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Author Topic: Peculiar profile issue - SP9900  (Read 1724 times)

Garnick

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Peculiar profile issue - SP9900
« on: June 09, 2013, 10:51:34 am »

Hello group,

I'll try to make this as brief as possible, however, it is somewhat complicated.  I believe I read something similar to this issue a couple of years ago on this forum, but can't seem to find any related posts.  A brief history - for a number of years I've been printing to 2-7600 printers from my Mac G5 and 10.5.8.  My theory, if it ain't broke, don't....well you know.  A few months ago I decided it was time to make a move to a newer machine and OS, so I purchased a mid 2010 refurb Mac Pro.  It came loaded with OS 10.7.3, which I worked with for a while and then updated to 10.7.5.  Most of my printing is done on Epson papers with the Epson canned profiles, and I found the new OS and driver quite easy to adapt to.  That is until recently.  There are a couple of papers and profiles which are not of the Epson family, but I've never noticed any problems with them on the G5 and the older OS.  One of my customers is partial to the Ilford Gallerie Smooth Pearl and I quite like it as well.  Again, no problem with the older system.  For testing smaller image sizes I generally use 8.5x11 paper and get 5-2x8" test strips per sheet.  As you may have guessed, I'm an old darkroom guy.  And the word "old" applies in various ways ;).  A couple of weeks ago I was starting to test some files on the GSP paper, and as I started the first test I noticed that it was taking much longer than normal to finish.  I checked the printer and found that it was still going through the motions of printing at the opposite end to the sheet, where there was no image at all.  My immediate thought of course was that I had somehow screwed up a driver setting, so I checked very carefully and tried again.  And again, the same result, except this time when I removed the sheet and checked it more carefully I noticed a very very light background printing, almost like a fogging of the paper.  I then printed the test on a fresh sheet and found the same issue again, very light(almost cyan) background printing.  For a normal 8x10 print it probably wouldn't have been an issue, but when printing 5 tests on a sheet the background "fogging" just keeps building up, which of course adds to the colour and density of the tests.  MOST STRANGE!  After thinking about this situation and trying various settings I finally decided to try one of the Epson profiles.  Once it finished printing the test image the printer stopped and let me unload the paper as usual.  I then came to the conclusion that it was the Ilford profile that was the culprit.  I sent an email to Ilford and they replied that they had heard of this situation in OS 10.6 a couple of years ago, but nothing since, so they assumed it had been fixed.  I had no time to pursue it further, but recently had to run a small job on my 7600MK(a real workhorse) for which I used one of the original Atkinson profiles for an Epson paper.  Again, the "fogging" issue.  That was a total surprise, but my original analysis has now swung around to a possible system problem with the non-Epson profiles.  I'm going to try a couple of other profiles that I hardly ever use and see if the trend continues.  I suspect it will.  When I get in tomorrow I'll also check the Epson profile versions and compare to the non-Epson profiles. 

WHEEEW :o  Well that was much longer that I had wanted, but as I said, somewhat complicated.  If any of you good folks who haven't nodded off while reading this have any suggestions, they would definitely be very much appreciated.  I apologize for taking so much of your valuable time.

Gary







           
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Gary N.
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John Caldwell

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Re: Peculiar profile issue - SP9900
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2013, 11:15:51 am »

Systems that are not ICC Profile Version 4-ready are sometimes blamed for laying down aberrant ink and "head-conduct". This reminds me of your issue, but I am not really knowledgable about this. Are the profiles giving you trouble v2 or v4 when you examine them in Color Sync Utility?

Sorry to not be capable of simply hitting the nail on the head for you.

John Caldwell
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digitaldog

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Re: Peculiar profile issue - SP9900
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2013, 01:11:13 pm »

It's either an issue with ICC V4 profiles or maybe you selected Absolute Colorimetric? V4 profiles bring nothing to the party and some software products have issues with them, resulting in a 'scum dot' in non printable white areas. Usually the V4 profile issue produces a faint gray color and what you describe sounds different. Double click on the profile in question, the ColorSync utility will launch and you can see if the profile was built to V2 or V4 spec.

