Before I buy, how to compare colour spaces?

[callumalden]

Good morning Ladies and Gentleman, this is my first post after many years of following your wonderful collaborative efforts. I assume that my objective will make perfect sense to you and that my thinking/procedure isn't too mad. Let me know, I'm here to learn!

Quick back-story: I've spent 10 years as a commercial printer, I'm soon to start my own business (primarily) producing fine art prints. I'm currently investigating what equipment to purchase. Assume I have no budgetary restraints. Assume also that I will (to begin with) only stock three types of material (x1 matt, x1 gloss and x1 textured fine art stock). As for a printer, it haven't signed on the dotted line yet- but most probably Epson's SC-P9000. I'm 29 with a working knowledge of colour and years of hands on experience of reprographics and large format inkjet printing, though not on the latest tech. Can you help?

Query: Is there a form of on-screen emulation I could use to weigh up the benefits of different displays alongside the profiles for certain papers, allowing me to decide which to buy. I want a display capable of better predicting/displaying emulated printed colour. I know, that's a contentious area, I'll deal with management another day, this is about equipment.

Perhaps it'd be easier to consider the total available gamut of the SC-P9000 vs various monitors available today? I'm uncertain how to achieve this, and with your amassed experience– is it even worth it?

Your thoughts would be so very helpful, thanks kindly.

[D Fosse]

You really have only two options: NEC PA/Spectraview, or Eizo CX/CG. Take your pick from the available models. These are all wide gamut and quite similar in color space coverage.

What sets these monitors apart from all the rest, aside from consistently high quality control, is the bundled calibration software. NEC Spectraview II and Eizo ColorNavigator are both extremely sophisticated pieces of software, capable of giving you total control over your calibration parameters. That is the crucial part of matching display to print.

Not the least important, you can set up specific targets for each paper, and switch on the fly. All you need to do is to relaunch Lightroom/Photoshop so that it can load the associated profile at startup.

No other monitors can give you this flexibility.

[Simon Garrett]

You really have only two options: NEC PA/Spectraview, or Eizo CX/CG.

I would include Eizo CS as well as CX and CG.  Any of their "ColorEdge" range. 

[AlterEgo]

You really have only two options: NEC PA/Spectraview, or Eizo CX/CG. Take your pick from the available models. These are all wide gamut and quite similar in color space coverage.

certainly with ___no budget limitations___ there is only Eizo CG - that beats everythings else, no ? ... otherwise there are cheaper LGs, Dells, etc - with wide gamut and h/w LUTs - but certainly worse panel uniformities, etc....

[callumalden]

This is great, thanks. And regarding comparing the gamut of these displays with an overlay of Adobe RGB (for example) or my (ideally) my paper profiles... is that possible? Where does one find such information. Y'know to produce something like:



What do you think, am I being ridiculous. I assume all of these 'high end' monitors mentioned are capable of displaying the limited gamut of the Epson P9000. But next question: are these monitors OOT for such proofing? I'd rather a much larger display for the same cost, at least able to view the Epson P9000's available gamut than perhaps these 'high end' monitors capable of gamut I can never achieve in print.

Your thoughts?

[Mark D Segal]

The gamut maps come from the profiles and you need an application such as ColorThink Pro (or Apple's Color Sync Utility if you are on OSX) to read them and produce the maps.

[D Fosse]

I would include Eizo CS as well as CX and CG.  Any of their "ColorEdge" range.

Yes, you're right of course. I'm just so used to thinking of CX/CG as basically the same monitor with only a little extra bells on one.

[Mark D Segal]

I saw at the Vistek Profusion exhibition here in Toronto recently that Eizo has substantially reduced the prices of their wide-gamut displays - most likely to become more competitive with NEC.

[D Fosse]

The price difference between NEC and Eizo is a myth and all about perception.

An NEC PA/Spectraview and an Eizo CX/Colornavigator are directly comparable models, and cost roughly the same everywhere in the world.

It's just that Eizo tops the CX with CG, which isn't really a "better" monitor - they've just filled it with a lot of expensive extra features that most people probably don't need. I use both and there's no difference in basic panel characteristics. Anyway, the CG is their top model.

NEC don't do that in the US, and the PA/SV remains the top model. But they do in Europe: the Spectraview Reference line, at exactly the same price as Eizo CG.

[Mark D Segal]

Several years back (as close as one get get to compare the models apples to apples) the price difference was not a myth; but that is now history. And yes, you are right about bells and whistles. There's a fair bit of marketing hype around the features of these various models, depending on the manufacturers' perceptions of what appeals in the various geographic areas.

[D Fosse]

Yes, there may be historical reasons for this. Eizo CX is fairly new, before that there was only Flexscan SX, limited to the very simplified Easypix calibration software. So that immediately put it out of top-level competition, even though the monitor itself was excellent.

That was by any standard a pretty silly policy which left a gaping hole in their lineup - and probably cost them many customers.

