Print is off in colour

[Mike Guilbault]

First of all, my Eizo monitor is calibrated using an i1 Display2 and I'm using Epson's profile for Cold Press Natural.  I'm working on a particular image, a misty winter scene. In LR, the image is slightly cool (blue) and I kinda like it that way.  I made a print today and it came out almost perfectly neutral - no blue at all. I would have expected the Epson profile to be much closer - and for many of my other prints, it's bang on. Is there something I'm missing (other than a custom profile for my printer)?

The only other real colour in the image are some brownish Beech leaves (the kind that stay on all winter) but they looked a little wishy-washy. I suspect that's partly because of the matte paper - they're much more vibrant on Premium Lustre. So, same question as above... am I missing something or do I need a custom profile?

[bill t.]

Do your RGB values suggest the area is truly blue?  There's a place to start.  Another WAG suggestion...some colors work best with specific rendering intents.  Try swapping between relative and perceptual, for instance.

How does the blue look when soft proofing in PS?  Try tweaking it in a soft proofing view until the blue looks the way you want it.

But personally I absolutely love my custom profiles.  They generally are very different than the canned profiles, and much more to my liking.  Wouldn't ever leave home again without a printer profiling system.

[Mike Guilbault]

Thanks Bill... I'll take a look at those things as soon as I can.

[Mark D Segal]

Did you check for nozzle clogs?

[digitaldog]

Well you can’t soft proof in LR so I’d open the doc in Photoshop and examine the soft proof. Having a calibrated Eizo (not necessarily calibrated for this soft proof), then not looking at a soft proof makes me wonder if that might be at least part of the visual disconnect. Be sure to examine the paper white simulation!

[Mark D Segal]

Well you can’t soft proof in LR so I’d open the doc in Photoshop and examine the soft proof. Having a calibrated Eizo (not necessarily calibrated for this soft proof), then not looking at a soft proof makes me wonder if that might be at least part of the visual disconnect. Be sure to examine the paper white simulation!

True - but for clarity in your last sentence, I think Mike should interpret this to mean that he should use a soft-proof condition in which <Simulate Paper White> is checked as ON, so that he can see on his display the impact that the hue of the paper has on the appearance of the photo.

[digitaldog]

True - but for clarity in your last sentence, I think Mike should interpret this to mean that he should use a soft-proof condition in which <Simulate Paper White> is checked as ON, so that he can see on his display the impact that the hue of the paper has on the appearance of the photo.

Yes. It could be a paper white/OBA issue. Don’t know but its worth looking at.

[Mark D Segal]

Not clear it would be an OBA issue - that's a warm tone paper and OBA generally impart cooler tone. In fact the warm tone of the paper may be the whole issue. With a paper like that if he wants to preserve a slightly blush hue, he would need to use perhaps a Curves adjustment layer in Color Blend Mode and under softproof with <Simulate Paper White> on, simply shift the center point (and perhaps a point somewhat north of that) of the Blue Curve mildly to the left until the appearance cools to taste.

[Sven W]

The Hot Press Natural has a very warm, yellow paper base. I think it's quite difficult to print
color images without tweaking. It's superb for B&W.
You might think that the profile should compensate the paper color,and it does in some degree,
but ink is semi-transparent and the paper "shines through" and affect the color balance of the image.
The distance between the droplets may be nano size, but what do we find there?
/Sven

[Alan Goldhammer]

Yes. It could be a paper white/OBA issue. Don’t know but its worth looking at.

Depending on the conditions for viewing that you put into a profile, you can get a blue cast but I think with only OBA papers.  This happened to me when I was profiling IGFS using the ArgyllCMS system.  It has a lot of things you can do to modify the profile and if you use D50 as opposed to D65 in the profile creation you get the blue cast.  It was quite disturbing when it first happened and then I figured out what was going on.  This Epson paper has no OBAs so the profile shouldn't be at issue.  In any event you would not see this in Lightroom but only in PS under softproofing conditions.

[Mike Guilbault]

Afraid it's going to be Tuesday or so before I can get back in the studio to check, but the Cold Press Natural is a very warm paper.  I'll check the soft proofing in PS and some of the other suggestions.  I don't think it's a clog Mark.. did a nozzle check and cleaning before printing with no issues.  It may simple be the wrong choice of paper for this image - but it's still a little off and I'd like to figure out why.