Topic: Help with printing fine art (Read 7719 times)

Shirley Bracken · « **on:** November 25, 2009, 07:30:27 am »

I've read and tried to use information here but I can not fix my photos from my printer. They continue to have a dark cast to them.

I have: 4880 Epson printer, a Canon Rebel Xti Digital camera, Mac computer and photograph in RAW.

I'm not sure if it's a lighting problem when I take the photo. I am having trouble disabling the color management on the printer. I am photographing Watercolor paintings for printing.

I found an article on the problem by Mark Dubovoy but it just is not working.

Please suggest some articles for me to read. I have found the "From camera to print" tutorial.
Is that what I need?

Also what paper can I test my prints on that is not expensive? ssbracken.com

marcmccalmont · « **Reply #1 on:** November 25, 2009, 09:33:32 am »

Well this is a tough one, to do it right you have to 1) light the artwork properly, shoot raw and convert into a larger colorspace, calibrate your monitor and have custom profiles for each paper that you print on. The simple solution is to 2) increase the lightness on your printer until the printed image is acceptable. If #2 does not work then try #1.

Cheap paper either Costco gloss or Inkjet Art gloss, semi gloss or mat

Marc

Shirley Bracken · « **Reply #2 on:** November 25, 2009, 11:05:05 am »

Thank you Marc! I feel like my Mac is making it harder for me. Do you find that to be true? I could use my Dell instead. What do you think?

For lighting, I'm using two 250Watt 3200 Kelvin bulbs and reflecting them off two pieces of foamcore board at 45 degrees. I tried it with white sheet material but it did not work well. What am I doing wrong? Point me to some articles.

The painting looks great on my Mac but prints with a shadow over the entire sheet. I have adjusted the exposure and saturation and many other adjustments too but to no avail.

I shoot in Raw with a custom WB. Maybe I'm doing the white shot wrong. Use a bigger color space. I try to tell the printer to stop it's color mgmt but it does not seem to listen.

I am also printing on Epson fine art paper which has a mat finish.

Any hints on anything would be greatly appreciated.

Randy, where are you?

JeanMichel · « **Reply #3 on:** November 25, 2009, 12:06:07 pm »

Hi,

Yes, buy and watch the Camera to print, and Raw processing tutorials before wasting any more ink and paper. The tutorials are excellent and the few dollars spent have saved me much frustrating time, not to mention the cost of inks and paper saved. You may also want to purchase the Real World Sharpening book. These tutorials and book (and a few other similar books) are as short a shortcut to learn how to print digitally as you will find.

Also, if you are using CS4, after doiung your soft proofing, you may have to save, close and reopen the image for it to print properly; I have to do this ever since I upgraded from CS3 to CS4. Printing without first saving and reopening appears to ignore the PS managed profile.

For the artwork copying (I do art documentation as part of my business) you really need to use polarizing filters on your lights AND on your lens. It is about the only way to truly control reflections off paintings -- no mater what media. Lee makes a polarizing filter sheet (17 by 24 inches, which you can cut to fit your reflectors); in Canada the cost is about $200, worth every penny.

I hope that this helps,

Jean-Michel

Shirley Bracken · « **Reply #4 on:** November 25, 2009, 12:25:17 pm »

Thank you JeanMichel! That tells me a lot. So you think with WC paintings I need to polarize too? I'll try that. I will buy those tutorials too.

How do things like colormonkey (SP?) work? Is that what I need to calibrate my monitor?

JeanMichel · « **Reply #5 on:** November 25, 2009, 02:58:26 pm »

Hi again,

Polarizers:
I find that using polarized lights for photographing all types of artwork makes life much easier; even with watercolours it lets me control reflections -- not all watercolours are perfectly flat and paper warps, etc. may cause unwanted bright spots, etc. Remember that you must also have a polarizer filter on the lens for this setup to work.

Calibrator:
I use a Spyder2Pro calibrator for my 30" Apple Cinema screen. It only calibrates the screen, but it works very well for me.
Here are some sites that I checked and bookmarked at the time, a couple of years ago, when I was looking for a new calibrator:
http://server.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/SPYDER2/SPYDER2.HTM
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article..._display_2.html
There is a newer Spyder3Pro that replaces the earlier version.
The screen calibrators are a very good, and inexpensive --$200 to $300 - investment. There are more advanced tools that let you calibrate and profile all your equipment but those cost much more.

Jean-Michel

marcmccalmont · « **Reply #6 on:** November 25, 2009, 11:35:04 pm »

Since it looks good on your computer it is a color management issue between photoshop and the printer, Look at all of your print driver and photoshop settings ie make sure that both photoshop and your printer aren't both managing the color. next try a custom print profile for the paper you are using.
Marc

bill t. · « **Reply #7 on:** November 26, 2009, 01:50:22 am »

Also when you are reproducing art the background of the original art is somewhat brought down because of the background of the paper you are printing on.

You usually have to make the image background on your screen a little bit brighter to compensate for the darkness that will be added by the printing media background. Photoshop itself and some printing dialogs try to simulate paper color, but they never do a very good job. Practically speaking when you reproduce flat art you almost always have to have an image on your screen that is a little brighter than what you want on your print.

