Epson Metallic paper out of gamut

[huguito]

I just received some sheets of the new Epson Metallic paper.
Monitor freshly calibrated.
Profiled the paper with color Munki, the reading of all targets went without a hitch

I am printing an image that has a lot of saturated colors

The print did come out of my 9600 very good, I would say that the luminosity is as close as 95%, hues very good as well. For a first test print of a difficult image I was very happy, not much refining needed.

When, out of curiosity, after the print was made, I had turned the on of gamut warning almost the whole image showed greyed out, as if almost the whole thing was going to come out a messed up piece of trash. I printed anyway and was surprised with a good first print.

How is it possible that the print is good and the colors are, as shown by the warnings in Photoshop, an unusable mess?

Is the gamut warning not reliable on metallic papers?

I am chasing my own tail and shouldn't worry about it?

What is it that I am missing?

Hugo

[Paul2660]

Actually that does not surprise me at all.  The 9600, especially on a metallic paper.  Even the best inkjet can't begin to print all of the colors that can be displayed in prophoto color space.  I am assuming you are using Prophoto.  The Adobe 1998 (RBB) also will have problems getting the entire gamut. 

If you added a bit or a lot of saturation, then the out of gamut will also worse, especially in blues. 

I print on a 7800 (matte ink) and a 9900 and I have moved back to the Adobe 1998 (RGB) color space mainly to help in out of gamut issues like you mention.  They may be very minor or they might be pretty intense.  In my workflow, it's most problematic with Blues and yellows (like near or around a sun).  Green, and red will most times not be that problematic. 

You might try the stock Epson profile (they may not have one on the 9600 as they no longer support the 9600 family).  But if you like saturation in your work like I do, then finding a balance with out of gamut can be a challenge.  As you work up a shot, it's a good idea to soft proof and check the out of gamut situation on the image as it might be very minor or starting to get severe.  I don't recommend working with the out of gamut turned on.

I am sure many other opinions will add in on this, so this is just what works for me. 

Paul

[Eyeball]

Well, if Andrew sticks his head in this thread, I am sure he will say:
- The out-of-gamut indicator in PS only says those pixels are out of gamut, not by how much.  I believe he also says it is somewhat inaccurate.
- The rendering intent translation to your printer's color space may have done a pretty good job.  Perceptual, in particular, would have helped retain detail although it might not produce the best looking print.

I'll also add:
- A lot depends on the particular image.  If there is not a lot of variety of detail in the color channels being clipped, the gamut clipping will probably be less noticeable unless it gets to the extreme where there are noticeable changes in hue.

[Paul2660]

For my work I find the displayed color changes/shifts etc when using soft proofing in photoshop to be pretty accurate.   Net, if I see a strong change in blue hue (most common), I can expect to see pretty much the same on the print.

There seems to be a pretty big misunderstanding as to must how much of the ProPhoto color space any Epson can print to.  My understanding is, it's nowhere near the displayed colors, and most monitors can't begin to display all the colors either or any monitor.  The NEC's claim now 99% or so of the Adobe 1998 (RGB), but that's only the latest generation.  I don't know about the Ezio's as I don't use them. 

For my work, both on the 9900 and 7800, the soft proofing step to a printer paper profile is very key to figuring out what your final image will look like.  In my experience, I get very close to what the soft proofed result is with both 9900 and 7800 prints, softproofing to a NEC 30" monitor with spectraview.

I will always try to use Relative Colormetric on Glossy/PK prints as that works best with my images.  On matte, I tend to use perceptual intent mainly to help keep blacks from blocking up in the shadows.

Paul

[huguito]

Thanks for the replays, I would like to clarify.

The print did come out ok, actually very good, maybe not the best image for that paper but it still look very nice.

Evident by the print similarity on hue and luminosity to the image in the screen,the paper profile I made was accurate.

What surprised me, is that the gamut warnings where covering almost 100% of the print, as a test I add a saturation layer, and to make the gamut warnings go away I had to crank saturation down a whole mile, to the point the print looks very washed out

What this tellme, unless I am very wrong, is that those warnings, at least in this paper's case, are not more than a suggesion of what "could" happen.

I rarely use to turn the warnings on, just rely on the look of the preview of the soft proof.

By the way, the image was printed with a "relative colorimetric" intent, the proof view of Perceptual blocked up a lot of strong color transitions.

Hugo

[Redcrown]

Sorry for being late to this party, but here is a technique to try:

1. Dupe your original image and CONVERT it to the print profile.
2. Then immediately convert it back to the profile of the original.
3. Copy that and paste it on top of the original.
4. Put that layer in Difference mode.
5. Add a Hue/Sat layer and desaturate (optional).

What you get is a vision of the true out-of-gamut condition and a measure of how far it is out of gamut. Quite a bit more telling than the Photoshop soft proof gamut warning.

I'd bet your Epson Metallic image shows very little out-of-gamut.

Try this on a "Granger Rainbow" image or the Bill Atkinson "28 balls" image to see what way out-of-gamut looks like.