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Author Topic: Observations of a Greehorn  (Read 18163 times)

Alan Goldhammer

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« Reply #20 on: November 29, 2009, 04:56:22 pm »

Well I haven't switched to a Mac (refuse to pay a premium for a computer that doesn't seem to run the applications that I need any differently); I can profile my NEC P-221 easily enough with a ColorMunki and the SpectraView software; I open up my raw files in Lightroom with ProPhoto colorspace (moving to Photoshop when I need to); I can create profiles using ColorMunki with little problem; and lo and behold, my prints match my monitor.  My goodness, am I doing something wrong?  Hate to be so flippant in the response but while I agree that maybe this isn't rocket science; it's not as hard as one might think (but maybe that's because I have a graduate degree in chemistry - that is a flippant statment!).  There are enough resources out there for any dedicated amateur (that would be me) to do things correctly.  Yes there is a learning curve (as there is with almost anything) but satisfaction when it all comes together.  I truly hope all the Mac profiling issues can be quickly resolved so these threads will no longer be needed.
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Doyle Yoder

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« Reply #21 on: November 29, 2009, 06:46:44 pm »

Quote from: Schewe
Seriously, Mac users have no idea (in general) just how hard Mac developers (apps and drivers) have to work to get this shyte to "barely work"...and it keeps getting harder, not easier.

Maybe all the developers of print drivers need to get a hold of the developers of the Canon iPF series drivers because they seem to have gotten it right.

Or maybe and this would be a laugh, if they just somehow got lucky and somehow it worked. Given this whole mess it would not surprise me if that is what happened.

Trying to idiot proof printing instead of allowing control of all driver function like in the old path is what has caused all this shyte in the first place, don't you think?

Doyle
« Last Edit: November 29, 2009, 06:51:52 pm by DYP »
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eronald

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« Reply #22 on: November 29, 2009, 07:27:52 pm »

Quote from: DYP
Maybe all the developers of print drivers need to get a hold of the developers of the Canon iPF series drivers because they seem to have gotten it right.

Or maybe and this would be a laugh, if they just somehow got lucky and somehow it worked. Given this whole mess it would not surprise me if that is what happened.

Trying to idiot proof printing instead of allowing control of all driver function like in the old path is what has caused all this shyte in the first place, don't you think?

Doyle

Most  of us here seem think that the print system of Snow Leopard *is* idiot proof.

At least we can get a laugh or a groan

Edmund

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Schewe

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« Reply #23 on: November 29, 2009, 09:36:07 pm »

Quote from: DYP
Or maybe and this would be a laugh, if they just somehow got lucky and somehow it worked. Given this whole mess it would not surprise me if that is what happened.


I would _NEVER_ accuse Canon of being ahead of the engineering curve...if they got something right it must have been by accident...or they sincerely lucked out.
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William Walker

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« Reply #24 on: November 30, 2009, 02:36:51 am »

I'll tell you what I am going to do this afternoon when I get home from work: because I have an Intel iMac which I have partitioned for a Windows business application, I am going to load CS3 and try this whole exercise through Windows XP, CS3, Colormunki and Epson. It will be interesting to see if anything different happens.

Most of you guys talk about the problem being related to "untagged targets through CS4", Colormunki produces its own target - is that affected in the same way as the CS4 one? Or are there other issues aside from that?

Thanks again for your passionate responses!
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eronald

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« Reply #25 on: November 30, 2009, 03:15:47 am »

Quote from: WillytheWalks
I'll tell you what I am going to do this afternoon when I get home from work: because I have an Intel iMac which I have partitioned for a Windows business application, I am going to load CS3 and try this whole exercise through Windows XP, CS3, Colormunki and Epson. It will be interesting to see if anything different happens.

Most of you guys talk about the problem being related to "untagged targets through CS4", Colormunki produces its own target - is that affected in the same way as the CS4 one? Or are there other issues aside from that?

Thanks again for your passionate responses!

Yes, the ColorMunki target is affected, I believe, and this is doing wonders for Xrite's support load.

