A quick look at the recent news from X-Rite, BabelColor and ColorLogic:
Danaher buys X-Rite
X-Rite’s Board of Directors have approved a takeover bid from Danaher. The Danaher corporation will acquire all X-Rite stock, while continuing to run the company as an independent entity. Danaher is active in a number of industries, such as testing instruments and equipment for dental care, biotech and water treatment.
Danaher also owns Esko, who provides workflow and CAD software, flexo CtP and cutting tables to the print and packaging industry. Esko is composed of the former PurupEskofot, Barco Graphics, Artworks Systems and Enfocus companies.
i1Pro 2 is here
Just in time for Drupa X-Rite has announced the new version of the Eye One Pro spectrophotometer. The i1Pro 2 has a new illuminant, making it possible to measure both M0 and M1. M0 is a broad measurement condition covering most legacy tungsten instruments, while M1 has stricter requirements on UV content. With an embedded UV Cut filter, the i1Pro can also measure M2. There is no polarization filter, so M3 measurements are not possible.
X-Rite also promises better temperature stability than with the current i1Pro line.
i1Pro 2 is accompanied by an updated i1Profiler suite, which is now at version 1.3.
BabelColor
BabelColor has updated PatchTool to version 3.7. If you have a Spyder4 instrument, this can now be used for the display and soft proof validation tool in PatchTool.
Also from BabelColor is a new color difference calculator app that runs on Android phones and tablets. DeltaE* is available now in the Android Marketplace / Google Play.
ColorLogic News
ColorLogic has just released an updated version of DocBees – ProfileManager. The freeware version is a nice profile and gamut inspector, while users of other ColorLogic products can access more advanced features, such as more comprehensive profile reports and generation of grayscale profiles from RGB or CMYK ICC profiles.
At Drupa ColorLogic will also show the new version of their color server product, ZePrA. Version 3 of ZePrA will include dynamic generation of Device Link ICC profiles and more advanced image sharpening.
