Thanks again to you and Dana for your quick help yesterday. The problem is gone.
Just a dumb and short question: I have realized the files corresponding to the targets (Colorport - I1profile) have no color profile tagged to them. I realized when opening them on Photoshop in order to put around a black margin (to limit the amount of black ink laid on the negative around the actual targets)… That being said, I tried and assigned the Gamma 2.2 profile and the tones did not change, so I assume that is ok and we can use those files “untagged” from Print Tool with no need of assigning any profile before hand…right?
I also brought up the issue of the untagged targets back during beta-testing last spring. Walker told me that they are “internally hard-coded” (or some techy term like that) GG 2.2.
There actually is one change that MUST be made to the targets, as Rafael noted, which is to add a black border to prevent the printer from trying to print black edge-to-edge and top-to-bottom. I forgot to do this once and it made quite a mess inside the printer. I wish the margins set in custom QTR page setups had an effect on the printable area but they don’t. Something to ask Roy about maybe.
In addition, since I discovered that the Flip Horizontally option in the print dialog of PrintTool can be saved as part of a preset, I flipped my target back to right-reading and saved it that way. I mentioned this here last summer I think. It would be good to incorporate into the manual at some point as part of the recommended “workflow”, since it eliminates a step (flipping the image in Ps) that is really unnecessary.
I also added an area at the bottom for notes. This may be a problem with automatic patch readers but it is not a problem for manual readings with my SpyderPrint (ColorMunki and i1 are similar in this way). Each section of the notes area is a separate text layer which makes it very easy to make changes to the profile name, paper name, process details, etc.
I also added the 21-step strip which I copied/pasted from one of the other targets. I use it to track ink density change over time. I began a controlled test with regular readings on Jan 1 and will report on it next month after the 2 month reading is plotted.
