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Author Topic: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges  (Read 11510 times)

orchidblooms

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very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« on: April 21, 2013, 01:12:36 am »

Greetings fellow fotogs - I am stumped

We have 100's of very colorful fuschia red cactus blooms flourishing in the greenhouses -I have been taking photos... (used color card)

I have done very minimal processing using capture one 7 - export as profoto RGB - then trying to softproof in PS, using the3 papers i have tested with...

All images are printing in more or less - shades of mottled orange - when they should be beautiful bright fuschia cactus red... in a multitude of shades of red to magenta ...

Using epson 4900 / nec that is calibrated recently with the spectroview that came with the monitor

Testing the images - printed in PS as well as demo imageprint 9

the imageprint seems to be more true to color - but far from what i am looking for - PS - not even close...  I have fiddled for hours on end with this soft proofing - and seem to get best results in imageprint by simply adjusting color before print...

how do we print these bright colors?

a huge thanks for any suggestions

adding 2 srgb files and 1 profoto
« Last Edit: April 21, 2013, 01:18:11 am by orchidblooms »
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Rhossydd

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2013, 10:57:45 am »

Have you checked whether the colours are within the device's gamut ?
how do we print these bright colors?
Unfortunately sometimes we just have to accept we can't replicate nature.
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orchidblooms

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2013, 12:14:28 pm »

Have you checked whether the colours are within the device's gamut ?Unfortunately sometimes we just have to accept we can't replicate nature.

other than my feeble attempts at 'soft proofing'...  how would a person check to see, indeed, whether the colours are within the device's gamut?

Unfortunately sometimes we just have to accept we can't replicate nature.

Not so sure I am willing to accept this notion...  There must be a 'happy medium'

many thanks

Phil
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Rhossydd

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2013, 01:39:51 pm »

how would a person check to see, indeed, whether the colours are within the device's gamut?
The most simple is to use the gamut warning in Photoshop. Lightroom also has similar functionality, plus there are many other specialist applications that can deal with gamut comparisons like Gamutvision, Color Think Pro etc.
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Not so sure I am willing to accept this notion...
You can't make printers print colours they can't print. There is a limit to what is possible.
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orchidblooms

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2013, 01:51:09 pm »

many thanks...

i have seen exceptionally colorful floral images - not ready to give up...  i will look at your gamut suggestions and recheck my calibration on my monitor...

today i will also try a few prints using only the printer bypassing profiles...

p.
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xpatUSA

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2013, 01:14:48 am »

other than my feeble attempts at 'soft proofing'...  how would a person check to see, indeed, whether the colours are within the device's gamut?
Hi Phil,

Armed with my new toy (ColorThink) I went a-Googling and found a profile for your Epson 4900 printer "Standard Proofing Paper Production V1" (SPPP). As you know by now, any profiles gamut can be displayed in glorious 3D on your screen along with the gamut of your images. I brought up your three images in turn with the SPPP gamut and comment as follows:

In the cactus image there are some deep reds outside of the SPPP gamut, so you would expect some color clipping if you choose relative colorimetric as your intent.

In the ProPhoto image lots of out-gamut reds plus some yellows and also a few very light reds. You would need to convert this image to sRGB and perhaps perceptual intent would get you there. Alternatively to that, I have de-profiled a flower shot in ProPhoto, then converted (assigned?) it to sRGB without changing the working file RGB numbers and then saturated it in sRGB as far it will go. There was a hue shift which need about -7 degs to get the color back to near correct. See my post here:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/thread28893.htm

In the DSC_5616 image some dark reds are out-of-gamut and string of light reds to white are sticking out at the top. A little more processing might fix that.

I viewed all the above in the L*a*b* color model, but the other two models xyY and CIELUV tell the same tale (as they should).

I expect there are at least two experts here who could help you more than I with further remedial suggestions.

Good Luck!
« Last Edit: May 05, 2013, 01:39:31 am by xpatUSA »
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best regards,

Ted

JRSmit

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2013, 03:41:14 am »

other than my feeble attempts at 'soft proofing'...  how would a person check to see, indeed, whether the colours are within the device's gamut?

