Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: sharadn on August 05, 2024, 04:08:14 pm
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I currently have an Epson P900 and an HPZ3200. I made 10x16 and 14x21 prints for a show on the EP900. I was also asked by the gallery to provide 24x36 prints which I printed on the HPZ3200. The prints from the two printers do not match well. I had some issues using Qimage to print on the HPZ3200 which I think I was able to get sorted out with help from this forum and the LL forum. But I am still frustrated with the difference in the prints from the two printers and am considering to purchase an Epson 7570 24" printer so I can print from the same file for the different size prints.
Is it reasonable to expect that if I print a larger size image from the same file on the 7570 that it will match the output that I have from the EP900?
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Hi, (at the risk of pulling on a thread...) what were the differences between the P900 and Z3200 prints? Which one more closely matched your soft proof on screen? (And maybe which one did you like better?...)
I'm asking because there seems to be an implied leap there from "printer A and B don't match" to "printer B is inferior" (and this is a Z3200, which has an impressive print engine).
I'm wondering if it's worth exploring if there's an underlying issue with the colour management / workflow for the first two printers, because adding a third printer for comparison (whether 7570 or any other) might not fix anything if there is.
Particularly since Qimage is in the mix..., I'd be interested in testing without it, printing directly from app (PS or LR or whatever) to see how those compare. Might help assess whether there's an issue going thru Qimage.
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You'll NEVER match the larger color gamut printer with one with a smaller color gamut.
The papers need to be the same of course.
You'll need two good ICC profiles for both printers too.
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I have the 9570 and the Z3200. The entire gamut in all colors on the 9570 is spectacular and way beyond the Z pigment printers, all of them.
If you have good custom profiles on the same media with both, the only thing I might try is converting the file to be used on the Epson to srgb to reduce the gamut size some. But they will never be identical.
However if you have a lot of prints to do you can make a levels, curves, and hue/ saturation adjustment layer on the 7590 to bring them closer together, then drag those adjustment layers into the other files. So you would only have to do that once. That would take some time. I’ve done that in the past going from a Canon to Epson etc.
John
quote author=digitaldog link=topic=143832.msg1260569#msg1260569 date=1723044356]
You'll NEVER match the larger color gamut printer with one with a smaller color gamut.
The papers need to be the same of course.
You'll need two good ICC profiles for both printers too.
[/quote]
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I have the 9570 and the Z3200. The entire gamut in all colors on the 9570 is spectacular and way beyond the Z pigment printers, all of them.
Oo this is good to hear! I've asked about alternatives to the discontinued HP Z-series before and only heard crickets lol... It gave me the impression that all the printer brands peaked in the early 2000s, and later products only got worse for print quality (particularly with the reduction in ink channels). So it's great to hear there are some current products that have improved, I'll check out those 12-channel Epsons, thanks!
(Okay sorry for minor thread diversion ;) )
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The Epson P 9000s from years ago had better gamut than the Zs and older Canons as well. But the longevity on the Z3200 was twice that of not only the P9000 but the 9570s as well. Unfortunately there is no evidence that the inks on the HP Z9+ are in that ball park either. Wilhelm never published the tests they promised were coming about 6 years ago. Kind of a moot point since nobody is using the Z9s anyway that I know of.
John
Oo this is good to hear! I've asked about alternatives to the discontinued HP Z-series before and only heard crickets lol... It gave me the impression that all the printer brands peaked in the early 2000s, and later products only got worse for print quality (particularly with the reduction in ink channels). So it's great to hear there are some current products that have improved, I'll check out those 12-channel Epsons, thanks!
(Okay sorry for minor thread diversion ;) )
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As mentioned I had issues with Qimage and the HPZ3200 driver, which caused me untold hours of frustration and tons of wasted paper and ink before I got clued in that Qimage does not interface well with the HPZ driver. OK all well and good this allowed me some level of reproducibility on the HPZ in terms of actually knowing which media type etc is actually making it to the printer. Unbeknownst to me the same issues were present in the interface between Qimage and the EP900: I posted a question at Mike's site and this was his reply:
"Unfortunately both the P900 and Z3200 are extremely buggy drivers. Since RR Aurora White 300 is not a standard Epson media type, I assume you added custom media types using the Epson tool? If Qimage and the driver don't align on media type it means the driver has a corrupted media type table and is not reporting the proper media types to Windows. This can sometimes happen when you use the Epson media tool to create new media types and the tool does not properly update the media types (and indices) in Windows or crosslinks some media types so that multiple media types have the same numeric index. In a case like this (where only the driver can see the correct custom types), you have to select the media type in the driver. Don't try to change media type in Qimage if you are having this problem because the driver has given Qimage a bad media table (index).
