X-Rite EODIS3CCPP i1 Display Pro and ColorChecker Passport Bundle (Black)

There are two parts to this system: there is the software you install and use on your computer, and there is the "hardware" the color checker you use when you're photographing and to which you reference the software.It is a system that speeds up your workflow, increases your accuracy and efficiency, and leaves you with prints you can be proud of.

Before I go on, let me clarify that I use this system with Photoshop ACR, not with Lightroom. Since the software does not install as a Plug-In to Photoshop (as it does with Lightroom), I have to use it as a "stand-alone" program. This isn't a hardship, but it is a distinction, and my review is based on this scenario only.

Another important fact is that for the purposes of creating profiles, this program requires that at least the profile-generating image be in .DNG so, whatever program you use to process your RAW captures has to be able to save as .DNG.

The process is simple: you shoot a series of photographs under a particular set of circumstances; you select one that is typical of the conditions present in the whole series; you save it as a .DNG; you open the "stand alone" Passport program; you open that representative image and tell it to create a profile based on it; you give the profile a descriptive name. The profile it creates will automatically appear in the camera profile drop-down menu in the Camera Calibration tab within ACR. You open the rest of the images in ACR and apply the profile to all of them as the first step in your RAW processing.

So far, I have successfully created two profiles for one of the cameras. It will be necessary, over time, to create a separate profile for each shooting situation for each camera. For example, on my Nikon D-80, I shot the color checker under "indoor, bounced flash" conditions. I created that profile. I then opened the 22 images that I shot under those conditions and applied the profile to them as the first step as soon as I entered ACR. Sure enough, on my calibrated monitor, the colors were right on target. I had the right shade of deep red, the right shade of aquaish-blue, and a perfect capture of skintone for each different person (and this was a diverse group). Additional adjustments in the basic tab were needed later but, starting from an appropriate profile, I could apply batch settings and only tweak individual shots lightly. I waited to write the review until I was able to make prints of the images that looked so great on the monitor and, sure enough, they look great when printed as well. I'm absolutely delighted.

I would say that the time saved is considerable. For an advanced amateur, like me, it's definitely worth it. For a large-volume professional, it is probably essential. Not only do you save time in the processing part of the equation, you also save money by not having to reprint.

Of course, the matter of creating camera-specific varieties of profiles can be time-consuming, but you don't have to do it all at once. You create them as the need arises and then you have them there for all subsequent matching situations.

The unit also comes with non-profile related swatches. Among them it has several intensities of neutral grays to help you quickly establish white point or check for clipping, and several artistic interpretation swatches designed for changing the color temperature of your photograph to make it progressively warmer (more golden) or cooler (more blue) than it really was. The latter are further broken up into cooling or warming for people or for landscape pictures. (Really, very well thought out.) There is also a white balance swatch/card that will come in handy in mixed-lighting situations. Though I haven't had to use it yet, it's very handy to have it in the same unit that I'm carrying along anyway.

The only factor on the minus side is that you have to really struggle to find information, instructions, and explanations of the procedure, features and swatches. The process is absolutely straightforward once you understand it, but getting there is a struggle. The X-Rite company website is badly organized and of very little help (I already knew that since I own their eye-one calibration software which still hasn't been updated for Windows 7).

The "for more information click here" link in the interface takes you to a dead end. The CD has totally-irrelevant "training modules" that deal with general calibration issues with no reference to this product. The zipped "online tutorial" that has to be downloaded from within the interface takes five minutes to download using DSL and requires Flash Player. When you register the product, they send you another link to download the same online tutorial again as a "thank you" gift. I believe your best bet is the written documentation PDF (on the standalone proram it is in the help menu>documentation). It is 59 pages long, well-illustrated and rambles a bit (but, so far, everything I wanted to find was there). Make sure you check it out before starting and be amazed at the difference in your images.

