Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: gdanov on March 20, 2011, 06:10:06 pm

Title: Epson 2200 + Ilford gold fibre silk - color mismatch
Post by: gdanov on March 20, 2011, 06:10:06 pm

Hi,
 After reading number of paper threads here, I ordered small pack of the aforementioned ilford paper. The good news - the first portrait I printed with it was so "juicy" that made me bounce with joy.
 The bad news - the picture had visible green cast, exaggerated by the toning. I decided my workflow was to be blamed. Calibrated my monitor, printed BW picture and the green cast was there again. Luminance is OK, very close to my screen. Using the photo black cartrige

 Fast forward and here are my observations after several experiments:

• colors are very accurate and good with Epson's matte paper - I use the matte ink and the built-in profile
• when printing with Ilford paper (profile downloaded & installed & selected), results vary depending on the paper I choose (print->print settings->print settings->media type) . I see only couple of epson papers and 3 generic papers (plain, photo, watercolor). Using photo black of course...
• also printed one picture that had white walls and blue sky  on briliant lustre sample - there was no cast at all, but right now I cannot recall the specific combination of configurations in the print panel

As it turns out, different paper choices give different results with the same color settings; I tested with epson matte and semigloss, the matte giving best color match, but then the quality is limited to 1440dpi. The paper selection working in parallel to the color management configuration totally confuses me.

I have went through the articles on LULA about my printer but cannot find information that makes it more clear. Went also through Michael Freeman's book and I see some luster paper in his paper drop-down which hints me he found a way to add new papers...

Any hints? Wouldn't be surprised if my question is 100% newbie

Cheers,
Georgi

Title: Re: Epson 2200 + Ilford gold fibre silk - color mismatch
Post by: gdanov on March 20, 2011, 06:38:50 pm

after reading the PDF accompanying the profile, I found out the answer to the Media Type "mystery". Reading the manual always helps.

Now only one thing is unclear to me - what should I choose in the Color Matching section of the printer setup page (I'm using Mac)? The manual and my book do not mention it. My guesses:

• when photoshop manages colors, this should be set to EPSON Color Controls and then in the print settings tab I switch off the color corrections
• when photoshop is set to printer managed color, this should be set to ColorSync, then the color corrections are anyway disabled.

Title: Re: Epson 2200 + Ilford gold fibre silk - color mismatch
Post by: gdanov on March 21, 2011, 05:20:55 am

short update, just documenting for the next newbie like me:

When I use printer managed colors with the correct profile and correct media type things look excellent, but only if I check the "send 16 bit data" checkbox in photoshop. not sure why this makes difference, but it does...