As far as I know, this is only an issue with the HP Z series printers and Epson P900."
As far as the differences, the originals were printed on the EP900 before I knew I would have to make large prints. When I print the same file on the HPZ there is a color shift and the a bit more contrast. I have tried to tweak the file using layers and so but I can never seem to get them close enough for my satisfaction. I have also tried various profiles and media types and was hoping to find a combination that would be pretty close. I do think that any operator error at this point can be ruled out because of the help that I have received and am now aware of the limitations in Qimage for my applications. If I would have to do it again I would print all the sized on the same printer from the get go, but I cannot backtrack now. There are images hanging in the gallery so I am still trying to come up with a repeatable system but for now it is not working.
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I posted a question at Mike's site and this was his reply:
"Unfortunately both the P900 and Z3200 are extremely buggy drivers.
From a P900 user: Rubbish! Zero issues on this end.
Now, the OS (from time to time) is true.
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As far as the differences, the originals were printed on the EP900 before I knew I would have to make large prints. When I print the same file on the HPZ there is a color shift and the a bit more contrast. I have tried to tweak the file using layers and so but I can never seem to get them close enough for my satisfaction. I have also tried various profiles and media types and was hoping to find a combination that would be pretty close.
Hi, this strikes me as sounding much too random and ad hoc, rather than going thru the colour management chain with consistent rigour. I feel trying various profiles/media types should not be part of the process.
Since I don't know your process, some of my arm-chairing below might be old news, but it's how I would go thru it.
As echoed earlier, you need to do your own profiling, for that specific paper type, for each printer, if you're not already doing so. Canned pre-made profiles from the printer or media mfrs are unlikely to give the best accuracy for your specific printers / media batch / ink batch / humidity, etc.
I can't speak to the Epson, but the HP Z3200 and the HP Utility Colour Centre software provides everything you need to make your own accurate profiles. In addition you can also do custom profiling targets with larger patch counts, try higher ink load for possibly better results, control how much drying time you allow before you profile, etc., all in the interest of optimizing the printer's output for the best possible results (in your own judgment).
Also you want to make sure the printer is running well, and "well-exercised", before doing any profiling. If the printer sits idle a lot, you can get significant variation on the first bit of printing. So it's best to make sure you've run some exercise prints, verified the heads are working well, etc., before diving into profiling. Some even advocate agitating the ink cartridges (and in some cases even the printheads) to help mix up the pigments if the printer has been sitting idle for quite some time.
And I also think it's best to redo the profiling again before any critical print project. (The software/driver should indicate when a profile is "stale" anyhow.)
Only once you've done this with both printers for that specific media can you then run test prints and compare them to your soft proof on screen. Providing everything is working well, the prints should *relatively* faithfully reflect their respective soft-proof on your screen..., under the appropriate viewing conditions, and within all the the usual limitations of soft-proofing. If one of them shows a significant mismatch with its soft proof, it might indicate there's a problem. (Note carefully this is not a printer-to-printer comparison, it's printerA-to-softproofA and printerB-to-softproofB. The goal is to confirm soft-proofing is working well for each printer.)
I would also take Qimage out of the equation for that testing, and print direct from Photoshop, etc, to rule out any of the Qimage / driver funny business.
Only once you've established that your profiling is accurate are you then in a position to make judgments about what's coming out of the 2 printers and how they compare. And then *maybe* what pre-print adjustments you might choose to make to try to improve the match. But your hands may be tied there because if both profiles reflect their printer's capabilities, then there is really no magic wand you can use to make one printer work like the other -- they can't print colours/tones that they can't print. If you tweak the output to a single printer to help optimize it for better results, the mismatch between the 2 printers may widen.
It's my understanding that you can use one printer to proof prints from another. The HP docs discuss this for sure. Again there are many limitations but you could in concept "limit" the output of the "greater printer" to remain within the range of the "lesser printer", and that might in theory bring them closer together (I've never tried this, but I imagine others here have, when proofing commercial presses, etc). You would of course be leaving performance on the table for the better printer. And it also assumes that one is universally better than the other, whereas it's more likely they are simply "different" -- more range in one aspect, less in another.
Anyhow I think that it's only once you've got all the above running solidly with accurate profiles and reliable soft-proofing that you can then throw Qimage into mix and try to debug whatever that's messing up.
