may just work. I doubt there is any adjustment capability in this type scanner but I do suspect that they do have some kind of tension mechanism (leaf or spring) that puts pressure on the top roller. (Note added - there is no bottom roller. The top 4-1/2" long roller is held against a flat piece of glass that acts as the bed and tension is applied by two small coiled springs - one on each side that holds the bed up to the fixed roller.) If you're just going to scrap this unit anyway when you get it back, either let me give it a try or have someone there try it. ..............3rd email after getting approval...................................... Progress but not a 100% cure. When I send this unit back, I will send the sandpaper (320 grit) card I made up. Used a 4x6 photo blank and sprayed the backing with some 3M glue. I removed the cover and did a close inspection of the mechanicals and could find nothing wrong such as burrs or other deformities that could be causing the problem. I then measured the distance from the glass to the top of the rubber roller and found a variance of .007" from one end to the other. Rotating the roller caused that reading to vary indicating that the rubber roller is not as round as it should be. I cleaned the roller and glass and then proceeded to run the sandpaper thru using the Read function. The card I made has 320grit on one side and a glossy photo surface on the other side so as to not to cause any scratching or marring of the glass surface below the roller. As the sandpaper was being pulled thru, I would hold it back so the sandpaper would abrade the roller. My USB ports certainly have enough current capability and that's one little tough motor in that scanner. I would let the roller make two or three revolutions then let the paper pull thru about a 1/2", then hold it again to abrade the roller. Did this about a dozen times and I could start to see an even wear pattern across the roller and even scuffing on the sandpaper - indicating the roller is now wearing more evenly. Cleaned everything and started some testing. Prior to this, you'll recall that I could not get a print thru the scanner that was in the plastic sleeve without it skewing, then jamming. After truing up the roller, I did not have a single jam - not a single one and I did at least 100 passes using all 5 of my calibration prints in the plastic sleeves. All is not cured though as occasionally, the print would skew slightly and always to the left - meaning the left side of the scan was always lower than the right side of the print as viewed on the screen. There is no adjustment mechanism and the pressure roller is dependent on the two small springs for keeping an even pressure. I would seriously doubt that these are calibrated springs so the actual tension they apply to each side of the roller will vary slightly. Enough to cause the print to skew. I gently removed each spring and then installed it on the opposite side (right spring went to the left side, left spring went to the right. Restarted my testing and noted that the print was not skewing as much now that the springs were swapped. Getting close here so I again ran the sandpaper thru a number of iterations (as noted above) and then cleaned everything again. More testing and this is now almost perfect in comparison to what it was. I made up a test print with some vertical and horizontal lines so I could measure the skewing more easily. Again I probably ran about 100 passes and used the rectangular marquee tool to measure how square - or how close to square the print was. Given, that you cannot 100% of the time place a print perfectly square into the scanner so I needed to make a measurement from a reference point that would tell me if the print started squarely. Simple - measure from a center, vertical line. If the print skews at any point, that vertical line would no longer be vertical - even if off by one pixel. I ran "many" tests using my test print and noted a little skewing (less than .5 degrees) which is probably more than sufficient accuracy but then I noticed a strange skewing effect further on down the print. Even though a print would start out square (as measured on the top and down one side using the marquee tool) about half way down the print, the horizontal lines would start being skewed - about the thickness of a 3 point line. Found this to be a constant across all prints. It was not my test print, I could use your B&W pr CMYK prints and then measure the horizontal edges and would see that one side of an edge would always be slightly lower (skewed) than the other side even though the vertical lines (on my test prints) would be perfectly vertical. After thinking about this for awhile, I think it must be buffer latency causing this "electronic skewing". The data is read serially across the scanner and what I'm seeing is the latency of the data transmission I believe. I would think that this could be taken care of in the software. Again, it's consistent and although barely noticeable unless you're looking at things very closely as I've been doing today. But couple that electronic skewing with any other mechanical skewing and you end up with significant error. One other factor that may be contributing to the skewing is the default settings being used on the Read function. The default of 400dpi is fine but the software initially starts the scanner at some lower resolution (faster speed) for about the first 1/2" or until it reads something of a particular color value, then it slows to the 400dpi speed. That initial burst of speed may not seem like much but looking at the forces involved for the size of the objects we're dealing with and that is about the equivalent of a car peeling out from a red light - quite a jerk start for a small scanner. I started using "User Settings" and manually adjusting the window so the scanner would start reading immediately and made the size 4.3" (max width you can set x 5") and then running prints thru with and without the plastic sleeve. Results were consistent in that by not allowing the scanner to do the fast initial feeding, then slowing, the prints had less tendency to skew at the start. I got significantly more good (square) starts using this method than by using the defaults. So to sum it up. From my point of view there are three problems: 1. Pressure roller not perfectly round. 2. Spring tension not even. 3. Software needs some tweaks to slow down the start and to optimize the data by buffering it. Perhaps adding some markers to the calibration prints would help so the software knows how far skewed it is and then determine to allow or fail the calibration read. While I was writing this, the other scanner arrived. After I check it out, I'll send one of them back. Then I can get onto actually making profiles for the i9900 and seeing how good this software really is...... ....................end of emails................................ There were several emails in-between these but the ones above describe the process of tweaking the scanner. You'll note that you do not need to take the scanner apart to use the wet/dry 320 grit paper hence leaving the warranty intact. Be absolutely sure the grit of the sandpaper is facing up - never down or it will ruin the glass surface that protects the LEDs below. Also be sure you only use a good quality wet/dry paper so the grit does not come off. You can find this paper at automotive stores and it's about $1 per 8x10 sheet. You'll find that the rubber roller is very tough and it will take several tries to notice a difference. Be sure to clean everything before running your cal prints thru. It's a shame they went with using this type of scanner. There are small (5x7) and far better flat bed scanners on the market that could be used. Perhaps we can convince them to modify their software so it will work with other scanners - like the Monaco (from what I've read). Anyhow, I hope this has enlightened anyone that was interested and not confused. Guess I could take some pics of my scanner (cover removed) if needed and post them in the abpo newsgroup if you need further clarification. As it is, I'm sure someone will start complaining about how long this post is........... Be good, Bob S. |
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I was going to get one of these. Thnaks for the warning.
