Lyve vs Epson Exhibition gamut differences

[MikeWhitten]

All,

I'm a new 4900 owner who's happily enjoying the testing stage with the printer. I've printed out a test image on Lyve canvas and Epson Exhibition canvas and have observed many similarities but a couple differences.

I printed from Lightroom using the ICC profiles supplied by the manufacturers for both canvasses. The one for Lyve came via email from tech support as it's not yet on their website. (Or wasn't, when I looked.)

A note on the photos - it was a semi-casual snapshot taken with a S95, saved as sRGB, crudely edited. Both canvasses are as yet uncoated. So don't read *too* much into them that's not obvious.

The attached photos show one set of differences. The Epson print is reasonably true to the target file. See how the Lyve print has the blue straying into the red on the darker patch on the left? That I don't understand.

There are differences in the how far up the blacks go as well. This I see in the "real world photos" part of the test print also.

Comments? Thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike

[mstevensphoto]

FWIW my entire workflow is in Adobe98 and I print either perceptual or relative colormetric from there. I notice more subtle gradients in some areas than working with the smaller srgb gamut. I may be off my rocker, but it shows up most in high key images.

[KenBabcock]

Mike, have you tried the Epson Exhibition Gloss?

I recently got myself a roll of matte, satin and gloss to test extensively before deciding on a new, permanent replacement for the discontinued Premium line.

Exhibition gloss is phenomenal.  Although it does have a toothier texture and weave than the matte, but I like that better anyway.  

If you haven't printed on it yet give it a try.  Absolutely tough as nails too without a topcoat. Does not crack when stretched.  Stretches like a dream.  Wonderful canvas.  Brilliant gamut and dmax.  I highly recommend you try the gloss.  

Ken

[MikeWhitten]

FWIW my entire workflow is in Adobe98 and I print either perceptual or relative colormetric from there. I notice more subtle gradients in some areas than working with the smaller srgb gamut. I may be off my rocker, but it shows up most in high key images.

Wait - my printing workflow is just exactly that. Raw file to Lightroom to Epson using AdobeRGB. That's the workflow that produced the canvass.

The sRGB comment was only in regard to the photos of the canvas showing the results. The photos accurately reflect what I see in the real print; just wanted folks to know I was aware of the compression that took place when I posted to the web.

The kink in the blue is there and the flower details really are missing in the real-world prints, produced raw-Lghtroom-Epson/AdobeRGB. Sorry for any confusion I caused about that!

Mike

[MikeWhitten]

Mike, have you tried the Epson Exhibition Gloss?

Ken - not as yet. Thanks for the tip!

Mike

[mstevensphoto]

oh, sorry, I read that wrong and thought your test print was of a srgb snapshot" I'm with you now

[MikeWhitten]

Holy customer service Batman!

Since posting these a couple things have happened.

I emailed these crops to the Breathing Color customer support rep who sent me the 4900 ICC profile, just to get his take. He took one look and immediately offered to create a custom profile just for my printer and sent me the target files they use. I'll update the thread with the results of that cycle when it's complete.

And, the estimable Randy Carone with Shades of Paper called with some helpful tips and advice. Said call arrived, what, five minutes after I posted? Dang.

Thanks to both!

[Wayne Fox]

Raw file to Lightroom to Epson using AdobeRGB.

If you are printing directly from LR, there is no AdobeRGB involved. The previous poster is printing from PS (or some other program) and in fact the improvement he sees is nothing surprising if you understand color management.  But from raw to get maximum quality, you should stay in prophotoRGB/16bit (which is LR's internal colorspace) and that's the workflow you are using.

Unless Breathing Color has a lousy 4900 profile (which is a possibility although generally they usually have pretty good ones) a custom one should offer very little.  If it does, they should replace the one they are offering - these printers are extremely consistent from one to the next. I'm sure Randy was quite helpful and has maybe mentioned some of this.

[MonsterBaby]

in my opinion this kind of testing is fun for you, for sure .. but does not deliver ANY kind of useable statement!

as the breathing color guy realized as well right away-- all you are doing is comparing two profiles that someone else did on different printers

congrats ..


for a real comparision you need to first figure out for eacht canvas the optimal settings incl. inklimits with your printer. pretty sure that the custom ones are rather on the save side than at the limit!

then you have to build custom profiles..

and THEN you can compare the prints!

happy testing.. ;-)

[MikeWhitten]

If you are printing directly from LR, there is no AdobeRGB involved.

Wayne, you're right. The printer driver has a sub-setting called "mode" and a choice there is Adobe RGB. I'd gotten it stuck in my head I was using that but I'm not, any longer. It was set to "custom, off" for the prints above.

Thanks

[MikeWhitten]

MonsterBaby,

I do enjoy testing and tweaking. I'm just hoping for now that as Wayne alluded the printers are "good enough" to get me better results before continuing down that road!

Mike

[MikeWhitten]

This is embarrassing. Maybe for the foreseeable future all my posts should be moved to the "rank beginner" forum. Or maybe the "bonehead" forum. Regarding the sample Epson Exhibition Matte print above - disregard it.

It finally hit me today. When printing on Exhibition Matte canvas i'd set the media type to WCRW. And (blush, mumble) had also set the printer profile to WCRW. In Lightroom it's easy to do and also easy to save. So I'd made that mistake early and nothing was calling it to my attention.

After talking with Randy Carone yesterday I decided to try tuning a troublesome print (dark blues had been going muddy black) in Photoshop (like I did, pre-Lightroom, thanks for reminding me) and going through the print dialog there, it hit me. Boom, bricks, ton of. I sat there, looking at it, looking at all the canvas hanging around my office for a while. Then, shook my head, downloaded the proper profile, fixed it, and tried the print that had been troubling me again.

Gorgeous, just gorgeous. The dark blue tones are... dark blue. No muddy blacks in sight. It's gonna look great once it's coated.

Sometimes it's our role in life to serve as a bad example for others. Posted in hopes of saving someone some trouble down the line.

PS - haven't had the 4900 long, and no one would call Houston TX low humidity, but zippo problems with clogs so far.