I don't know the level of differences you're seeing in the prints right now. If there are significant/gross differences, I suspect there's a process problem above somewhere (and/or it's still Qimage itself). But if the differences are more subtle and you're just seeing the natural limits of each printer's capabilities, then it is what it is, and you'll have to decide which road to take -- trying to get a closer "match", perhaps by using the press-proof method, or accepting that the images will have subtle differences in different sizes because of the equipment differences, and that's simply "an element of the art", in effect like it's actually printed on a different media in that size.
Hope the above helps somehow, or maybe some future reader. Cheers!
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From a P900 user: Rubbish! Zero issues on this end.
Now, the OS (from time to time) is true.
Yeah that raised my eyebrow as well (as regards the HP Z-series). I've seen this "buggy driver" thing discussed before with Qimage. I don't know how much of it truly is a driver thing vs a Qimage thing.
I can say that the HP drivers work well (for me) with their own software and 3rd party apps such as Photoshop, but I'm not a Qimage user. (And I'm hesitant to become one, given the reported difficulties I've seen.)
I will say the later HP "universal" drivers ("V3" and "V4") are problematic and should be avoided. Use the earlier printer-specific drivers instead. Specifically, the universal drivers lack full support for the special features of the Z3100 / Z3200 so they don't work correctly, or at all, including pretty much all of the media management features, such as profiling. The earlier drivers however remain fully functional, even with more recent OSes like Win 10 (and I hear Win 11 as well).
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With Mac the “ universal driver” is the only thing you can use on on the recent Mac OSystems.
It works perfectly for me on the most recent Os, EXCEPT for creating icc profiles. It does calibrate perfectly though. So if I use a new paper I have to use an older Mac. That’s not a problem for me since I have several.
My concern is ink availability and print head availability going forward. I have two of these as backups.
John
quote author=Kyle D Jackson link=topic=143832.msg1260657#msg1260657 date=1723925884]
Yeah that raised my eyebrow as well (as regards the HP Z-series). I've seen this "buggy driver" thing discussed before with Qimage. I don't know how much of it truly is a driver thing vs a Qimage thing.
I can say that the HP drivers work well (for me) with their own software and 3rd party apps such as Photoshop, but I'm not a Qimage user. (And I'm hesitant to become one, given the reported difficulties I've seen.)
I will say the later HP "universal" drivers ("V3" and "V4") are problematic and should be avoided. Use the earlier printer-specific drivers instead. Specifically, the universal drivers lack full support for the special features of the Z3100 / Z3200 so they don't work correctly, or at all, including pretty much all of the media management features, such as profiling. The earlier drivers however remain fully functional, even with more recent OSes like Win 10 (and I hear Win 11 as well).
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It works perfectly for me on the most recent Os, EXCEPT for creating icc profiles. It does calibrate perfectly though.
Calibrate? Are you talking about media settings?
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Yes that’s the terminology HP used. First you print out a specific target and do a “ calibration” which is a linearization, for a specific paper, not generically for the printer . It has a built in i1 Spectro that works very well.
After that step you print a separate color target which they call “ profiling” which creates the icc profile. So essentially every new printhead that you install it requests that you “ recalibrate” but can continue to use the same icc profile, but update the linearization. You can easily relinearize for each new roll of media if you want.
John
quote author=digitaldog link=topic=143832.msg1260665#msg1260665 date=1723999917]
Calibrate? Are you talking about media settings?
[/quote]
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You'll NEVER match the larger color gamut printer with one with a smaller color gamut.
The papers need to be the same of course.
You'll need two good ICC profiles for both printers too.
First, never use Perceptual or any default mode and expect different printers to yield matching results.
If you stick with Rel Col, the printer gamuts don't matter as long as the image is within the gamut of both printers. This can be checked in Photoshop by opening and duplicating the image. The soft proof them using the two printer profiles in Rel Col. Toggling back and forth between images will quickly show any gamut limitations/differences between printers.
I'm assuming here the image is in Adobe RGB 1998 or sRGB and the monitor gamut is at least as large. If not a workaround is to decrease saturation in the Photoshop settings by 20-30% This desaturates both images but it is still easy to see gamut issues because you are only looking at differences between the two flipping back and forth.
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If you stick with Rel Col, the printer gamuts don't matter as long as the image is within the gamut of both printers.
It matters if you try to match a smaller gamut to a larger one. Maybe I wasn't too clear (You'll NEVER match the larger color gamut printer with one with a smaller color gamut.). You can't fit a gallon of water in a quart container. But you can fit a quart of water in a gallon container.