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"BobS" wrote in message ... There was another thread "Help profiling monitor with Spyder2, problem in shadows" started on the 24th that went a bit astray after I mentioned the PrintFix scanner problem. Another asked about how I tweaked the scanner so it doesn't skew. Below are a couple of emails that I sent to ColorVison after receiving my scanner and what I did, with their permission to try and find a solution to the problem. It may or may not work on your scanner. sniped Be good, Bob S. Many thanks for taking the time to post this information. I'll give it a try. Dave Stewart |
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bmoag,
Just to insure there is no misunderstanding, I'm not telling anyone to stay away from this product because of a cheapo scanner problem that can be easily tweaked. Quite the contrary. Since having this problem, I've been looking for reviews of other products such as the Monaco and G-M's and this site www.drycreekphoto.com did some comparison testing of the various systems you should read. I think you'll find they all have some deficiencies and that PrintFix is as good as any - save the scanner skewing problem. I have yet to make some "real" calibration prints and start using the software to make profiles and tweak those. The ones I did make are suspect because of the slewing problems. So now that I have that little problem partially solved, I'll go ahead and make some new calibration charts and then evaluate the software. I know the profiles will not be perfect renditions of what I see on the screen because of the gamut differences but should be close so they can then be tweaked manually and then saved for each type of paper. At this price range, I doubt anyone has a perfect solution and the systems that probably are near perfect cost big bucks and have a big learning curve from what I've been reading. If you go with the Monaco, you'll need your own scanner and I haven't checked what kind of specs it needs to meet but that's an added cost if you don't already have a scanner. I may in-fact return this whole package for a refund but it won't be because of the scanner alone. If the software doesn't work well enough or is buggy, then I'll move on to probably the Monaco Pro and give it a whirl. The Spyder2Pro (the new model) does a very decent job of calibrating monitors based on my own experiences with it here and what others are saying about it. Granted, you have to look hard to find some reviews and they're few and far between but if you can believe what others are saying - ColorVisions Spyder2Pro and PrintFix suite are not perfect but have been given some points over the others in it's class. You'll note that I have not slammed this product or otherwise tried to dissuade anyone from purchasing it. Just making others aware of what I did to try to fix a scanner problem. If you get it, and the scanner doesn't work, call or email them and I'm sure they'll send you another scanner right away as they did me - no hassle. The Tech Support guy's are helpful but they didn't make the scanner and have to live with it too. ColorVision should be addressing this problem and getting it solved - they've known about it for a long time now. Wish someone that has the Monaco Pro would jump on in here and give their "real-world" opinion of that product so we could learn more about it. Maybe what I need to do is just order one and try it out - providing they have a return policy that is. Bob S. "bmoag" wrote in message . com... I was going to get one of these. Thnaks for the warning. |
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"BobS" wrote in
: Just to insure there is no misunderstanding, I'm not telling anyone to stay away from this product because of a cheapo scanner problem that can be easily tweaked. Quite the contrary. I am telling you to stay away from this product. Even with a non skewing scanner there are huge problems. First - dust! Second - newton rings. Third - strange patch colors - only very light colors and no greys. This thingie does not work IMHO. Since having this problem, I've been looking for reviews of other products such as the Monaco and G-M's and this site www.drycreekphoto.com did some comparison testing of the various systems you should read. I think you'll find they all have some deficiencies and that PrintFix is as good as any - save the scanner skewing problem. I did not find any reviews at this site. But if I am understanding you correctly you are saying that Monaco and G-M are just as bad as PrintFIX. That I don't think is a good recommendation for PrintFIX. /Roland |
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Roland,
I stand corrected, the site www.drycreekphoto.com did not do an evaluation of PrintFix, they did the Spyder2Pro which was part of the suite I purchased. Thanks for noting my error. No I didn't say that Monaco and G-M are just as bad - no where near those words. I did say, from what I've read, for the price range, they all appear to have problems. Since I only have the PrintFix I cannot do a comparison against the other two. On the other hand, you apparently do have some experience with the PrintFix profile software. Is this with the latest version or their first version? Can you elaborate on the huge problems so I can verify them when it test this for myself? Appreciate your input. Any comments on the DoctorPro plug-in that is used to tweak the profiles? Thanks, Bob S. "Roland Karlsson" wrote in message ... "BobS" wrote in : Just to insure there is no misunderstanding, I'm not telling anyone to stay away from this product because of a cheapo scanner problem that can be easily tweaked. Quite the contrary. I am telling you to stay away from this product. Even with a non skewing scanner there are huge problems. First - dust! Second - newton rings. Third - strange patch colors - only very light colors and no greys. This thingie does not work IMHO. Since having this problem, I've been looking for reviews of other products such as the Monaco and G-M's and this site www.drycreekphoto.com did some comparison testing of the various systems you should read. I think you'll find they all have some deficiencies and that PrintFix is as good as any - save the scanner skewing problem. I did not find any reviews at this site. But if I am understanding you correctly you are saying that Monaco and G-M are just as bad as PrintFIX. That I don't think is a good recommendation for PrintFIX. /Roland |