Edmund
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William Walker

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« Reply #26 on: November 30, 2009, 03:18:43 am »

Edmund thanks - do you think the Windows option is worth a try?
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Clearair

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« Reply #27 on: November 30, 2009, 09:27:23 am »

Quote from: WillytheWalks
Edmund thanks - do you think the Windows option is worth a try?

I do not work for the techie side of any industry so keep things simple. I take my photography seriously and my printing. BUT if it works leave it alone and don't investigate the dark art of colour management and printing if you don't need to. Thats my mantra.

I use adobe RGB (camera setting through to colour management).
Yes, I guess I leave something on the table but not as much as sRGB. I too want to future proof my raws and printed Tiff,PSD libraries , etc.
I use a Canon pro 9500 and iPF6100, for the PS plugin, IT works just like the canned paper profiles supplied by the major players. The printer needs only to look after itself in calibration terms. I use genuine ink cartridges, many don't!
I use a Mac, always have as I worked with PCs in another time and place far far away................ Not allowed in my house.
I think if you don't calibrate a good quality monitor you may as well give up. Many don't including graphic based companies here in the UK.

The prints are as great. I am mostly a happy bunny.
Soft proofing is a tool that does not work well for me and I use it as a last resort.
If a specific print is a little dark why not lighten it in the print driver? Most should be OK if the monitor is targeted for printing. Not DVD watching.

Well, thats my input such as it is.

Love all the tutorials

Regards

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Alan Goldhammer

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« Reply #28 on: November 30, 2009, 09:36:56 am »

Quote from: WillytheWalks
I'll tell you what I am going to do this afternoon when I get home from work: because I have an Intel iMac which I have partitioned for a Windows business application, I am going to load CS3 and try this whole exercise through Windows XP, CS3, Colormunki and Epson. It will be interesting to see if anything different happens.

Most of you guys talk about the problem being related to "untagged targets through CS4", Colormunki produces its own target - is that affected in the same way as the CS4 one? Or are there other issues aside from that?

Thanks again for your passionate responses!
If I am not mistaken, the profile should be agnostic of the operating system from which it is created.  Since ColorMunki uses its own software to create the profile you should be able to do this within the Windows partition and then use the resulting profile within the Mac program (treading on thin ice here perhaps as I have no familiarity with Macs).  You would avoid the Mac glitch for profile making but be able to use it.  Let us know.
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jjlphoto

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« Reply #29 on: November 30, 2009, 10:39:09 am »

Quote from: Schewe
Color science is a lot harder that rocket science...

This is quite true. On another forum, I (and others) spent two pages of replies working with a fellow who just could not grasp the concept, and it turns out that he actually is a rocket scientist!
« Last Edit: November 30, 2009, 10:39:36 am by jjlphoto »
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Doyle Yoder

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« Reply #30 on: November 30, 2009, 11:03:30 am »

Quote from: Alan Goldhammer
If I am not mistaken, the profile should be agnostic of the operating system from which it is created.  Since ColorMunki uses its own software to create the profile you should be able to do this within the Windows partition and then use the resulting profile within the Mac program (treading on thin ice here perhaps as I have no familiarity with Macs).  You would avoid the Mac glitch for profile making but be able to use it.  Let us know.

But that is assuming that everything works correctly on the Mac side and your not getting double profiling again by ColorSync.

Doyle

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Alan Goldhammer

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« Reply #31 on: November 30, 2009, 12:42:52 pm »

Quote from: DYP
But that is assuming that everything works correctly on the Mac side and your not getting double profiling again by ColorSync.

Doyle
Not a Mac user as noted but my understanding is that if a profile is assigned, ColorSynch doesn't add a second one.  The problem comes from printing out targets where it expects a profile and you don't want to assign one to the target.  My comment was only that this could be yet another work around to printing out targets and creating a workable profile.
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Doyle Yoder

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« Reply #32 on: November 30, 2009, 01:06:21 pm »

Quote from: Alan Goldhammer
Not a Mac user as noted but my understanding is that if a profile is assigned, ColorSynch doesn't add a second one.  The problem comes from printing out targets where it expects a profile and you don't want to assign one to the target.  My comment was only that this could be yet another work around to printing out targets and creating a workable profile.