Not so sure I am willing to accept this notion...  There must be a 'happy medium'

many thanks

Phil
Softproof in LR gives you a pretty clear picture which part of the image colors are out of gamut for given target profile. You can make a proof copy and edit that while comparing it to your developed original to massage it into the capabilites of the target profile, f.i. An epson 4900 prfile for a good baryta paper. the color gamut of such a profile is way bigger than sRGB except that the shape of the printprofile gamut is different. most noticabl in the very light colors. I mention lightroom as that is my tool of choice, and its working colorspace is prophotorgb which encompasses practically all device profiles, so in its conversion from profile to profile it does not cause any clipping by itself. Flowers can be, as you experienced, very saturated. You will need to massage it to fit into the printer profile and retain the color experience.
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Ken Bennett

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2013, 08:00:19 am »

Flowers reflect all kinds of UV and infrared light that we can't see, but sometimes our cameras can. This can cause color shifts that can't be corrected with normal methods. In other words, you may see pink, but your camera sees orange (or rather, it sees lots of IR light that it interprets as orange.)
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orchidblooms

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2013, 08:20:19 am »

many thanks guys...

I have been using cp1 7 for my RAW files...

I have tried LR off and on since last summer - and frankly - find it not so friendly - beginning to think it is a problem with my installation - for instance - open file in PS - ps opens but no file - bridge same - select files to open as layers - ps opens - to population of layers... notta... 

Last nite I spent some time with NX2.... and a few vincent versace videos I gathered from a 24 hours pass to kelby training...

I am liking the control points - and white black and neutral settings - and i seem to be getting better than ever colors on my monitor

before this, I recalibrated monitor to 6100 120...  i will use mirage to print on the 4900, and a pal has offered to make up a profile for me to 'test' using his i1display gizmo...

slooooly i am getting there...

but wow what a process -

thank you guys for your help

p.


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xpatUSA

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2013, 01:26:17 pm »

In the ProPhoto image lots of out-gamut reds plus some yellows and also a few very light reds. You would need to convert this image to sRGB and perhaps perceptual intent would get you there.

I gave it a try, more out of curiosity than anything else; converted the ProPhoto to sRGB with a utility and played around with the hue, saturation and lightness in Photoshop Elements 6:



I brought up an Epson 4900 profile and the images, before and after, in ColorThink 3D, CIE xyY space:



The 'before' image is displayed in green, the 'after' image in "true colors". It can be seen that the edited image is almost all contained within the printer profile and could stand a chance of outputting a vibrant print as preferred by the OP.

Then I got to thinking that the conversion utility could go from ProPhoto straight to the printer profile and, lo, the gamut picture improved considerably:



I can't help but feel that the editing software should do of all the above automatically, but the exercise was instructive for me, anyway . .

« Last Edit: May 05, 2013, 07:51:21 pm by xpatUSA »
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best regards,

Ted

Tim Lookingbill

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2013, 04:51:43 pm »

I think all of you don't know what the hell you're doing.

You don't want to bother to learn the software and you'ld rather go gearhead analyzing petty, minuscule issues over one freakin' image of a crop of one yellow flower detail or that over the top "not true to the color fuchsia" flower and use that as empirical evidence to just blame the software for not getting what you want.

None of your samples (including Ted's yellow flower) you've posted look like real flowers. I know what I'm talking about because I've spent 53 years of my life observing how light affects color as an art director and graphic artist and I used to paint those effects on canvas and illustration board in a "photorealistic" style back when I was 17 years old and I was told back then by my university fine art professors I was damn good at it.

Now I use those skills of observation for rendering similar flowers using ACR and don't seem to have too much of an issue even getting color matches on a $50 Epson NX 440/330 with no soft proofing and using "Printer Manages Color" on Epson Ultra Premium Glossy Photo paper.

And Ted, before you go too gear head on the technicalities of color gamuts and color management, COULD YOU PLEASE EMBED A PROFILE IN YOUR IMAGES YOU POST?! That last one of the fuschia flower doesn't have a profile.
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xpatUSA

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2013, 05:42:42 pm »

I think all of you don't know what the hell you're doing.