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It matters if you try to match a smaller gamut to a larger one. Maybe I wasn't too clear (You'll NEVER match the larger color gamut printer with one with a smaller color gamut.). You can't fit a gallon of water in a quart container. But you can fit a quart of water in a gallon container.
Are you mixing up the image gamut with the printer gamuts? As long as the image gamut fits within the two printer gamuts prints should match. Doesn't matter how different the printer gamuts are as long as you print in Rel or Abs Col. This is, however, not true for Perc. or Sat. as color mapping within gamut can differ.
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Are you mixing up the image gamut with the printer gamuts?
Printer gamut. The image is the same and could likely exceed one of or both of the printer's gamut.
As long as the image gamut fits within the two printer gamuts prints should match.
And it may not. It isn't difficult at all to find images whose gamut exceeds the printer.(s)
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Yes, if you are printing from files that are tagged with Pro Photo as more and more of us are using these days, it’s likely the files can exceed all pigment printers gamut somewhere. And it’s not easy to know where because the displays are not showing all of it either. Papers play big role.
It looks like the inks in the P 900 and P 9570 that I have are very similar, so it should be possible to match most prints. By tweaking with hue/ saturation and curves adjustment layers you should be able to get there fairly quickly if you are experienced. You wouldn’t necessarily have to do that with every file as you can try dragging those layers into the next Tiff file. If the files are radically different, maybe not. It dependents on the hues and their saturation in the files.
Printer gamut. The image is the same and could likely exceed one of or both of the printer's gamut. And it may not. It isn't difficult at all to find images whose gamut exceeds the printer.(s)
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There's a simple way to make an image that is within gamut on two printers using the same paper. Use 16 bits and select Rel Col and no BPC in all conversions.
1. In Photoshop, convert the image using Rel. Col. and printer1's ICC profile. Then convert back to RGB.
2. Convert this image to printer2's ICC profile the convert back to RGB.
This guarantees that the image is now in gamut for both printers. If you print on both printers, they will match.
You can also compare the intermediate and final image against the original in Photoshop to determine what areas had the gamut clipped. This is usually a problem in the dark areas if the printer's black points differ. I've found it more an issue than in more saturated colors except where the image was enhanced by pushing contrast/saturation. Comparing the final RGB and original in Photoshop is a good way to find those and determine if they are significant.
This, of course, requires that the profiles be high quality. Best if recent and custom made.
Edit: added:
This can also be done if the prints were originally done using Perceptual Intent. Modify step 1 to convert using Perceptual, but then convert back using Relative. And continue to use Rel. Col. for the second conversion. Then, when printing this image to the printers, always use Rel. Col. It will automatically have the initial Perc. Col. and you don't want to apply Perc. twice.
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There's a simple way to make an image that is within gamut on two printers using the same paper.
Of course, it is easy to cripple an image for one printer that wouldn't be crippled on the other.
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Of course, it is easy to cripple an image for one printer that wouldn't be crippled on the other.
Nonsense. The large majority of images I've seen that aren't saturation pushed, especially in ProPhoto, are within gamut of most printers. Well, except for laser printers. I do repro work and it's unusual to repro an image that can't be printed on a wide variety of printers. Biggest issues are paper white point and printer black point which can be a go or no go. And it's pretty critical that the prints match the original.
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Nonsense. The large majority of images I've seen that aren't saturation pushed, especially in ProPhoto, are within gamut of most printers. Well, except for laser printers. I do repro work and it's unusual to repro an image that can't be printed on a wide variety of printers. Biggest issues are paper white point and printer black point which can be a go or no go. And it's pretty critical that the prints match the original.
The large “majority” is specifically how many?
And all those you've seen, you've plotted the 3D gamut, really? 🤥
And I'm posting nonsense; yup.
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The large “majority” is specifically how many?
And all those you've seen, you've plotted the 3D gamut, really? 🤥
And I'm posting nonsense; yup.
I much prefer Matlab to examine distributions where an image is OOG. Photoshop is crude and won't show OOG for printer type ICC profiles until the OOG reaches about dE6. 3D gamuts can be useful but it's hard to read the specifics and trivial in Matlab. For a quick view, flipping between converted images as I outlined earlier works well to spot areas of gamut issues. Keeping in mind that if your working space is larger than your monitor, you need to desaturate in settings. Especially for ProPhoto. While unpleasant to look at, desaturated images are still useful for identifying any areas of issue.
As for the idea that my conversion wrecks images. It only clips color in that part of an image that can't be printed on either printer. If it can't be printed on both then you can't print the image on the two printers and get the same print.