Shows how the product can perform white balance, color calibration and dual-illuminant color calibration using the included software and Adobe Lightroom on a Windows 7 PC. 4 stars as the out-of-the-box experience is poor -not until you have gone to the website, read the instructions and downloaded & watched the video examples will you know what to do.

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Im a professional photographer and use the digital-camera color checker, which is a rather large and bulky device to say the least, it is also complex to create and apply profiles.

The new X-rite passport ROCKS..! plain and simple.. it is easy to use, naively with lightroom, and easy with PhaseOne Capture. The quality of the profiles is not quite matching the digital camera checker, but nobody in their right mind would expect that. The passport create a very use-able profile in a matter of seconds.

Here is how it works.

1. snap a shot with the passport in the same light as you are working.

2. select image in Lightroom, then select EXPORT and export to X-rite.. this will create a profile, I suggest naming the profile by the date and album it applies to.

3. restart lightroom, go to develop, select the profile in camera profile, then sync to the rest of the album.

NOTE if you have several lighting environments in the same folder, shoot a passport shot for each light change, then apply to the images which matches that passport.

The card also have a set of off-white patches for warming or cooling portraits and another set for landscape, use them to set the whitepoint in a image to warm or cool as desired.

X-rite have made available a very well designed instruction video for download from their site.

Overall, this is a very successful product, it does what I expected and it does it well. If you shoot digital and am concerned about color management, this is a MUST HAVE product.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

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My background, serious amateur photographer since the jungles of Southeast Asia, 35mm until this year.

No two digital sensors are the same and vary in capture and color from manufacturer to manufacturer and camera to camera within every manufacturer.

That said, the X-Rite Colorchecker Passport is excellent for dead on color processing after each shoot.

I would have given it 3 5 stars but I find there is a problem and not with the actual product but somewhere within the software. I use Adobe products, current versions of Light Room, Photoshop CS5, Bridge, Elements 8 all for Mac. While I was following directions to enter or create a color profile from the Colorchecker Passport what I failed to know or realize is the color profile would be set as default across the entire set of programs in Adobe with no way to correct or remove this 'default' setting. What IS supposed to happen is the created color profile is to be entered as an option selectable profile to be used by the owner. Thus, when downloading from camera card to computer into Bridge or Lightroom each RAW format photo enters Bridge or Lightroom with an incorrect color profile assigned to it automatically.

I approached two different technical support people (Colorchecker Passport & the tutorial site I use to learn more about the programs I own) and got answers but they failed to correct the problem, nor are they answered in a timely way.

Now when I download I must wait for the entire download to finish and then take an additional step in setting the RAW photos back to their original camera settings before I can begin to manipulate the photos further. This takes more time but in the grand scheme of things this should not set up a default setting in any other program but the Colorchecker Passport and not bleed over into Adobe products or any other photo software processing programs until directed to do so or chosen by you the photo manipulator.

Now when I shoot anything I use the Passport but in development steps I do not enter a profile, rather I do it all manually which is also time consuming but the photos come out spot on for color.

My disappointment is the inability to correct this problem from any of the venders of this program or the other programs I use. Were I able to undo the root problem I'd be much happier but technical support has no idea what has happened, lame to nonfunctional in my opinion and it's the blame game due to various reasons best left unwritten.

Overall I feel this is a good product as long as you do not enter a color profile for your Passport and inadvertently create a blanket default across your entire software spectrum. I am not happy with technical support on this issue at all.

Could this be my error? Sure but it doesn't support the lack of editing or removing the newly created setting from the computer in any way.

I would say, buyer be ware AND X-Rite should add the ability to remove the offending profile easily and effectively to it's software with clear, concise

illustrated instructions.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Update 2012

Though I use this product I use it differently from it's intended use by the manufacturer. I ignore the included Passport's software completely.

Example; When I use this product I shoot two frames at the beginning or the end of the shoot, frame one is the color checker side, frame two is the gray card side. When back in post I will correct for color balance in Adobe Photoshop or Bridge's Camera Raw by loading all shots into CR (including the Checker shots) and then adjusting color in the rest of the photos using the eye dropper tool on the color checker photo in CR, then selection synchronize all and select white balance, then okay.