But luckily they came to their senses, and I still think the addition of CS (at even lower cost but retaining basic panel quality) was a stroke of genius.

[hugowolf]

If you are not running a Mac OS, you can upload and compare profiles to spaces at http://www.iccview.de. It only works for version 2 profiles. Here for example AdobeRGB against Canson-Infinity Platine Fibre Rag on an Epson 9900 (wire frame).



you can then rotate to see where the two overlap and where they don't.

And three paper types is hardly going to be enough, unless you are in a very strange market.

Brian A

[callumalden]

@hugowolf, Brian this is EXACTLY what I need. Thanks so much to everyone for their thoughts on the subject, I feel incredibly well informed. Can anyone recommend a particular (modern) book on the subject of professional colour management. I have Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" though my edition is rather out of date I fear.

Thanks kindly!

[hugowolf]

@hugowolf, Brian this is EXACTLY what I need. Thanks so much to everyone for their thoughts on the subject, I feel incredibly well informed. Can anyone recommend a particular (modern) book on the subject of professional colour management. I have Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" though my edition is rather out of date I fear.

There hasn't been an awful lot of change. Real World Color Management (2nd Edition) by Bruce Fraser et al, is usually a strong recommendation, but from about the same period. It is good, but a good editor could have cropped a third with no loss of information.

Andrew Rodney's Color Management for Photographers is an easier read.

Brian A

[papa v2.0]

Hi and welcome to the world of colour management.

Where are you from? Uk?

Iain -scotland?

[Rand47]

@hugowolf, Brian this is EXACTLY what I need. Thanks so much to everyone for their thoughts on the subject, I feel incredibly well informed. Can anyone recommend a particular (modern) book on the subject of professional colour management. I have Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" though my edition is rather out of date I fear.

Thanks kindly!

While not limited to color management, Jeff Schewe's books, "The Digital Negative" and "The Digital Print" are a tour de force in digital image processing and output using Lightroom and Photoshop.  Cannot recommend them highly enough.  Even if you find yourself "nodding in agreement" all the way through they will provide a great foundation/refresher/clarifier as you launch into this new phase w/ new printer/monitor.  Also, search youtube for Andrew Rodney's (The Digital Dog) materials on color management.  These two guys, along with many other genuine experts here on LULA are absolutely top notch.

Rand

[callumalden]

I thought I'd chip in with my final thoughts / conclusion:

This weekend I took delivery of a beautiful EIZO display for my printing work, I am blown away by the quality of this screen even after reading so much about EIZO. Super.

Got to work calibrating with my tried-and-tested datacolor studio, which provided me with good colour after a bit of standard tinkering. I'm now happy to see in ColorSync Utility my display profile alongside my own custom Printer/Ink/Paper profiles, using the "hold for comparison" tool within ColorSync Utility I can view these in 3D, where I can compare and contrast.

For example I can view my custom display profile -> wire-frame outline, with one of my Printer/Ink/Paper profiles -> the solid area within. See attached. Great, just what I wanted. So delighted to have your advice, digitaldog.net is an incredible resource. Thanks for the info @Rand47 etc.


So: to answer my original question. If I were able to grab the ICC of a few different displays I was considering buying, and should I have been able to test out a printer for a week and cook up my own Ink/Paper profiles, in theory I would have been able to compare before I bought.

However, I now realise (I've been educated!) that most high end displays are able to view more colours than any of the fine art matt stocks I currently use, and perhaps a good deal of the photo papers I'll be using in future.


Photo of my home-studio attached. Thank you all so much. Things are going well.

[digitaldog]

So: to answer my original question. If I were able to grab the ICC of a few different displays I was considering buying, and should I have been able to test out a printer for a week and cook up my own Ink/Paper profiles, in theory I would have been able to compare before I bought.

You could but all that tells you is the gamut of the display which isn't a lot of useful info. Especially if you're going for a wide gamut display anyway. I suspect the differences would be rather small. But yes, you could compare them.

[callumalden]

isn't a lot of useful info.

Oh hello! How odd, just spent the last weeks listening to your voice and learning from your advice. I should really have concluded that this was all a bit silly! Fun if you like pretty coloured graphs, but not that useful indeed.

Back to work then!

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

My take is that you need to start with a calibrated monitor, preferably a good one with near Adobe RGB gamut. NEC Spectraview and Eizo CG-series are good choices.

Such a display will be able to display the Adobe RGB volume. Modern printers can print colours outside Adobe RGB and those colours cannot be visualised on screen.

In general, the gamut (RGB volume) of the printer will be limited in both darks and highlights.

Soft proofing can display what the print will look like on screen. So you can preview your printer ouput on screen. The print will have lower contrast than the screen. That is the reason Jeff Schewe calls "the emulate paper and ink" settings the "make my picture crap" button.

So you can open an image in PS or LR and softproof with different papers and printers if you have good profiles for printer/ink/paper.

Best regards
Erik