Testimonials on Remote ICC profiles done by Atmos Design / Udo J. Machiels


Newsletter from Marrutt (downlaod PDF), read from Page 6

I am John Langridge, a photographer specialising in a contemporary style of wedding photography
To maintain the highest quality of prints we always hand printed traditionally ourselves in both colour and black and white. This was essential to your business as we feel that our clients deserve the best in print finishes and quality
To enhance our photographic style we decided to change from film to digital capture using Kodak DCS 760 cameras.
We decided to use these cameras because of their image quality and batch correction facilities, which the Kodak software provides.
At this stage our next consideration was to get the best possible print quality equal to that of a hand made photographic prints.
On recommendation from John Read from Marrutt Ltd. I contacted Udo J. Machiels seeking advice on printers, inks and papers and not to forget colour management.
My requirements were for high quality finished output and a low cost proofing system. We purchased Epson 1290 with Epson ink, another Epson 1290 running on the Lyson bulk feed ink system, and an Epson 7600 with Epson Ultrachrome inks. For 24” wide prints.
Udo spent two day’s in the studio calibrating 2 monitors and profiling the 3 printers with the various paper and ink combinations.
Now all printers are producing an extremely accurate colour balance, and the monitors match our output.
A colleague producing prints using a conventional photographic paper and chemistry through a digital printer has shown us results from his system, again profiled by Udo, the prints produced match our own with an equal colour rendition. We shall use his lab, when workflow is high, as his output exactly matches our own.
With the present digital and colour management technology our assistant can produce a print to match exactly one that I produced months earlier, without even seeing the original print.
I went into digital because I desired to simplify my workflow and without colour management I could not have done it.
I can now shoot in the morning and print in the afternoon. Without accurate colour management our business could not exist.

John Langridge Photography
41 Newtown
Copthorne
info@jlphoto.co.uk
01342 712 646

To: John Reid Esq.
Marrutt Ltd.

From Richard Harwood-Stamper
Denbry Repros Ltd

Dear John,

I would like to thank you for your introduction to Udo Machiels of Atmos Design.

Denbry Repros Ltd has been producing photographic Repros for over 50 years and although we continue to expand our conventional photographic service we have had to keep up with the digital requirements of the business. Our clients require high quality bulk runs at sensible prices.

Having seen other companies invest heavily in digital equipment & suffer the consequences of losing custom through poor quality, we proceeded in this field with extreme caution, purchasing initially, one Epson 1290 printer for learning purposes.

We were unable, however, to produce the required standard or achieve a sensible cost until Udo created a custom profile for us, using your Lyson bulk ink system. The results were incredible and the ink costs decimated.

Subsequently, we have recalled Udo to create custom profiles for three more Epson 1290’s and an Epsom 2100 and the results are so accurate that it is impossible to tell the difference between one printer or another.

We are so pleased with the results that we are now planning to install Lyson bulk inks together with Udo’s profiles on all our printers in the near future.

Many thanks, once again, for pointing us in the right direction.

Kind regards,

Richard Harwood-Stamper
Managing Director. Denbry Repros Ltd.

Dear John,

If you remember, I came down to your office with my 1290 Epson printer
because even with your profiles my printer had a horrible pink bias.
Quite by chance Udo Machiels from Atmos Design was there as well. I
quizzed him for a good long time and realised much to my dismay that I
would have to spend more money on having custom profiles made!
I hd three made for 3 different papers by Udo, who was incredibly
efficient and helpful; having to answer many hundreds of questions from
a rank beginner.
The profiles are FANTASTIC, from being despondent and regretting getting
into the whole digital morass, I could suddenly see great results which
were accurate and very close to my originals. I just wanted to pass on
this news, recommend Udo from first hand experience and thank you for
all your help as well.

