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Author Topic: Article: Debugging Profiled Inkjet Printing  (Read 15165 times)

eronald

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Re: Article: Debugging Profiled Inkjet Printing
« Reply #20 on: July 28, 2013, 06:36:02 pm »

We start with a good profile (how one determines we have a really good profile is another discussion). If the profile is an issue, we're screwed from the get go.


I'd say, if the profile is a *possible* issue, after printing with vendor color (printer manages color), you print with the vendor's *OEM profile* using the vendor paper, if that's ok then your profiled printing workflow is working, printer dialog boxes and rendering intents are correctly set, and then you print a target and profile the vendor paper, and if that doesn't compare, hey guys your have target printing issues ...oh wait that's what I wrote in my article - and no ColorSink in sight.

Be nice Andrew; that article is systematic, and it is a procedure carefully designed to catch the myriad of mistakes which mere humans can make when they pretend they are what you actually are, expert.

Edmund
« Last Edit: July 28, 2013, 06:42:49 pm by eronald »
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digitaldog

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Re: Article: Debugging Profiled Inkjet Printing
« Reply #21 on: July 28, 2013, 07:21:14 pm »

I'd say, if the profile is a *possible* issue, after printing with vendor color (printer manages color), you print with the vendor's *OEM profile* using the vendor paper, if that's ok then your profiled printing workflow is working, printer dialog boxes and rendering intents are correctly set, and then you print a target and profile the vendor paper, and if that doesn't compare, hey guys your have target printing issues ...oh wait that's what I wrote in my article - and no ColorSink in sight.

Vendor supplied profiles can be poor (or non existent). Bad profiles are bad profiles and with a reference image such as you recommend in the article, that's one way to evaluate if the profile is bad assuming (and that's a big assumption) all other settings are correct.

What I don't understand is the connection with Printer Manages Color (PMC) and Application Manages Color (AMC). Yes, if PMC looks good, you can be pretty sure the issue isn't the document data, clogged heads etc. But it doesn't necessary tell you the other path is the fault of the profile. It could be something else like a driver setting. I also don't expect PMC to match what I'd get from a good profile. If your take on this is, use PMC to ensure that the printer itself is operating OK, I'm behind you. PMC or AMC, if the printer has a clogged head or something along those lines, both processes will look poor.

In the end, you have to use a through process to uncover the issues. Is it a bad profile? Is it a bad profile and incorrect driver settings? Is the profile OK but the user set the wrong media settings? You just have to examine all the possible places that something can go wrong. At least with Lightroom, once you have your settings correct, the print template remembers all this, a big step in the right direction from printing out of Photoshop and other app's. You can have a prefect profile and a printer in perfect condition, everything but one item (say Media settings) can be wrong and you're getting a poor print.
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digitaldog

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Re: Article: Debugging Profiled Inkjet Printing
« Reply #22 on: July 28, 2013, 10:04:10 pm »

Quote
Be nice Andrew

Wasn't I? I'm not the one who wrote I'm afraid the article you're puzzled by isn't the clearest bit of writing here and could do with some clarification. Why you picking on me? <g>
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eronald

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Re: Article: Debugging Profiled Inkjet Printing
« Reply #23 on: July 28, 2013, 10:30:00 pm »

Vendor supplied profiles can be poor (or non existent). Bad profiles are bad profiles and with a reference image such as you recommend in the article, that's one way to evaluate if the profile is bad assuming (and that's a big assumption) all other settings are correct.

What I don't understand is the connection with Printer Manages Color (PMC) and Application Manages Color (AMC). Yes, if PMC looks good, you can be pretty sure the issue isn't the document data, clogged heads etc. But it doesn't necessary tell you the other path is the fault of the profile. It could be something else like a driver setting. I also don't expect PMC to match what I'd get from a good profile. If your take on this is, use PMC to ensure that the printer itself is operating OK, I'm behind you. PMC or AMC, if the printer has a clogged head or something along those lines, both processes will look poor.

In the end, you have to use a through process to uncover the issues. Is it a bad profile? Is it a bad profile and incorrect driver settings? Is the profile OK but the user set the wrong media settings? You just have to examine all the possible places that something can go wrong. At least with Lightroom, once you have your settings correct, the print template remembers all this, a big step in the right direction from printing out of Photoshop and other app's. You can have a prefect profile and a printer in perfect condition, everything but one item (say Media settings) can be wrong and you're getting a poor print.

The connection between PMC (Vendor Color) and AMC (Application Color) in my procedure is step 2 where you make a profiled print (AMC) using a *vendor supplied* profile and compare to (PMC). My experience at least with Epsons is that in this case AMC should match PMC. In fact this should almost be the case whatever the media. If it doesn't then there is a software issue in the printpath -eg. bad intent settings, double profiling due to OS Stalinism, buggy application code (yes, that application) etc - I've seen just about everything.

Now Lightroom is a bit of a special case.

By the way, I once tested  some anonymous raw conversion and image cataloguing software from a large company which appeared to be clipping prints to the monitor profile when printing, thereby ensuring Wysiwyg at the price of a reduced gamut. Haven't looked at it again for a long time, and that company is commendably good at fixing bugs in the next version.

Edmund
« Last Edit: July 29, 2013, 09:24:57 am by eronald »
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Rhossydd

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Re: Article: Debugging Profiled Inkjet Printing
« Reply #24 on: July 29, 2013, 02:53:00 pm »

equally polluted by the same foobarred Mac color management "features".
My debugging procedure is carefully thought out to get around a lot of the gotchas which have been introduced in the past few years.
Maybe it would have been a good idea to mention that this sort of problem is just about exclusive to Macs.
If users have problems with colour managed workflows on Windows system it's invariably user error, rather than the complex OS and driver version issues that seem to trip up even experienced Mac users.
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eronald

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Re: Article: Debugging Profiled Inkjet Printing
« Reply #25 on: July 30, 2013, 09:04:12 am »

Maybe it would have been a good idea to mention that this sort of problem is just about exclusive to Macs.
If users have problems with colour managed workflows on Windows system it's invariably user error, rather than the complex OS and driver version issues that seem to trip up even experienced Mac users.

The Mac experience has been horrible. I think the worst is over actually, things seem to work in the latest OS versions.
As for "User error under Windows", strangely enough I've been getting some queries from Windows users who are completely confused by the print driver terminology.
Let's face it - most users of anything -cameras, computers, printers - are beginners. So beginners are the people who we most need to help. Andrew helps us experts :)

Edmund
« Last Edit: July 30, 2013, 09:05:46 am by eronald »
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