Your right it could be if the driver is correct enough to not default to ColorSync when Application Manages Color is selected. But like I said you cannot assume anything with this mess as there is no guarantees that setting Application Manages color is going to work correctly. LR3 Beta is a perfect example.

Could be application, could be printer driver, could be OS and nobody knows until you try it, and how do you determined if it is double profiling when the print looks like shyte. Although I must say with the Canon (some of them) drivers you can tell when it is defaulting to ColorSync instead of No Correction. With Epson drivers that does not appear to be the case.

Doyle
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eronald

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« Reply #33 on: November 30, 2009, 01:39:00 pm »

Quote from: Alan Goldhammer
If I am not mistaken, the profile should be agnostic of the operating system from which it is created.  Since ColorMunki uses its own software to create the profile you should be able to do this within the Windows partition and then use the resulting profile within the Mac program (treading on thin ice here perhaps as I have no familiarity with Macs).  You would avoid the Mac glitch for profile making but be able to use it.  Let us know.

The problem is that you need to be able to print a target with the print path which will be used to print the images. Epson drivers should indeed behave  similarly on different platforms; on the other hand it's clear that what should be true is not always true in practice here, and the Mac print path is a mess, and even if Epson wants the drivers to behave the same there is no guarantee that they will.

I would suggest that people who are not experts on these topics refrain from posting hypothetical conjectural advice which will confuse beginners. The Eric Chan workaround is available for those who want to try it on Snow Leopard Mac, people on different platforms do not have these issues, although various versions of Leopard and Tiger have also had their issues depending on which version of Photoshop is being used.

Edmund
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Alan Goldhammer

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« Reply #34 on: November 30, 2009, 02:25:17 pm »

Quote from: eronald
The problem is that you need to be able to print a target with the print path which will be used to print the images. Epson drivers should indeed behave  similarly on different platforms; on the other hand it's clear that what should be true is not always true in practice here, and the Mac print path is a mess, and even if Epson wants the drivers to behave the same there is no guarantee that they will.

I would suggest that people who are not experts on these topics refrain from posting hypothetical conjectural advice which will confuse beginners. The Eric Chan workaround is available for those who want to try it on Snow Leopard Mac, people on different platforms do not have these issues, although various versions of Leopard and Tiger have also had their issues depending on which version of Photoshop is being used.

Edmund
But the simple experiment can be performed using the Epson factory supplied profile.  They had to prepare that profile using conventional means and they post it to their website.  If the Mac is somehow interfering with the printing process, this should be directly observable visually and measurable using a the normal spectro tools.  As one of the other postes to this thread noted, "this is not rocket science."  If the Mac print path is such a mess, how can anyone be confident of their prints?  this does not take an expert to judge.
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Doyle Yoder

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« Reply #35 on: November 30, 2009, 03:19:55 pm »

Quote from: Alan Goldhammer
But the simple experiment can be performed using the Epson factory supplied profile.  They had to prepare that profile using conventional means and they post it to their website.  If the Mac is somehow interfering with the printing process, this should be directly observable visually and measurable using a the normal spectro tools.  As one of the other postes to this thread noted, "this is not rocket science."  If the Mac print path is such a mess, how can anyone be confident of their prints?  this does not take an expert to judge.

You obviously do not understand what is going on in regards to what happens when CM can not be turned off in the driver and colorsync takes over and the relationship between double profiling with the same profile as opposed to double profiling with two different profiles.

I suggest you read up on this issue and quit throwing more nonsense into this already full of nonsense mess.

Doyle
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William Walker

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« Reply #36 on: December 01, 2009, 04:09:17 am »

A follow-up on my attempt to print through the windows partition of my iMac (with all the issues that go with that...).

Colormunki was not allowed to adjust the luminance down because of something to do with the LUT - I don't recall the precise wording of the message. The bottom line was that no luminance setting took place at all (in the advanced mode). In desperation I tried in the automatic/easy mode and it was able to make a small downward adjustment.

