Instrument Baselines
Baselining
When you start working with ChromaChecker™ Instrument Inspector you need to have reference data to determine the condition of the instrument - another way of saying this is you need to know how your instrument measures color. For that purpose, Instrument Inspector Target consists of 42 color patches to assess accuracy and repeatability. Several initial measurements (ideally 10+) are used to create Baseline - averaged data used as a reference point for all future analyses.
After you have a Target and your customized baseline, then you can check the accuracy of your instrument at any time by re-measuring the target and comparing it against your baseline data.
Baseline your Instrument
The baseline sets the current condition of the instrument and will verify that the instrument is performed to specification. Once baselined, you can check your instrument on a defined schedule and satisfy the requirements for ISO compliance verification and reporting. If you are using
- Chromachecker Capture, you select the Green Instrument Inspector icon in Capture and the software will guide you through the steps based on the instrument you are using.
- ChromaChecker Uploader, you can create a task that will provide the scan of the target to the Instrument Inspector.
- In a third-party application, you can upload the baseline data into Instrument Inspector by logging into the cloud as an "Expert" and navigating to "Instrument Inspector/Baseline".
Routine Instrument verification.
There are a lot of vendor claims on how Instruments are precise and stable. But in the real world instruments are dropped, temperatures vary, and optics become dirty (the industrial environment is sometimes very polluted, and the air in the print house may contain a lot of dust) all of which causes instruments to change how they measure color. Real Inter-Instrument Agreement can be far from perfect. Sending an Instrument for recertification is expensive, and usually doesn't fix the problem if it is software or application related.
Frequent Instrument verification with Instrument Inspector will document that Instrument is valid and there is no need for sending Instrument for the recertification — checking every week or every month will create records for the audit. ISO 9001 required documentation will be created and at the same time, the correction profile is generated.
Typical Inter Instruments comparison shows E-Factor in the range of 1- 2 delta E and much higher in some cases depending on the instrument pair. In most cases, Harmonizer can reduce this error by 60%+ for unlike instruments, and even higher for like instruments.
A typical scenario where this becomes critical is when the ICC profile for the proofer was made with iSis or i1IO, and the proof verification is made with Exact or i1Pro. A well-profiled proofer can be 2 E-Factor from the printing aim when measured with the different instruments because two different instruments measure the same patches differently. Harmonizing can reduce this problem by 50% or more! In the same way measurements from the handheld device may be very different from press instruments, and Harmonizer will reduce this delta E stack that contributes to an overall error in the process. By reducing this error, the printer will have an easier time manufacturing color to meet the customer's expectations which will save time and money due to less waste, less make-ready, and less discussion related to the color product.
Recreate baseline at any time from existing measurements
Select any existing measurements and create a new baseline. It gives more flexibility to deeper analysis if required
Video
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This tutorial shows the i1iO table creating a baseline using the S-42 target
Contact ChromaChecker Support
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