Hahmemule Smooth Photo Rag - Is obtaining vibrant colours possible?

[littleillustrator]

Hello,

I am wanting to find out if it is at all possible to get Hahmemule Smooth Photo Rag 308 to print bright vibrant colours? Question here http://screencast.com/t/RuorDpxVrA

Like the aqua in my piece of artwork here http://img0.etsystatic.com/015/0/7735422/il_fullxfull.417706380_c0pz.jpg

I have been trying to get it to print from photoshop, but it's preview and final output dulls the green right down like this http://content.screencast.com/users/inki123/folders/Jing/media/13fc91ee-e7a2-4e2e-8e0f-899639330f29/2013-02-17_1419.png Is that just due to the nature of the paper? Or can really brights be achieved with this paper? OR do I need to get a whiter fine art paper that isn't matt?

I have profiled both my monitor and printer (epson r2880) with colormunki

My proof setup is pointing to my colormonki profile.
My working space is http://screencast.com/t/6ik5eHZQA

Thanks

[Schewe]

It's the nature of screen to printed ink on paper, colors simply can't be reproduced exactly the same. A matte paper will have less contrast and less saturated colors. I will say that sRGB isn't necessarily the best editing space since sRGB has a lot less gamut in greens/blues than Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB. This will impact the color of the output because the paper/printer you are using may be able to print colors outside of the gamut of sRGB.

[bill t.]

FWIW, referring only to your posted .jpg, the violet-ish color you have selected in the color picker is very out of gamut for every media profile I checked it against, including some very wide gamut ones.  The printer and profile are doing the best they can, but the color shown in the picker is simply out of reach any inkjet media profile that I tried.

[littleillustrator]

FWIW, referring only to your posted .jpg, the violet-ish color you have selected in the color picker is very out of gamut for every media profile I checked it against, including some very wide gamut ones.  The printer and profile are doing the best they can, but the color shown in the picker is simply out of reach any inkjet media profile that I tried.

Thank you for this. I am new to colour profiling, so I am not sure of the ins and outs of setting things up correctly. Are you able to explain the gamut to me, am I somehow able to have colours showing that are in a certain gamut? I choose that colour because it was so different from the color picker to the actual document. In fact all colours seem to be quite off from the picker to the actual stage of the document.

How do you get colours in the picker to be identical to what will be on the document and what will print out?

[Schewe]

Post your profile and we can show you what the profile looks like when mapped in 3D for the gamut.

[littleillustrator]

Post your profile and we can show you what the profile looks like when mapped in 3D for the gamut.

How do I post my profile?

[Schewe]

Zip the profile and load it to your web site or some 3rd party download service like Dropbox.

[littleillustrator]

Here you go...hope that's right?  http://tillyandtom.com/50_EPSON_Stylus_Photo_R2880_172%20ha_photo_rag.zip

Thanks

[Schewe]

Here you go...hope that's right?

Yep...so, here's a 2D gamut plot of your profile, Ultrasmooth Fine Art paper on a 3880 (close to your 2880 in gamut), sRGB, Hahnemule's profile & Exhibition Fiber Paper on the 3880. As you can see, the gamut of your profile on the Hahnemule Smooth Photo Rag 308 with the 2880 is very, very small.



So, the fist question I would ask is exactly how did you make your profile? How did you print out the target? What settings did you use to create the profile? I'm not familiar with Colormunki profile building but it sure seems like something is wrong with your profile because I would not expect that paper to have such a tiny gamut...you might want to download and use the Hahnemule suplied profile and check your profile making and remake your profile. It should be at least "close" to the profile provided by Hahnemule...

[MHMG]

Any chance the OP simply profiled the wrong side of the paper? That would nicely explain why the Colormunki custom profile didn't do a better job with this paper. I often do backside printing of image metadata on Hahnemuhle fine art paper, so I build two profiles, one for the front side, one for the back side. Back side does have some coating probably for anti-curl benefit, but much much less color gamut is typical.

[Schewe]

Any chance the OP simply profiled the wrong side of the paper? That would nicely explain why the Colormunki custom profile didn't do a better job with this paper.

Good idea...that would explain the tiny gamut of the OP's profile...we'll have to see what the OP has to say about how the profile was made...

[Alan Goldhammer]

Before moving up to an i1Pro, I prepared a ColorMunki profile and it was very good.  In fact I think Mark has this very paper under testing with this profile.  It certainly was just as good if not better than the Hahnemuhle profile.

Alan

[Schewe]

Before moving up to an i1Pro, I prepared a ColorMunki profile and it was very good.