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"BobS" wrote in
: On the other hand, you apparently do have some experience with the PrintFix profile software. Is this with the latest version or their first version? Can you elaborate on the huge problems so I can verify them when it test this for myself? Appreciate your input. Any comments on the DoctorPro plug-in that is used to tweak the profiles? Yepp - I bought it - and I found so many problems that I returned it and got my money back. The DoctorPro plug-in I never used as I never got any profile to doctor. The problems we 1. The scanner could not feed the sleeves 2. The sleeves are extreme dust magnets 3. The sleeves were badly scratched 4. There was strong newton patterns, i.e interference pattern caused by tight glossy surfaces. 5. The scanner produced a low quality and very grainy result with heavy stripes. 6. I got very different callibrations when using the callibration patches. Those problems above made it impossible to get any useful scans. So - I gave up. There are also other problems that are of a more theoretic nature that I could not really test: 1. The printed patch is very light and contains only rather clear colors. I cannot see how those patches could callibrate dark and low saturated parts, e.g. grey. 2. The sleeve attenuates the light rather strong. This have to be a strong disadvantage. It would be better to scan without any sleeve. There was also a last problem that irritated me strongly. I have a Canon printer, but the manual did only tell how to set up Epson printers. The interface is very different for Canon printers and it was impossible to know how to do it. So - I contacted Color Vision support. They were very helpful and gave me totally incorrect information. I am not sure that they even have seen a Canon printer - at least not the one I was talking to. After five or six mails I gave up. Then, in the PrintFIX 1.2 software, they eventually added a correct manual for Canon printers. And then - of course - you know the rest if the story. Even with correct information - it did not work. /Roland |
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Roland,
It's a mute point now since I just sent the whole PrintFix suite back but for those that will read the archives, some clarifications. Your version was earlier than the one I just received since the manual did have the Canon printer setup and it also had the new Spyder2Pro puck and software that was released fairly recently. I did some more research and had several email exchanges with someone that has reviewed the PrintFix software, DoctorPro plug-in and has compared them to other products. Since I don't have his permission to quote him, I'll just say I followed his advice and sent it back. The problems you noted below and the ones I commented on are problems that Pantone / ColorVison should be addressing but seem to be simply ignoring. This product came out in May of 2003 and it still has the same problems that were noted right after it came on the market. It doesn't appear that there is another product available in this price range ($400 USD) that does both monitor calibration and printer profiles - reliably. One would tend to think that one of the three manufacturers (ColorVison, Monaco, G-M) would be able to get it right and be able to market it in this price range. Thanks for your comments. Oh yeah... what did you end up with or are you still looking? Bob S. The problems we 1. The scanner could not feed the sleeves 2. The sleeves are extreme dust magnets 3. The sleeves were badly scratched 4. There was strong newton patterns, i.e interference pattern caused by tight glossy surfaces. 5. The scanner produced a low quality and very grainy result with heavy stripes. 6. I got very different callibrations when using the callibration patches. Those problems above made it impossible to get any useful scans. So - I gave up. There are also other problems that are of a more theoretic nature that I could not really test: 1. The printed patch is very light and contains only rather clear colors. I cannot see how those patches could callibrate dark and low saturated parts, e.g. grey. 2. The sleeve attenuates the light rather strong. This have to be a strong disadvantage. It would be better to scan without any sleeve. There was also a last problem that irritated me strongly. I have a Canon printer, but the manual did only tell how to set up Epson printers. The interface is very different for Canon printers and it was impossible to know how to do it. So - I contacted Color Vision support. They were very helpful and gave me totally incorrect information. I am not sure that they even have seen a Canon printer - at least not the one I was talking to. After five or six mails I gave up. Then, in the PrintFIX 1.2 software, they eventually added a correct manual for Canon printers. And then - of course - you know the rest if the story. Even with correct information - it did not work. /Roland |
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