Difficulty soft proofing blues on matte papers

[D White]

A question about soft proofing matte papers.

I print with an Epson 7900 that I have had since their introduction. I have preferred matte papers since leaving the darkroom behind in the early 2000’s; maybe a backlash against all those glossy Ciba’s and RC papers. Although the color depth is obviously greater on the glossy / FB type papers, the difference is suppressed once behind glass or in album sleeves. I have also never yet seen a non matte paper show at least some bronzing effect that I do not care for as to me it looks less fine art and more commercial.

I generally have no problem with the reduced gamut for all colors but for very saturated blues. For some reason, at a particular threshold of saturation in the blues, the soft proof and final print show an unacceptable loss of color vitality and local contrast / separation. It looks very flat with loss of detail. I have seen this across the board with every matte paper I have tried ranging from less costly cellulose to high end rag; not that the base material would be a factor.

I am not a soft proof guru but I have played with all kinds of adjustment layers ranging from hue and saturation to selective color to replace color and to color targeted curves layers. I have had isolated success but nothing consistent.

I welcome in put from those that are more of a master in this area than I am.

Regards, Don

[digitaldog]

Blue's are often a problem! It could be the profile's soft proof table. Where did you get the profile? IF Epson's canned profiles, there are two differing sources and one is vastly better than the other.
Are you seeing the issue with both soft proof and output or just soft proof? Profiles have two tables, they can be out of sync so to speak.

[D White]

Thanks for the reply,

I see the issue on both the soft proof and the final output.

The papers have ranged from; several Moab options like Entrada / Lasal / Kayenta, to Epson Hot Press / UltraSmooth Fine Art / Presentation Matte using the US made Epson profiles, to some Hahnemule Rag Papers. They all give me the same issues to different degrees with no winner. The multitude of FB papers I tried are significantly better for saturated blues, but I wanted to stay with matte.

Regards, Don

[Mark D Segal]

The fact is that you take a very big hit on saturation using even a high quality matte paper compared with a good luster paper. For example, examining with Color Think Pro the respective profiles for my Epson 4900 (similar to your 7900) of Ilford Gold Fibre Silk and Epson Hot Press Natural, for the Ilford (a baryta luster) the blue gamut is a= 34; b = -77. For the Hot Press Natural a = 16 and b = -48. The more restricted gamut of the matte does make it trickier to get the kind of richness you may be expecting. But I have found that if printing in Lightroom, by carefully adjusting the H, S, L sliders for Blue in the HSL panel, and/or making a selection mask of the sky and adjusting its exposure, contrast and vibrance, you can produce pleasing results.