Topic: Green gamut on Z3100 (Read 5295 times)

bors · « **on:** January 22, 2008, 06:21:57 pm »

In trying to print landscapes on my 24" Z3100 I have struggled no end with darker green and blue green. I finally had Andrew Rodney (digitaldog.net) make me an i1ISis profile, and while the profile was much improved compared to the printer generated profile, most of the greens remained so far out of gamut that I was unable to correct to a realistic looking green in pine needles. (all this on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl)

In fact, every HP3100 profile I soft-proofed had the same problem. HP Instant Dry Gloss has a decent green range, but this is not a great fine art paper in my opinion. I wonder if this gamut issue the result of the HP inks?

By way of comparison I downloaded Bill Atkinson's Epson 9600 profiles, and low and behold the green gamut very easily encompassed the greens in most of the images in soft-proof.

Looking at gamut plots of the HP vs Epson profiles, it almost didn't matter what the paper was, the green and blue-green region on the of the Epson on a host of papers was much larger than the HP, except for bright green and yellow-greens.

Has anyone else experienced this green issue? Any Z3100 users out there having good success with printed forest images with a wide range of green?

(I have submitted a trouble ticket to HP)

Thanks,
Bors

Geoff Wittig · « **Reply #1 on:** January 22, 2008, 08:37:58 pm »

Hmmm.
This doesn't match my subjective experience. I've found the Z3100 gives me a far more accurate blue sky than I could ever get from my 7600, and forest scenes look pretty darned good. But I haven't really compared gamut maps or rigorously checked to see how much of those spring forest greens are actually out of gamut. I'll have to look into this when I get home to play.

JeffKohn · « **Reply #2 on:** January 23, 2008, 12:57:57 am »

I find this surprising, because in my experience dark greens are the achilles heel of the K3 inkset. If the HP is worse that would definitely be a problem for landscapes.

Roscolo · « **Reply #3 on:** January 23, 2008, 03:36:09 am »

I print a lot of landscapes - no problems with greens here. Also use the z to produce prints of paintings and have never had problems with reproducing greens. The only colors I have an occasional problem with are some deep purples and it is very easily fixed by just using selective color in Photoshop. Not a problem at all, just a very minor annoyance. But greens are fine.

ThePhotoDude · « **Reply #4 on:** January 23, 2008, 04:34:43 am »

Yeah I've printed a load of grasses and not had any issues (Z3100), could it be anything as silly as your monitor profile is out and you are trying to print out of gamut?

neil snape · « **Reply #5 on:** January 23, 2008, 08:37:09 am »

IT should be quite the opposite. The one colour the Z does well is green. The perceptual differences between the darkest saturated greens even with Epson is minimized, barely perceptible in the darks and shadows.
Since it is in the upper ranges where spring time greens live, the Z beats all other printers hands down for this.
IF you are comparing profiles for third party media perhaps the Z profiles were not created in the same way. The out of gamut check in Photoshop often amplifies effects much more than a visual might do. I have some images of backlit tulips in a field in Washington that shows a lot of out of gamut greens on Epson whereas the Z covers almost all of the image regardless of the saturation and brightness. The older 9600 profiles shouldn't be much different than the new K3 profiles of which I've done a lot of testing on. In this testing I never found a "real" problem with the Z in greens at any level , only with the sometimes poor quality return portion of the profiles' tables creating a flawed representation of what the print really will do.

deanwork · « **Reply #6 on:** January 23, 2008, 10:19:03 am »

I"m still researching this machine and had friends print out the Atkinson color target for me on both PhotoRag and a Satin rc paper of their choice on the Z, the Canon, and Epson K3. On the HPZ3100 we did it 20x30 also.

On ALL of these printouts - Epson 9800 carefully managed out of Studio Print, Canon IFP 9000 out of their plug in, and the Z3100 out of their Photoshop Plug In, - the only differences in any of these targets were as follows:

Greens: the HP had the best gamut with the ability to display green content that the others couldn't. But I'll go back and look it over again.

Reds: The Epson K3 and the Canon Lucia had a tiny advantage in the saturation of the strawberries of that target. All the other colors were identical, including the blues and purples.

Greyscale: The HPZ had more truely "neutral" grey scale while the monochrome of the others was a hair to the warm side, Epson being the warmest. ( Epson had chaned their blacks in the 11880) They all looked good there though.

Now this is just one test with three machines, and if the Canon had a better software rip it might jump ahead, don't know. But the Z really held its own, especially considering it doesn't need to be sprayed to avoid gloss issues and the permanence is twice what the other two are.

john

Quote

IT should be quite the opposite. The one colour the Z does well is green. The perceptual differences between the darkest saturated greens even with Epson is minimized, barely perceptible in the darks and shadows.
Since it is in the upper ranges where spring time greens live, the Z beats all other printers hands down for this.
IF you are comparing profiles for third party media perhaps the Z profiles were not created in the same way. The out of gamut check in Photoshop often amplifies effects much more than a visual might do. I have some images of backlit tulips in a field in Washington that shows a lot of out of gamut greens on Epson whereas the Z covers almost all of the image regardless of the saturation and brightness. The older 9600 profiles shouldn't be much different than the new K3 profiles of which I've done a lot of testing on. In this testing I never found a "real" problem with the Z in greens at any level , only with the sometimes poor quality return portion of the profiles' tables creating a flawed representation of what the print really will do.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=168973\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

bors · « **Reply #7 on:** January 23, 2008, 01:26:30 pm »

Thanks for all the input. I'm thinking that this may be an issue with my particular printer. I am not entirely sure, given that the canned HP profiles don't appear to be wildly different from it iSis profile, at least on gamut maps, but the difference between the iSiS HP Fine Art Pearl and Epson 3800 Luster gamuts are dramatic.