I wasn't saying anything about Colormunki other than I'm personally not familiar with how Colormunki allows various profile creation settings...I don't think the OP's issue is with Colormunki but more how he made and measured the print target. The fact that the OP's profile has a tiny gamut compared to the Hahnemuhle  profile is an indication that something is wrong...

[Alan Goldhammer]

I wasn't saying anything about Colormunki other than I'm personally not familiar with how Colormunki allows various profile creation settings...I don't think the OP's issue is with Colormunki but more how he made and measured the print target. The fact that the OP's profile has a tiny gamut compared to the Hahnemuhle  profile is an indication that something is wrong...

I should have clarified my statement and I'm in complete agreement with you that something is wrong here.

[littleillustrator]

Hello there,

I finally had some time to look at this again, and yes you were correct I had printed on the wrong side of the paper! So thank you for making me aware of this...I have an epson r2880 don't know if that makes a difference as image above says 3880?

I have added a new profile here http:///tillyandtom.com/103_EPSON_Stylus_Photo_R2880_Photo_rag.zip if someone could look at it tell me if it's any better.

Basically I can't get really bright colours...so am I not able to get a magenta or a cyan? I just find the actual test prints (colour swatches) on colormunki come up with quite vibrant colours on some of the swatches but I can't really replicate the same brightness and saturation out of Photoshop.

I've even change the settings to Adobe RGB 1998 with still not much difference.

I have a dell 30 u3011 monitor if that is any help?

[BrianWJH]

A quick gamut comparison between your newest profile and the Hahnemuhle supplied Photo Rag Ultra Smooth 305gsm shows that your new profile has approx. an 11% smaller gamut volume.

In my experience the ColorMunki generally produces profiles with at least the same gamut and usually wider than the 3rd party paper suppliers own profiles.

If you haven't already downloaded the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth profile, I would do this and see if it produces better results than your custom ColorMunki profile, if it does then there may be some issue with your ColorMunki Photo device or profile generation workflow.

Cheers,
Brian.

[IWC Doppel]

The graph is very helpful, is it possible to show adobe98RGB on the same chart ?

[littleillustrator]

A quick gamut comparison between your newest profile and the Hahnemuhle supplied Photo Rag Ultra Smooth 305gsm shows that your new profile has approx. an 11% smaller gamut volume.

In my experience the ColorMunki generally produces profiles with at least the same gamut and usually wider than the 3rd party paper suppliers own profiles.

If you haven't already downloaded the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth profile, I would do this and see if it produces better results than your custom ColorMunki profile, if it does then there may be some issue with your ColorMunki Photo device or profile generation workflow.

Cheers,
Brian.

Thanks for this. The paper I am actually using is smooth 308 gsm...rather than extra smooth.

Also how does one get one of those graphs?

I guess what I am finding frustruating is that it seems when soft proofing no matter what paper I use from glossy to matt, it seems like I will never be able to achieve bright saturated colours. The colours only shift marginly from paper to paper. I thought it may be my setup but now I am thinking that is the nature of these fine art printers. Even when I download profiles for other papers the colours don't shift that much.

An example is roughly what I am getting from Photoshop document to actual print setup area. The 'Match print colors' in the print dialouge box is pretty close to what I get in the final printed document...so I guess I am trying to figure out if in fact it's true that I will never be able achieve bright saturated colours or there is something else going wrong



I understand the bright green I wouldn't be able to get, but suprised I can't get some of the brighter reds.

[IWC Doppel]

I am attempting something similar with colours on my 3880, I am adding colour density (more ink) and using third party custom profiles (In the UK certain suppliers do this for free). With Photo Rag 308 and ultra smooth the saturation looks very good, another paper I want to try for colour is epson cold press natural. I am on the start of my colour journey and okay with B&W, but so far I have been quite impressed. I have a picture of a very vibrant Orange Porsche GT3RS (not mine, unfortunately !) next to me and it looks very good indeed. I suspect the colour vibrancy would be improved on gloss, but the colours so far on exhibition fibre have not blown me away and I prefer the depth of matt images.

[Czornyj]

I have a picture of a very vibrant Orange Porsche GT3RS (not mine, unfortunately !) next to me and it looks very good indeed.

My most favorite matte paper for metallic objets is Hahnemuehle Photo Rag Satin - it's a matte paper, but it has some kind of "wax" added to cotton fibres, that gives vibrant colors and the specific opalescence to vivid colors. Permajet has suprisingly close substitutes of Hahnemuehle papers (I suspect paper base is the same), so Smooth Art Silk 300g/m^2 offers the same specific look.