X-Rite announces i1Pro 3 Plus colour profiling device

The i1Pro 3 Plus has been optimised for digital printing on a range of materials and surfaces, including ceramics, textiles, glass, metal, wood, vinyl, plastics, thin films, cardboard, paper, and more. Commercial, wide-format, grand-format, packaging, and industrial printers can now create ICC profiles for almost any substrate and calibrate print production devices for the highest level of colour accuracy, said X-Rite in a press release. 

As more industries turn to digital printing, customers are putting greater emphasis on achieving accurate and repeatable colour. To do this, production print equipment needs to be linearised and profiled for each substrate in order to monitor colour output. Current profiling solutions are limited in their ability to measure textured, rough, or uneven surfaces and cannot accommodate various material thicknesses. Many devices do not have the resolution required to ensure the highest colour quality when printing detailed patterns, metallic effects, or photography images. This leads to costly colour errors and rework which impacts a printer’s bottom line. 

“The i1Pro 3 Plus builds on the success of the i1 family and removes the variability to create accurate ICC profiles on the widest range of materials,” said Ray Cheydleur, printing and imaging product portfolio manager, X-Rite. “Wide- and grand-format users and industrial material printers will see immediate value by incorporating the affordable i1Pro 3 Plus into their prepress and production workflows, resulting in more accurate and repeatable colour, a reduction of waste, and an increased return on investment.”

“We are delighted to support X-Rite’s newly announced i1Pro 3 Plus measurement device within our latest Fiery technologies at ITMA 2019. Due to the nature of digital textile production, this large-aperture device is an excellent fit with our latest single pass EFI Bolt high-speed textile printer. For both colour management and quality control, this device will allow our customers to produce accurate colour much more easily,” said John Henze, vice President of sales and marketing, EFI (Electronics For Imaging) Fiery. EFI is a long-term X-Rite partner.

New features available in the i1Pro 3 Plus are: larger aperture of 8mm to support new materials and substrates used in digital printing applications; new polarisation filter that reduces specular highlights and shadows on fabrics and ceramics; it provides ‘better blacks’ and richer colours on rough surfaces and glossy medias, like canvas prints and fine art photo papers; can simultaneously measure M0, M1 and M2 in a single pass to account for optical brighteners so prepress and print operators can quickly predict how colours printed on optically brightened substrates will look under different lighting conditions; longer ruler for measuring the wider charts used in grand-format printing; new LED illuminant that improves device reliability; it now supports transmission scanning for backlit film and materials used in signage, measures high brightness, upto 5K NITs for ultra-bright displays.

“We are used to seeing bumpy shadow measurements from unpolarised devices on glossy textured medias like canvas. With the new polarisation feature in the i1Pro 3 Plus, our M3 measurements are dramatically smoother in the shadows - perfect in fact,” said Scott Martin, founder, Onsight, a leading workflow consultant for print, prepress, design and photography. 

In addition, X-Rite announced a new i1iO Automated Scanning Table that supports the i1Pro 3 Plus. This hands-free test chart reader offers automated colour profiling on a variety of substrates with reduced risk of colour measurement errors. It is ideal for photographers, designers, and printers who want to speed up and automate the measurement process and eliminate manual strip reading.

The new i1iO table can be used with a variety of industrial materials including textiles, ceramics, corrugated, etc and supports materials up to 33mm thick, with the optional z-axis spacer. It also supports transparencies and backlit materials.

At ITMA from June 20 – 26 in Barcelona, Spain, X-Rite and Pantone will demonstrate the i1Pro 3 Plus in hall UL, stand C109.  X-Rite will also be showcasing the i1Pro 3 Plus at EskoWorld from June 24 – 26 in Nashville, TN. The i1Pro 3 Plus and the i1iO table will be available in late July 2019. (PC)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India