The colours that printed were certainly much more accurate than through Mac - just a little dark. I will double check and retry the advanced colormunki setting again this evening.

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William Walker

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« Reply #37 on: December 01, 2009, 02:52:56 pm »

Well, all I can say is "Shame on Apple!"

The Colormunki worked fine on Windows when I got home, I profiled two different papers and made three prints that came out - as far as I can tell - perfect! Precisely what was on the screen came out on the print, only deeper and richer. I realise that I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn from here on, but, I can now trust my screen and go forward. After the hellish last few days, that is a very nice feeling.

What Apple have done, only the experts know and, I suspect, some (at Apple) don't! How a company that size, and with the reputation of being the best in graphics etc. can allow this situation to arise is something they may live to regret. The fact that one has to rely on forums to try and solve ridiculous problems like the one they have created is shameful.

Thanks again to all the helpful people who contributed to this post.

Now I can start to learn this art!
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Doyle Yoder

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« Reply #38 on: December 01, 2009, 03:23:06 pm »

Quote from: WillytheWalks
Well, all I can say is "Shame on Apple!"

The Colormunki worked fine on Windows when I got home, I profiled two different papers and made three prints that came out - as far as I can tell - perfect! Precisely what was on the screen came out on the print, only deeper and richer. I realise that I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn from here on, but, I can now trust my screen and go forward. After the hellish last few days, that is a very nice feeling.

What Apple have done, only the experts know and, I suspect, some (at Apple) don't! How a company that size, and with the reputation of being the best in graphics etc. can allow this situation to arise is something they may live to regret. The fact that one has to rely on forums to try and solve ridiculous problems like the one they have created is shameful.

Thanks again to all the helpful people who contributed to this post.

Now I can start to learn this art!

After all the facts I have presented where do you come off blaming Apple. The only thing Apple has done is implement a new printing path with the intention of when you choose Application Manages Color the printer driver turns off color management. Call that idiot proofing if you want but it works beautifully when everything is coded correctly. Do, I like it? No, I want all my control back like in the old printing path.

With the Canon iPF series printer drivers and PSCS4 and LR 2 this new printing path works perfectly.

So are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault the Epson cannot get their shyte together.  Although there are report of some Epson drivers working correctly.

And are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault that Adobe released a screwed up LR 3 Beta after insisting that they are doing everything (that Apple wanted) right with PSCS4 and LR 2 and by all appearances they had.

I will be the first one to jump all over Apple as I have with Indesign and printing to an RGB device where the monitor profile got introduced into the print flow.

After having tested all this stuff (and developing workarounds for these issues), all I am doing is calling the shots as I see them .

Doyle
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eronald

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« Reply #39 on: December 01, 2009, 03:40:03 pm »

Quote from: DYP
After all the facts I have presented where do you come off blaming Apple. The only thing Apple has done is implement a new printing path with the intention of when you choose Application Manages Color the printer driver turns off color management. Call that idiot proofing if you want but it works beautifully when everything is coded correctly. Do, I like it? No, I want all my control back like in the old printing path.

With the Canon iPF series printer drivers and PSCS4 and LR 2 this new printing path works perfectly.

So are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault the Epson cannot get their shyte together.  Although there are report of some Epson drivers working correctly.

And are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault that Adobe released a screwed up LR 3 Beta after insisting that they are doing everything (that Apple wanted) right with PSCS4 and LR 2 and by all appearances they had.

I will be the first one to jump all over Apple as I have with Indesign and printing to an RGB device where the monitor profile got introduced into the print flow.

After having tested all this stuff (and developing workarounds for these issues), all I am doing is calling the shots as I see them .

Doyle

Enough. Apple, Adobe Epson etc. have for years encouraged a model where no interoperability diagnostics are NEVER incorporated into the products. The user is responsible for making sure things work as advertised. Yeah, sure. Guess how often that really works? I would bet that only 5-10% of people who are color management aware actually have fully functional CM chains. The reason is that usually even when someone in the know sets up a users system, bit-rot (configuration mistakes, presets that copy badly, driver updates) will sooner or later cause that system to revert back to an erroneous workflow.

Edmund
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