CHROMiX

Odd randomness with MeasureTool

General Color & Graphics Printer Calibration & Profiling
#1

When I configure MeasureTool with a Custom target, 16 columns, 33 rows, I get a completely random pattern that instead of going from A1 - P33, goes from A1 to V29. It skips patches, seemingly at random. (For instance, the only values in “A” column are 1, 15, 16 and 29)

I thought I would get around this by creating a custom TXT file (since Curve2 needs CMYK values anyway) and got the same result! When there are 528 patches, they are randomly arranged and it looks, well, weird. If I subtract just one patch (the last patch, which is just white), they are properly ordered.

So here’s that text file with 527 patches:

Here’s the exact same text file with all 528 patches:

Has anyone else experienced this? What the heck is going on here?!

-Brian

#2

I suspect most people happening upon this post would have a hard time figuring out which illustration is the one you call completely random, and which is normal. That is, unless they remembered your fascinating project with CD labels:
[one.imports.literateforums.com/t/ideas-for-targets-too-large-for-product/977/11)

To others more familiar with flatbed scanning and large format photography, the second image is rather familiar:

LOL! You just happened to come upon the exact number of patches in a Hutchcolor scanning target. MeasureTool has a few of these industry standard targets hardwired into it. Apparently anytime it sees 528 patches it assumes it’s dealing with a HCT target. Similar things happen if you have 918 rgb patches and 1617 cmyk patches I’m sure.

Guess you’ll need to find a way to add one more patch?

#3

That is hilarious!

Okay, so it turns out there’s a row on top of the data that is “empty” (I use it for CMYK solids and paper color) so I have excluded it.

What a ride this has been!

Thanks for the feedback, Patrick. I have recently installed ColorPort, and it doesn’t seem to have this “feature” so I’ll probably take measurements with it from now on.

-Brian