You don't want to bother to learn the software and you'ld rather go gearhead analyzing petty, minuscule issues over one freakin' image of a crop of one yellow flower detail or that over the top "not true to the color fuchsia" flower and use that as empirical evidence to just blame the software for not getting what you want.

None of your samples (including Ted's yellow flower) you've posted look like real flowers. I know what I'm talking about because I've spent 53 years of my life observing how light affects color as an art director and graphic artist and I used to paint those effects on canvas and illustration board in a "photorealistic" style back when I was 17 years old and I was told back then by my university fine art professors I was damn good at it.

Now I use those skills of observation for rendering similar flowers using ACR and don't seem to have too much of an issue even getting color matches on a $50 Epson NX 440/330 with no soft proofing and using "Printer Manages Color" on Epson Ultra Premium Glossy Photo paper.

I'm sorry the yellow flower was not to your liking. Here's the same RAW file post-processed a bit, one of many such in that folder:



Another:



Good to have you aboard this thread - I'm sure we will benefit from your avowed skills, knowledge and experience.

« Last Edit: May 05, 2013, 07:49:51 pm by xpatUSA »
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best regards,

Ted

MarkM

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2013, 06:23:54 pm »

In the ProPhoto image lots of out-gamut reds plus some yellows and also a few very light reds. You would need to convert this image to sRGB and perhaps perceptual intent would get you there. Alternatively to that, I have de-profiled a flower shot in ProPhoto, then converted (assigned?) it to sRGB without changing the working file RGB numbers and then saturated it in sRGB as far it will go.

Huh?!?

What does sRGB have to do with any of this. If you are having trouble with colors that are out of gamut on your printer/paper why on earth would you convert it to a smaller space that has nothing to do with the printer/paper or the original? That makes no sense at all.

It's really not that complicated: Let's assume you're printing with the sane workflow and you still can't reproduce certain colors. It's possible that you have a file that contains colors that your printer/paper can't reproduce. It happens—and flowers can be tough. A few things you can try: use a paper with a wider gamut—maybe something like Premium Glossy Photo. If you can get your hands on the profiles, you can 'try them out' by soft-proofing to the profile.

If you still have gamut issues then you need to make some compromises. A good way to do this is work with the soft proof on loaded with the paper/printer profile and make adjustments (e.g. curves, Hue/Saturation) until you have something that you can live with. It won't be perfect, but sometimes it can't be perfect.

Making a trip through sRGB, which can't represent all the colors your printer can reproduce, will needlessly clip colors.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2013, 06:29:24 pm by MarkM »
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2013, 07:01:25 pm »

Why are you posting an over saturated version of the fuschia flower to where there's no detail. What does that prove. It doesn't prove anything useful or meaningful about gamut mapping from what was in the scene to what will print.

This is what I'm seeing...
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xpatUSA

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2013, 07:48:20 pm »

Why are you posting an over saturated version of the fuschia flower to where there's no detail. What does that prove. It doesn't prove anything useful or meaningful about gamut mapping from what was in the scene to what will print.

My apologies for not making clear why I posted that pic. I'll just go ahead and delete it, rather than try to explain.
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best regards,

Ted

orchidblooms

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2013, 08:00:40 pm »

OK...

I am making some progress...

i think by tuesday - wed i will be ready to print again...

latest cactus bloom rendition using this time nx2 (top photo)

the flower actually looks like this pastie salmon to magenta/fuscia

but clearly, still have ways to go...

can a person really print a fuscia cactus bloom, like the bottom one,  with a $50.00 printer in a way that it will actually look good - ?
« Last Edit: May 05, 2013, 08:08:13 pm by orchidblooms »
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xpatUSA

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2013, 08:02:20 pm »

Huh?!?

What does sRGB have to do with any of this. If you are having trouble with colors that are out of gamut on your printer/paper why on earth would you convert it to a smaller space that has nothing to do with the printer/paper or the original? That makes no sense at all.