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I much prefer Matlab to examine distributions where an image is OOG. Photoshop is crude and won't show OOG for printer type ICC profiles until the OOG reaches about dE6. 3D gamuts can be useful but it's hard to read the specifics and trivial in Matlab. For a quick view, flipping between converted images as I outlined earlier works well to spot areas of gamut issues. Keeping in mind that if your working space is larger than your monitor, you need to desaturate in settings. Especially for ProPhoto. While unpleasant to look at, desaturated images are still useful for identifying any areas of issue.
As for the idea that my conversion wrecks images. It only clips color in that part of an image that can't be printed on either printer. If it can't be printed on both then you can't print the image on the two printers and get the same print.
That's all just lovely but doesn't answer my simple questions:
The large “majority” is specifically how many?
And all those you've seen, you've plotted the 3D gamut, really? 🤥
And I'm posting nonsense; yup.
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Mostly my repro work is photos or documents. For photos I use an Epson V850. It has severe issues wide area crosstalk. I wrote a program which removes it. There's a good description of the problem at github and why ICC profiles can't correct it. For larger repro's, I photograph the artwork. This involves quite a bit of code as I need to adjust for the illuminant with a reference white sheet. Then dimension adjust and finally correct for color shifts by spot checks with a spectro. Messy. Mostly I work in Abs. Col. and the only problems involve black point issues because my large format printer, Epson 9800, has pretty high black points. So that limits things if I have to have an image that can be matched printed on the Cannon Pro1000 and 9800.
https://github.com/doug3236/scanner_refl_fix
You might also be interested in this utility that aggregates RGB patches for profiling. This allows easy comparison of ICC accuracy by aggregating multiple patch sets, randomizing placement, and printing them all at once.
https://github.com/doug3236/i1Patches
There's also a utility for making B&W ICC that show softproofing correctly using tinted advanced B&W print modes.
https://github.com/doug3236/ABWProfilePatches
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I see you are not going to address my simple questions.
Adios then.
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I see you are not going to address my simple questions.
Adios then.
Which part of why I don't bother with 3D gamut plots did you not understand? I don't waste my time with 3D plots.
As for how many pictures out of the 100-200 I've repro'ed, I don't recall any that were materially OOG outside of BP and there weren't many of those (< 10%) . But there may have been a couple on the edge with color saturation. I just don't recall them. However, these were mostly printed photos. By definition, since the originals were printed years earlier, their gamut was limited by the media.
If you want to make an argument, provide an image (an actual scene w/o synthetic colors) that shows degradation when tripped through the two conversion processes I outlined. Defend your position. You said this:
Of course, it is easy to cripple an image for one printer that wouldn't be crippled on the other.
Really? I'm open to examples.
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Which part of why I don't bother with 3D gamut plots did you not understand?
The large “majority” is specifically how many?
100-200 you've repro'ed? There is hardly a significant sampling with zero data on capture, subject, processing, and proper analysis. When you've spent 5 decades + making images, 3 of them digitally, and you have many tens of thousands under your belt, let's talk about a large majority of images you've seen that aren't saturation pushed, especially in ProPhoto, that are within the gamut of most (not all?) printers.
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Really? I'm open to examples.
There's a very old video I did you can dig up and view. It's all there.
Tonight is the Super Blue Moon (as well as the DNC). I don't know about you, but I'm a photographer. I'm going out to make images. Give it a try.
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There's a very old video I did you can dig up and view. It's all there.
Tonight is the Super Blue Moon (as well as the DNC). I don't know about you, but I'm a photographer. I'm going out to make images. Give it a try.
Well, your stuff is quite good. I consider it the best on the web in terms of general photography and color printing. I have the Canon EOS-1Ds II, and R5. Shoot raw. Gave away my old EOS-1Ds 5 years ago. Mostly I enjoy rural landscape photos.
That said I'm a retired techie/coder professionally. I got deeply into the construction of ICC profiles when looking at some of the differences between i1isis profiles and the OEM ones. Then I got irritated at the design of the V850 scanner. The problem of light that is reflected from surrounding regions causing erroneous readings of Photo IT8 charts for making profiles bugged me. It might even be intentional because it also has the effect of increasing local contrast. Great technique in Photoshop for making an image "pop" more but it's not a realistic scan and it would have been easy enough for the manufacturer to fix. But I found a way to fix it and a side effect is that profiles from IT8 charts produce more accurate results based on spectro spot checking the IT8 charts.