Probably dumb question but all heads are firing cleanly?
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Garnick

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Re: Peculiar profile issue - SP9900
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2013, 02:27:29 pm »

It's either an issue with ICC V4 profiles or maybe you selected Absolute Colorimetric? V4 profiles bring nothing to the party and some software products have issues with them, resulting in a 'scum dot' in non printable white areas. Usually the V4 profile issue produces a faint gray color and what you describe sounds different. Double click on the profile in question, the ColorSync utility will launch and you can see if the profile was built to V2 or V4 spec.

Probably dumb question but all heads are firing cleanly?

Thanks John and Andrew,

Definitely not the rendering intent.  Most everything I print is in Perceptual and the Ilford GSP requires Relative Colorimetric.  I'm very particular about getting all of the settings correct, I've been doing this for many years.  Even at that I double checked and ran another test in each case with the same results, all bad.  I'll check tomorrow and see what the profile versions are.  What puzzles me is the fact that the Atkinson profile for the 7600 was built many years ago, so it wouldn't be V4.  Am I correct in that assumption?  As far as the actual colour of the "background printing" is concerned, it could very well be gray.  The slight cyan cast may be a clash between the non image area and the image itself, and it's so light that you really would have to look for it to see it at all.  Of course I know what to look for so it's obvious to me.  I still don't understand why it would only be the non-Epson profiles that are exhibiting this behavior.  Of all of the profiles I would think that perhaps the Epson are the most likely ones to be V4, but I'm probably wrong about that.  I'll follow your suggestion Andrew and post the results.

Thanks again gentlemen,
Gary  
« Last Edit: June 09, 2013, 02:38:38 pm by Garnick »
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Gary N.
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Garnick

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Re: Peculiar profile issue - SP9900
« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2013, 11:50:39 am »

I've just spent too much time this morning chasing this issue, but I felt I had to exhaust any possible variables I could think of.  The problem of course still exists with non-Epson profiles.  There are only three that I use regularly and they are all v2.  Since I've never been able to find the location of the canned Epson profiles I have no way of checking, but I assume they are v2 as well.  If that's not the case I don't care, since they are behaving.  In my OP I mentioned that I had never seen this issue on the older Mac using PS-CS3.  Since I also have CS3 installed on the MacPro I decided to try a test through it.  Et Voila, NO problem with the non-Epson profiles.  No background printing/"fogging" at all.  Everything works as expected, even though I am printing through the same OS as in PS-CS5.  Then, knowing that of course CS3 is 32bit and not really knowing if that would be relative at all, I decided to open CS5 in 32bit and do the same test.  NO difference, the background printing is still happening.  So, my conclusion is as follows -- this issue with non-Epson profiles only exists when printing from PS-CS5.  My "guess" is that it must have something to do with the Epson part of the printer driver not playing well with the part the OS contributes to the mix, whereas in PS-CS3 that is not the case.  I hope I've been able to explain this in an understandable manner.  However, I have to admit that it makes little sense to me.  I do know that when I need to use those profiles I can do so successfully through PS-CS3.  I'll be installing CS6 soon, so perhaps this will no longer be an issue.  If it is still happening I'll be in touch with Epson.

Gary   
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digitaldog

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Re: Peculiar profile issue - SP9900
« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2013, 12:00:53 pm »

The problem of course still exists with non-Epson profiles.  There are only three that I use regularly and they are all v2.

Has to be those profiles. It doesn't make sense that it's an application or OS issue unless all the V2 profiles behave the same way.

Quote
Since I've never been able to find the location of the canned Epson profiles
The ColorSync utility will show you the path to all profiles. The profiles Epson installed with the driver are in a Package you need to open.

/Library/Printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter/ICCProfiles/name of profile

Try using the questionable profiles in say Apple Preview. Or Lightroom if you have it.
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Garnick

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Re: Peculiar profile issue - SP9900
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2013, 10:13:40 pm »

Has to be those profiles. It doesn't make sense that it's an application or OS issue unless all the V2 profiles behave the same way.

I tend to agree Andrew, but then how do you account for the fact that printing from PS-CS3 on the same machine and OS showed no signs of the problem.  I can see how the Atkinson profile might have become corrupted(it's and old one), but it worked fine out of CS3 as well.  The other culprit is an Ilford profile for a newer version of Gallerie Smooth Pearl.  I just downloaded it again this morning before running the most recent tests.  I think when I have time I'll download some other non-Epson profiles that I would never use, just to see if they produce the same results.

Gary

     
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"My memory isn't what it used to be. As a matter of fact it never was." (gan)
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