It's really not that complicated: Let's assume you're printing with the sane workflow and you still can't reproduce certain colors. It's possible that you have a file that contains colors that your printer/paper can't reproduce. It happens—and flowers can be tough. A few things you can try: use a paper with a wider gamut—maybe something like Premium Glossy Photo. If you can get your hands on the profiles, you can 'try them out' by soft-proofing to the profile.

If you still have gamut issues then you need to make some compromises. A good way to do this is work with the soft proof on loaded with the paper/printer profile and make adjustments (e.g. curves, Hue/Saturation) until you have something that you can live with. It won't be perfect, but sometimes it can't be perfect.

Making a trip through sRGB, which can't represent all the colors your printer can reproduce, will needlessly clip colors.
Yes, perhaps you did not notice the last part of my post where the same conclusion is drawn. The part where conversion direct from ProPhoto to the Epson Profile worked a lot better.

Your post is wasted on me, sorry. My interest in this thread is trying to help the OP achieve the stated goal - getting vibrant colors out of less than vibrant images. I myself print nothing. I'm just interested in color as a subject rather than a means to an end.

Perhaps you were not really replying to me but instead advising the OP?

In which case, thank you for your advice which I'm sure the OP will find useful.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2013, 05:21:44 pm by xpatUSA »
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best regards,

Ted

Tim Lookingbill

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #17 on: May 05, 2013, 09:20:05 pm »

Quote
can a person really print a fuscia cactus bloom, like the bottom one,  with a $50.00 printer in a way that it will actually look good - ?

You won't get exact color if your going to crank up the red like that and print on non-Epson paper. Do you have the flower right in front of you? I'll bet you don't and so you don't remember exactly how saturated that flower's red really looks.

But I gave it try and got pretty close on Epson Ultra Premium Glossy viewed under 5000K T8 flotubes. The one on the left is a result of converting to Average Inkjet Glossy.icc profile and reassigning sRGB and converting to Epson sRGB which is the same profile as regular sRGB just to make sure the data is in sRGB.
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orchidblooms

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2013, 09:41:38 am »

You won't get exact color if your going to crank up the red like that and print on non-Epson paper. Do you have the flower right in front of you? I'll bet you don't and so you don't remember exactly how saturated that flower's red really looks.

But I gave it try and got pretty close on Epson Ultra Premium Glossy viewed under 5000K T8 flotubes. The one on the left is a result of converting to Average Inkjet Glossy.icc profile and reassigning sRGB and converting to Epson sRGB which is the same profile as regular sRGB just to make sure the data is in sRGB.

indeed i do have the luxury of having the flowers in front of me - 100's of them in all states of bloom... a whole row of them hanging on both sides of a 70' long isle in our greenhouse... some plants have probably 50 to 60 blooms each (probably more...)...  

some of them the reds that are indeed, unbelievably and seemingly, unimaginable.... in hue and saturation

this is why i am spending so much time on this...  as they are truly beautiful in real life - and in all stages of their life and in different light....

I never tire of looking at... or working with these flowers..

i have not yet used an epson paper except photo glossy - perhaps it is time consider hot press or exhibition fibre papers...

my warmest regards...

p.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2013, 09:45:19 am by orchidblooms »
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: very colorful fuschia red cactus - printing mottled oranges
« Reply #19 on: May 06, 2013, 02:26:15 pm »

Quote
indeed i do have the luxury of having the flowers in front of me - 100's of them in all states of bloom... a whole row of them hanging on both sides of a 70' long isle in our greenhouse... some plants have probably 50 to 60 blooms each (probably more...)...  

some of them the reds that are indeed, unbelievably and seemingly, unimaginable.... in hue and saturation

Keep in mind the optical phenomenon with the human visual system in comparison to how cameras record color under various types of light. Cameras don't have an adaptive system like our eyes. The effects you are going to run into making comparisons with these types of intense colors looking back and forth from your screen to the actual subject is going to constantly change the longer you keep looking, tweaking the edits and later looking again and onto the print.

I'ld suggest you shine the same light you captured those flowers with on the print moving the light closer and farther away. Notice how it changes both saturation AND luminance in comparison mimicing the same effect with edits on your display. It'll drive you nuts trying to get it to match because of the eyes' adaptive system.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2013, 02:29:07 pm by tlooknbill »
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