Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this product soon after its release. I found it helpful and the colors were quite accurate although it could still use some improvements in accuracy. I photograph products professionally on a daily basis. Some of my clients are high end cosmetic companies and getting the colors right is critical. I found the process of creating your camera profile and it being integrated into lightroom a real blessing! If I reviewed this at the time I bought it I would have given it 5 stars but there were some colors that were too saturated. I was hoping with the update of the software, things would improve. Unfortunately, after I recently updated the software to 1.0.2, the accuracy even deteriorated more significantly. Luckily I still kept the previous profiles I made with the previous version of the software so I could compare. The problems I encountered with the updated version are as follows: 1. Some colors have become way too saturated and too dark. The reds and pinks are particularly nasty such that when the profile is applied the resulting colors are so unnatural. They even wash out detail due to the intense colors. And it was already too saturated to begin with. 2. The color profiles from the same image of the checker is different if made in lightroom and in the color checker passport software. The one in the color checker has some overall color cast evident. I've tried out redoing the procedures over and over again. Tried different settings. Researched as much info and went through everything over and over again, yet I cannot come up with a profile that produces accurate results. So, I am relying on the earlier profiles I've made which were better yet still had problems. The problem is I can't make new profiles with the newer version as they produce oversaturated colors and the older version is still a bit too saturated. By the way, I have 3 color checkers in various sizes and have tested using all of them, so its not a case of a spoiled checker as the results are the same. I have written X-Rite and received their standard reply that they will get back to me within 4 hours, but its been 6 days since and nothing from them. I hope they can improve on it so that it really produces accurate colors. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Addendum: I originally rated it 3 stars but after waiting for over two weeks for X-Rite to reply and still no response, I lowered it to 2 stars. Good idea, easy to use, but after repeated testing, its far from accurate in some colors. Severe oversaturation in Reds and Pinks in particular. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Update as of July 11, 2011 I have continued to do several permutations with X-Rite's Color Checker Passport. The results are still largely inaccurate. I can imagine for most people, it will seem impressive as you will notice sudden changes in colors, mostly intensifying certain colors. Yet, if the intention is real color accuracy, it just doesn't measure up. I shoot dozens of various make up of different brands each week and accurate color reproduction is critical. The really difficult part is that there are several shades of red that have to be critically reproduced, now with the X-Rite passport's failure to reproduce red tones accurately. This product becomes virtually useless in that regard. The red tones all become oversaturated. It has been just about a month since I wrote X-Rite regarding the problem. I only received an automated response saying they will get back to me within a few hours. They have not. So, I started looking for an alternative solution. I purchased from Amazon, Datacolor's SpyderCheckr. It works on a similar principle. At this very moment I just finished a fashion product shoot wherein I tested both X-Rite's Color Checker Passport and Datacolor's Spyder Checkr. I find it difficult to say this but Datacolor's Spyder Checkr wins by a mile. (I've been a loyal X-rite user for a decade - I've been using their spectrophotometers, colorimeters, densitometers, color checkers, and other products for years). The advantage of Datacolor's Spyder Checkr are the following 1.accurate colors (no oversaturations) 2. more specific adjustments to come out with better results (for example: they instruct you to use the exposure sliders to reach a specific value before you start working on creating the profile - X-rite doesn't do that) 3. more critical options for color conversion (for those more versed in color management, there are different color rendering modes that can be chosen - saturation, colorimetric, etc - Datacolor has it in their Spyder Checkr software) 4. The actual color checker device has an indicator which will fade overtime, this will be an indication for the user to know when their color checker is no longer a reliable device due to natural color fading.