Later today I will attach the iSiS profile produced from a 1700+ patch sheet which in my workflow is producing muddy-yellow greens both in soft-proof and in print. What I see on the screen is printing out. When I compare the gamut of this profile with the gamut of Epson profiles, there is a dramatic difference. I'll post examples, as well as a section of the image in question.

Interestingly, the other colors in the landscapes reproduce extremely well. It's just certain greens that go sour.

bors · « **Reply #8 on:** January 24, 2008, 12:53:18 am »

Attached is a one view of a gamut comparison of Epson Luster on 3800 compared to Fine Art Pearl on my 3100. HP is solid, Epson translucent red.

Also, a jpg of a section of the problematic green (with embedded Prophoto profile).

Does anyone have a profile which soft proofs this jpg without dramatic change?

neil snape · « **Reply #9 on:** January 24, 2008, 01:43:09 am »

I see similar results with Harmon AL glossy. I think you have to use more ink settings and perhaps a different paper type. For this very reason I don't use Harmon. Yet I would be very surprised on other media if there were any difficulties printing this image as it is not a brutal out of gamut landscape at all. What was the Z profile created in and at what settings?

rdonson · « **Reply #10 on:** January 24, 2008, 06:39:08 am »

Quote

Attached is a one view of a gamut comparison of Epson Luster on 3800 compared to Fine Art Pearl on my 3100. HP is solid, Epson translucent red.

Also, a jpg of a section of the problematic green (with embedded Prophoto profile).

Does anyone have a profile which soft proofs this jpg without dramatic change?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169153\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Some out of gamut on profiles for HFSA, Litho-Realistic and Epson Enhanced Matte. Very little change on HP Premium Instant-Dry Photo Satin and no out of gamut that I can see.

Bob Walters · « **Reply #11 on:** January 24, 2008, 08:30:51 am »

Quote

... snip.........
Has anyone else experienced this green issue? Any Z3100 users out there having good success with printed forest images with a wide range of green?

No problems here with my plain vanilla Z3100.

Great greens as far as I'm concerned; however, I haven't done any scientific measurement. Of course, why would I?

bors · « **Reply #12 on:** January 24, 2008, 10:19:41 pm »

Seems I'm missing something. It is good to hear that the printer seems good in this regard in overall experience.

If anyone wants to take a look, I am happy to share the profile(s) I'm using. If you have a profile you think does a much better job, I'd appreciate a look.

For some reason I can't seem to upload an icc profile to the forum.

Thanks,
Bors Vesterby

rdonson · « **Reply #13 on:** January 24, 2008, 10:58:23 pm »

Quote

Seems I'm missing something. It is good to hear that the printer seems good in this regard in overall experience.

If anyone wants to take a look, I am happy to share the profile(s) I'm using. If you have a profile you think does a much better job, I'd appreciate a look.

For some reason I can't seem to upload an icc profile to the forum.

Thanks,
Bors Vesterby
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Bors,

You might consider using the [a href=\"http://z3100users.wikispaces.com/]z3100 wiki[/url] to share your profiles and take a look at some others have created.

neil snape · « **Reply #14 on:** January 25, 2008, 07:16:15 am »

Yes Bors I just looked at the image and it's soft proof previews in Photoshop. Some profiles shows quite a bit of out of gamut warning, others little or none. I did see with ImagePRint there was very little , almost no warning or color change in the soft proof. This is again , due to the return portion of the profiles, being less than accurate. I have never figured out why this is. I have assumed it's a characteristic of the pigments reading differently than we perceive the prints.
I sent you an email with a soft proof on Pro Satin that shows almost no out of gamut warning.
IT is frustrating to see the differences in soft proofing, even more so with matte papers. The only way to compare matte paper is to switch on absolute, then you have an idea of what the prints could do, albeit I feel the white point and blacks are a bit false there too.

bors · « **Reply #15 on:** February 12, 2008, 01:44:28 pm »

Quote

Yes Bors I just looked at the image and it's soft proof previews in Photoshop. Some profiles shows quite a bit of out of gamut warning, others little or none. I did see with ImagePRint there was very little , almost no warning or color change in the soft proof. This is again , due to the return portion of the profiles, being less than accurate. I have never figured out why this is. I have assumed it's a characteristic of the pigments reading differently than we perceive the prints.
I sent you an email with a soft proof on Pro Satin that shows almost no out of gamut warning.
IT is frustrating to see the differences in soft proofing, even more so with matte papers. The only way to compare matte paper is to switch on absolute, then you have an idea of what the prints could do, albeit I feel the white point and blacks are a bit false there too.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169434\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks Neil. I have solved the problem! I bought an Epson 4880 and ImagePrint RIP. When Colorbyte completes their work on the z3100 series I'll check their profiles to see if the green gamut in this area has been expanded through their efforts. As you say, the Imageprint profile barely affects the green appearance. This is why I went with the Epson.

One thing of note, I haven't been using the Photoshop Gamut Warning to determine this out of gamut issue, just the soft proofing and printing. I'm not convinced that this is a wholly a problem with the return of the profiles given that the prints match the screen pretty well. In soft proofing, the pine needle greens and blue greens lose definition and go desaturated and grayish, but they also print that way.

Thanks for all the help!

Author Topic: Green gamut on Z3100 (Read 5295 times)