How I finally got rid of the foul, bluish cast profile the original review was based on was go to a third party tutorial course, pay the fee and follow the instructional tutorial movies. In one of the movies it elaborates on the removal of the offending profile created by the Passport Checker software. Why did I not go through Passport Checker's help? Not at all timely or helpful to my needs when I needed it two years ago. They may have improved their customer service or may not.

The way I understand Amazon'e rules I may not inclose the third party's company name name or site. Suffice it to say it is a favorite site to learn many things you don't already know or as a refresher for something you may have forgotten. There are other sites now being offered on the Inet. Some are pay sites, some are free.

This product still stands on it's manufactures acclaims yet, my personal treatment by the company two years ago does not warrant a higher rating even though I now the 'work arounds' for the problems I had regarding this product. Considering my down time, correction time, scrambling for a comprehensive solution to correct the hassle of three shoots gone bluish (one wedding) from Color Passport's 'customer service' my rating still stands.

On the up side, once you understand the card, the workarounds should something go wrong in profiling it does pretty much what the manufacturer says. Leave the software either in the box or buy a Passport without the software and you should be fine.

By not using the software included I've had little or no problems within reasonable lighting conditions. While on my third party site I discovered a way to make a fake gray card in Photoshop. Far to many steps to go into here. This works if you forget to use a gray card or anything like it for white balance.

For a far less amount of money, buy a good gray card. No software, nothing fancy.

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In the old days of film (say, fifteen years ago), we had two choices: daylight film and indoor film. Once you put a roll of film in the camera, you were stuck with the white balance, unless you rewound the roll in midstream to change film. Then you went home and used a little gadget to fish out the leader, and hoped you had correctly noted the number of exposures you had taken before rewinding, so that you didn't get a double exposure when you reloaded that roll.

All of that changed when digital RAW came in. Now you could adjust the white balance after the fact so you could shoot under all kinds of light on the same memory card. You could even set it to auto so that the camera would calculate the white balance and the pictures that emerged seemed pretty good.

There were always obsessive photographers who were concerned about white balance and color management. I used to make fun of them to myself. Then I got the ColorChecker Passport made by x-rite. Now I'm really upset and becoming obsessive too.

The Passport is a little passport-sized gadget with three little cards in it with lots of little colored squares, something like a paint sampler. You use this three ways. You can photograph the included grey card to set white balance at the time of shooting that will then be applied to all of your images, or you can photograph the chips while on a shoot and wait until you do raw processing and use your software to select one of the grey squares to set white balance for a series of pictures taken under the same light, or you can build a camera calibration profile for the lighting conditions of your shoot.

Either of the first two methods seems to work fine for white balance. I tested both and for the most part there was a slightly different temperature than my Nikon camera would have assigned and except for the most important color accuracy, this didn't seem important for me.

But when it came to actual colors, I received a shock. I've followed a color-corrected workflow pretty rigorously, calibrating my monitor regularly and using appropriate profiles for printing, and my prints look like my monitor to the extent that the different natures of the media allow. However, when I looked at an image of the Passport color chips on my monitor and compared it to the actual Passport, there were wide discrepancies in the colors. Many colors, particularly blues, looked very different. My camera was not as accurate as I thought.

Luckily, I was able to create and apply a profile with ease from the image of the Passport with the software that comes with it, and the colors looked a lot better, except for the deepest hues.

The lesson is simple. If you really want correct color you need a ColorChecker (although even then, there are colors that your sensor will not be able to capture). Now here's the rub. That means you are going to have to take the gadget with you and photograph it whenever you shot. The small size makes it easy to carry but it is not convenient to use, especially if you are a photographer on the run. But until the manufacturers make better cameras, it's either that or accept that your colors are going to be off.