It is no sin to tweak Curves or Levels or use other techniques to get the results you want. There is really no such thing as monitor or printer profiles that will match every type of image. Monitors and papers have very different abilities to reproduce brightness and color, you have to either find or force the best compromise for each type of image.

Shirley Bracken · « **Reply #8 on:** December 17, 2009, 10:38:04 am »

Thank you all for the advice. I have bought and installed CS4. I am learning a lot there. Now I need a monitor calibrator. I am printing my Watercolor paintings on velvet fine art paper from Epson. Do I need the Colormunki Design or Colormunki Photo? I think this is the last step in the circle. Or is there another one that is better? I am not high production. I do need good prints though.

ckimmerle · « **Reply #9 on:** December 17, 2009, 10:50:55 am »

Quote from: Bumperjack

Thank you all for the advice. I have bought and installed CS4. I am learning a lot there. Now I need a monitor calibrator. I am printing my Watercolor paintings on velvet fine art paper from Epson. Do I need the Colormunki Design or Colormunki Photo? I think this is the last step in the circle. Or is there another one that is better? I am not high production. I do need good prints though.

An EyeOne Display 2 is a good option for simple monitor profiling and it's less than $200
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4651...olorimeter.html

The question was not asked before, but are your room lights on or off when you're toning?

Shirley Bracken · « **Reply #10 on:** December 17, 2009, 11:19:01 am »

Yes, thank you. That is one of the things I have found reading through the forum. So the room should be dim.

All I want is to calibrate the monitor. Eye One display 2 is a good calibrator? All I have heard about is ColorMunki. What else do these do?

Now I am working on Bridge.

I bought Fine Art printing for Photographers and Epson's Complete Guide to Digital printing. I am studying those. I intend to download the tutorial Camera to Print but it is a huge file. So I have to do it in the wee hours when I can do it free.

I'll research those calibrators. Thanks again.

ckimmerle · « **Reply #11 on:** December 17, 2009, 12:07:15 pm »

Quote from: Bumperjack

So the room should be dim

That is, I am sure, part of the problem. The darker the room, the brighter your monitor appears. That means that, when you're toning, you're actually making the image files darker than you would if you did the same with the room lights brighter. That means dark prints. This was a huge issue when LCD's started replacing CRT's and there was a lot of complaining about dark prints.

My advice, beyond getting a screen profiler which is a MUST, is to turn on the room lights. You don't want to make it too bright, but you will want the light to be closer to average room light. The actual brightness is going to take some trial and error on your part, but eventually you'll get to where your profiled monitor more closely matches your print output.

As an example, I do all of my work in a 7 foot by 13 foot office lit by two 60-watt bulbs (actually, the cfl equivalents). It's much brighter than my monitor profiler recommends, but it works perfectly.

As for the ColorMunki vs the EyeOne Display, the latter only profiles computer monitors, while the ColorMunki will also help profile printers, as well. I've never used the Munki, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Chuck

Shirley Bracken · « **Reply #12 on:** December 17, 2009, 04:29:17 pm »

That helps. So average light is good. Do many of you calibrate the printer and how important is that? Will ColorMunki Design calibrate the printer or CM Photo? I don't want to have to buy something else later.

I loaded, or tried to, my CS4. I had my registration # ready from when I bought CS. It would not let me load it. I went ahead and opted for the 30 day trial but I guess I'll have to call them and get this fixed. Has anyone else had this problem?

Even though I started printing because I wanted to reproduce my WC painting, I think it will quickly turn into a passion once I learn what I'm doing. I paint everyday most all day. Now I'm distracted by learning printing. I had a tremendous hit a month ago when I lost 40,000 photos stored on an external backup. I am starting over and will enjoy printing as soon as it sinks in. (that was 2 years worth)

I had some of my photos printed, high quality and would like to scan them and reprint. Can I do that and not lose the quality of the photo? Do scanners have different strengths? Another thing I need to learn. And maybe buy. I'm not whining, I'm regrouping! Although a little cheese would be nice with that.

Justan · « **Reply #13 on:** December 18, 2009, 10:53:08 am »

In addition to the other comments, see this thread for a tool to help getting the output the way you want

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=39756

Shirley Bracken · « **Reply #14 on:** December 20, 2009, 06:44:45 pm »

I have crammed a lot of information into my brain. I am assimilating now. One thing I am still unclear about is if I need to calibrate my printer too. I'm reading that the $200. calibrator will only calibrate my monitor. Do I have to calibrate the printer too??? If so do I need the more expensive calibrator? What do I need? I'm getting so close.

Is soft proofing just eyeballing?

Shirley Bracken · « **Reply #15 on:** December 21, 2009, 08:13:26 pm »

SUCCESS!!! I have one print without a cast. CS4 has been great. I'm not sure exactly what I did but I am getting familiar with the controls. Working on masks and layers now.

I have read a tremendous amount and watched lots of tutorials. I thank you all for your suggestions so far. I'll get back with more questions when I figure out what I need to ask.

I still have not gotten a calibrator yet. I'm afraid to buy one until I am sure what I need. If I'm turning of the printer color management, do I need to calibrate the printer? Remember I am still a beginner.

I'm a happy camper!

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