Stupid (?) question on what to expect wrt different papers (on an Epson 3880)

[pompon44]

Hi,

Before I turn mad, I guess I'll ask a stupid question...

Owner of a brand new Epson 3880, I'm getting a hard time knowing if what I observe is normal or not. My first comparison of papers (because of availability mainly) was Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl vs Epson Semigloss, where I found the Ilford to give blue skies with a magenta "cast" (maybe cast is too strong a word) : see my earlier post http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=53465.20 .

Then I've tested several other papers (from the Canson and Hahnemühle sample packs) and now I'm pretty confused.... Seems that the cooler the paper, the more magenta my skies are. So I guess my stupid question is : "is that to be expected" or should the profiles compensate for that ?

 If that's to be expected, then it's just a matter of taste and I'll stick with warmer papers (at least for images with blue skies). If not, then something is wrong with my setup and I'll have to find out what...

Thanks for any help,

Regards,

PS: just to give you an idea of where my mind is getting me... When I installed the cartridges when first setting up the printer, I found that the vivid magenta one gave a different sound when shaked (like if the ink was more "fluid"). Did not pay too much attention to it at the moment. Now I'm wondering if that can matter...

[Alan Goldhammer]

What profiles are you using for printing?  This could have an impact if they were not very good.  I've not noticed any problems with my 3880 (owned for a year now).  I have done all my own profiles with ColorMunki and the skies seem to be what they are, blue.

[pompon44]

Hi Alan,

I'm using the profiles from the paper manufacturers (i.e. Epson, Ilford, Canson and Hahnemühle in my case)... I guess they cannot  be all wrong, right ?

By the way, my skies are also blue ;-) but they have, well, "nuances" (either towards magenta on cool papers or towards yellow on warm papers, or at least this is how I would interpret my observations).

[Alan Goldhammer]

Best thing to do is download a good test image and compare a print to what you see on your calibrated screen.  I (and many others) use this one:  http://www.outbackprint.com/printinginsights/pi048/essay.html which is a compilation of difficult to print images.

[pompon44]

This is basically what I've done... The test images look fine, but my own image seems to behave differently on different papers (mainly the sky).

Don't know how well it can be seen on screen, but I've attempted to take a picture of what I mean (you'll notice as well the high-tech visualisation stand ;-) ) :

http://laurent.aphecetche.fr/lula/25042011-22h10m26s-_LAB4308.jpg

(the raw file is available at http://laurent.aphecetche.fr/lula/25042011-22h10m26s-_LAB4308.dng)

For my eyes, in the bottom right print the sky look more yellow than in the top left print (where it looks magenta), for instance.

Am I making a big deal of nothing here ? That's the whole question ;-)

Thanks,

[pompon44]

Hi guys,

Sorry to "up" this post, but was the question that stupid that I got only one responder  ?

I'd really need some help assessing whether my setup has a problem or my expectation wrt profiles was just a bit too high.

Thanks again for your attention,

[howardm]

what rendering intent are you using in Lightroom?  It's often hard to know if Perceptual or Relative will work best for specific prints

[Ken Bennett]

Given that the various papers have slightly (or very) different base colors, are you expecting that the final color image will be exactly the same on each paper type? I'm not sure that's realistic, even with correct profiles.

In my mind, I want a warmer tone paper to print differently than a pure white paper, as I will choose them for different images.

[pompon44]

howardm :

For Ilford Smooth Pearl, Relative is recommended, but I've tried also Perceptual, which is indeed worse, i.e. lacks contrast. Color wise, though, it's about the same.

k bennet :

Yes, I was (naively ?) expecting the profiles to eat a big part of the paper color. What you're saying is that my expectation was unreasonable, wasn't it ? Fine. I'm ready to live with that ;-) as it would at least mean there's nothing wrong with my setup, and that I just have to learn to live with the nuances (and pick warm papers, as I seem to dislike blue-ish papers)