Best Wishes
Craig Lynn

Hi Udo,

What can I say! You are a genius.
I only had a little time to try the profiles that you have done for us but
the results are superb. When compared with prints made using Lyson's own
profiles and settings there is a huge improvement so much so that for the
first time in months I actually managed to colour adjust a scan on screen,
softproof it through your profile and get a very accurate match on the
printer.
I am currently printing using the Inkjet Backlight Film setting with a
resolution of 1440dpi, using the profiles as the Print Space in Photoshop 7.
I am using Perceptual Rendering with Black Point Compensation turned on. This
setup gives me superb results, I will do some more in-depth testing when I
get back from my holidays in 14 days time and let you have some sample
prints. I have even got a print that I tried on using your profiles on 310g
Standard Fine Art paper and amazingly it matches very closely what I am
getting on the 170g Matt paper. The Pixl profile that we purchased from John
(which is supposed to be the best generic profile possible) does not even
come close to the quality of prints made with your profiles.
Thank you once again for your excellent service and all you help, you have
resolved in the last few days a problem that nearly forced me to give up on
this method of printing and last night I actually felt like a weight had been
lifted from me and that I can now be confident in my own colour skills once
more.

Best Wishes
Jason Hicking

Hello Udo

I like to thank you for producing the various print profiles for me. The
one for Lyson Smooth Fine Art paper in particular was absolutely spectacular
and brings the best out of my photo images.

In my own mind, I was only going to print on A4 sized paper; but the
profiles have now given me enough encouragement to venture into A3 prints.
I am so glad my friend John Kyle (a retired photographer with 40 years
standing, and my mentor) and I met you at the London Exhibition - Digital
Camera Show - and I can't thank you enough also for the valuable advice you
have given me in the course of our business correspondence - choice of
paper, ink, and monitor profiling etc. By the way I have now reprofiled my
monitor so the screen image corresponds very well with the print image.

I belong to the Leighton Linslade U3A (University of the Third Age for over
50s thirsting for further knowledge/pastimes). I am setting up a Digital
Photography Interest Group to encourage members to exchange experience and
expertise, and to teach newcomers on the subject. The Group is already
over-subscribed by 300% and so I may want to run 3 groups instead of 1. If
any of the members want to have customised profiles, I would certainly be
referring them to you.

By the way, will you be going to the Focus on Imaging Exhibition in
Birmingham in February next year? If so, I do hope to come to your stand
and say hello again.

Very gratefully yours

Ken
"Ken Wong" kenwong1@tesco.net

Hi Udo,

It's been a pleasure, Profile working brilliantly, far more predictable
than my profile for the 1290 have formulated a softproof which almost
guarantees outputs!
Thanks again for all your assistance,be in touch soon.
Steve
PS . Am spreading the word.....

Steve Webber webber@netmatters.co.uk

thanks for the invoice, And yes I'm very happy with the profile. In fact
I've recommended you to a few other people I've spoken to, so you might get
some more customers soon.
Looking at the profile you did for me, I feel it's pretty good, the
paper/ink has a little metamerism but a printed greyscale compared to a
kodak chart is pretty close in room daylight. The only area where there is a
noticable difference is in flesh tones, which are slightly pinker in the
print than on the monitor. I feel that could be a monitor profile thing as
the profile for the monitor is not made from very many patches, What do you
think?

Cheers
Dave.

Hi
I am rearly pleased with the profiles
I have stopped pulling my hair out!!
The problem is now its my photos that are crapp
I will see u on john stand in feb as I will help him out
all the best
steve

Hi Udo,
I haven't been able to spend much time printing lately, but from the few
prints that I have done I'm very impressed!!

Cheers
Simon

Hi Udo,
Thank you for resending my profiles but I managed to fix the problem by
renaming the DAT files in MSDOS mode. Renaming from within Windows had
absolutely no effect, one of the vagaries of the Win98 OS? I haven't yet
had the time to do full print test runs but just going by the PS soft proof
views the profiles look remarkably close to rgb originals, and that compared
to my old 2000P profile is a 200 % improvement.
I'll be back for more.
Best wishes,

Mike Daines
_________________________
MIKE DAINES PHOTOGRAPHY
Member of The AOP and NUJ
Email: mikedaines@btconnect.com

Hello Udo

The profiles you produced are truly amazing and the high quality of image
prints has proved to me that all the prints I made before have suffered from
a number of malaise, ranging from over-inking to incorrect colour
reproduction and poor colour saturation.

Your profile for the Ilford Galerie Classic Pearl paper has now allowed me
to print all the images from my Nikon Coolpix 5700 camera using my Epson
1290 printer with high fidelity and outstanding vibrancy.

Your profile for the Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss paper is good and serves to
support my printing requirements on glossy paper. As an added bonus, I have
found that it is also an excellent print profile for Epson Heavyweight Matt
paper. Hence it serves as a dual-purpose tool.

As far as your profile for the Lyson Smooth Fine Art paper is concerned, it
is my pride and joy. I use it exclusively to print my best photos on Lyson
Fine Art paper - yes, not only Smooth Fine Art paper, but all the other
Lyson Fine Art paper as well! I now use Smooth Fine Art Paper to present my
best photos in a transparent portfolio folder. When I want to frame a
picture, I can print the photos on all Lyson Fine Art Paper and display
them. The images are pin-sharp, the colours vibrant and the tonal
gradations are simply wonderful.

When I look back over the last four years that I have been involved in
digital photography, I can say without hesitation that the most impact on my
work, and my hobby, has been my recent conversion from Epson ink to Lyson
Fotonic ink, the adoption of customised print profiles and the use of Lyson
Fine Art paper. The images I can now produce are a cut above all my
previous images. I have received many compliments from my friends on my
recent progress in image printing.

Without your expert advice on the choice of paper and ink, the calibration
of my monitor, and the production of print profiles, it could take me years
to get to where I am now. With you help, it only took two months to achieve
the current results.

This is truly amazing and exciting for me. Thank you very much for you
help, advice and effort. I will be recommending your services to my friends
and fellow hobbyists.

I hope to see at the Focus on Imaging Exhibition in Birmingham next month.

Ken Wong

Dear Udo,

Thanks for the invoice.

I have to say that I have been totally blown away with the difference in
quality that you profile has made. If I compare pictures that I made
earlier with an un-calibrated 1160 and my new calibrated 1290, there is so
much more detail in the mid-dark tones + total neutrality.
Sorry that I didn't write to you as I was away for work.
The only problem is that I want to calibrate another printer now that I know
what a difference it makes. I have to save up a bit though!
All the best,
Jack Liebeck
www.jackliebeck.com is now LIVE!

Thanks Udo.

Results are super-duper. I have an un-profiled monitor, but get fantastic
results printing without much editing in Photoshop. I use a Nikon D100, load
the images and adjust levels, that's it.

I am thinking about getting a new monitor and getting it profiled, this will
not be cheap as it requires a 'site visit'.

Thanks again for the profiles, I am now 100% confident that when I take a
picture I can print it out and get accurate results.

I have a stock of Ilford Gallerie Smooth Glossy paper, so will send you the
patches soon.

Thanks again

Paul

Dear John,

Many thanks for enabling me to contact Udo Machiels; after I read the
articles and testomonials about Udo in your News-sheet, I realised that this
(custom profiling) was exactly what I needed.

After a brief discussion on the 'phone, Udo came to my house in North London
last Saturday morning. He worked hard all day, not only sorting out a vast
number of custom profiles, but even sorted out my Mac G4 too. He didn't
leave until he was happy everything had been done properly, and still only
charged me his (very reasonable) daily rate, without adding extra for
travelling up all the way from East Grinstead.

I cannot tell you what a huge difference Udo has made to my digital life; I
really cannot imaging how anyone can get serious about digital photography
until they've had custom profiling performed on their system; the man's a
genius!

Once again, many thanks, and I hope his skills get widely advertised.

Sincerely,

Ben Timmis,

The new / amended profile works brilliantly Udo. Pure white in the BG
I haven’t as yet had time to test the small gamut profiles but will let you know asap.
Many thanks for the quick response and precise work.

JOSS
Sherborne
DORSET

Dear Udo,
Thank you very much for this message. Yes, I did get an invoice shortly
after you supplied me with the printer profile. I'm sorry, but in the rush
to get the work away for the exhibition in New Zealand I didn't have a
chance to get back to you to say how pleased I was with the performance of
the printer after the profiles were installed. There was a very marked
difference, particularly in certain parts of the tonal range that previously
just seemed to compress and be misrepresented on paper. So thank you for
your expertise, I'm most grateful.
I look forward to keeping in contact.
Best wishes,

Chris Matthews

Dear Udo,

I have received the ICC profile you prepared for me and am still
experimenting with it. So far it appears to be excellent. I was previously
using the generic profile for Lyson Pro Satin paper and all the blacks and
dark shadows were totally out of gamut, with your profile and Ilford
Gallerie Pearl that problem is resolved. It's also giving me more neutral
tones and far more depth to my Small Gamut prints. I'll send you a print of
the test chart just for confirmation.
Many thanks for a first class job,

John Cooper