Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: William Walker on June 08, 2016, 08:20:11 am
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Hi
I have just had a frustrating day trying to make a print from a painting.
1. I lit the painting with studio lights, using a Color-Checker Passport generated profile and a graycard for white balance.
2. I then made a few small adjustments, with the painting still illuminated, on my calibrated NEC PA272W. I made an accurate on-screen match with the painting.
3. I then soft-proofed the picture and made a print using a custom-made profile for Hahnemuhle Museum Etching on a Canon iPF8400.
There is a Bluish-green colour (jade, according to the artist) that I cannot even get close to - it is miles out! It prints to a dark blue no matter how I try to tweak it...
At some point though, it becomes ridiculous in terms of what a proper colour-managed workflow should be!
The two pictures give you an idea of the problem.
My question is: Can someone pick up something blatant that I have missed, or, are some colours just impossible to reproduce?
PS. I have no similar issues when printing "normal" photographs - the colours I see on my display are pretty-much the colours I get on the print.
Any ideas will be welcomed!
Thanks
William
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This color should be a pice of cake for iPF8400, so apparently something is very wrong here. How did you create custom profile? What rendering intent are you using? Are you using Photoshop Print-Plug in, or printing from driver? PC or Mac?
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Hi
I have just had a frustrating day trying to make a print from a painting.
1. I lit the painting with studio lights, using a Color-Checker Passport generated profile and a graycard for white balance.
Hi William,
Maybe it has something to do with the profile you used as a base profile, e.g. Lightroom and ACR can make use of the Adobe DNG Profile Editor, but it is just a modification of a base profile, and we do not know how good that base profile was for the specific color you are having trouble with. Capture One can also create 'modified' (ICC) profiles with its built-in Color Editor tool.
Building a profile from scratch should give a better chance of success, especially if patches of the difficult color can be added to the profile creation/optimization.
It may also be a result of the camera's native color sensitivity as seen through the CFA. A bluish/green jade color, may well fall exactly between the Green and Blue transmission curves, and it depends on the amount of overlap of both color ranges if it stands a chance of being picked up with good reconstruction quality. So a different camera might in that case solve part of the issue.
2. I then made a few small adjustments, with the painting still illuminated, on my calibrated NEC PA272W. I made an accurate on-screen match with the painting.
3. I then soft-proofed the picture and made a print using a custom-made profile for Hahnemuhle Museum Etching on a Canon iPF8400.
We'll have to assume those profiles were good. You may want to check that by printing some critical test images, or a Granger rainbow.
There is a Bluish-green colour (jade, according to the artist) that I cannot even get close to - it is miles out! It prints to a dark blue no matter how I try to tweak it...
At some point though, it becomes ridiculous in terms of what a proper colour-managed workflow should be!
Well, most camera profiles are created for pleasing colors, not accurate ones. You need something more accurate than pleasing.
Cheers,
Bart
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I agree with Marcin that the extent of disconnect shown between the print and the original is egregious. Whether it should be a "piece of cake" or not - in any inkjet printer - is another question. The spectral properties of paints - how they are lit and how they reflect light are known for their ability to bedevil our standard profiling approaches, even with very good profile making equipment.
I think it's necessary to begin the remedial work from the lighting of the painting onward. The colour temperature of the lighting could be influencing the problem, notwithstanding that you use a gray patch for neutralizing the lighting. When you use a gray patch to neutralize a colour cast caused by the lighting, it may not be readjusting all the other colours accurately, perhaps partly on account of the properties of the paint colours - and this would happen well before the printing stage. This readjustment happens in your raw converter, so the choice of camera profile, or perhaps the creation of a custom camera profile may be a useful precaution.
For the print stage, there is considerable discussion on the Internet about creating profiles for dealing with the accurate reproduction of paintings and drawings. It may be useful to consult that literature. Recall that every museum and publisher dealing with the archiving or dissemination of photographs of paintings, whether oil or watercolours, needs to deal with this problem. They manage it more or less successfully - some very successfully with a lot of post-processing. But I agree with Peter that "compromise" is often the state of the art and science. It is very often necessary to intervene with targeted adjustments of specific colours in the photo editing stage to get everything to reproduce to an acceptable degree of perceptual similarity with the original - do not count on profiling alone as a complete solution. Soft-proofing is essential to minimize waste and frustration.
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Reproduction work is some of the most demanding technically, and least demanding artistically, processes in color capture/printing.
To emphasize what has been said already, the most critical aspect of repro work is that the captured image should be processed using a "scene referenced" profile. Either an ICC profile or an Adobe DCP. Also, it's very difficult to do repro work without a spectro to measure the accuracy of critical colors on the print v those on the original.
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This color should be a pice of cake for iPF8400, so apparently something is very wrong here. How did you create custom profile? What rendering intent are you using? Are you using Photoshop Print-Plug in, or printing from driver? PC or Mac?
Thank you all for your replies, let me try and answer a few questions:
1. I created the profile in Lightroom using the X-Rite Preset - Export to ColourChecker Passport. (See Pic).
2. Once the profile is loaded I reset/check white balance.
3. Rendering intent - Perceptual - it looked better than Relative.
4. All this is done through Lightroom on a MacPro with NEC display.
The section of "jade" actually shows "out-of-gamut" during soft-proofing, but disappears after a -26 reduction of Aqua Saturation - makes no difference.
Mark - I take your point about having to go in and do targeted adjustments, but like Marcin, I also cannot believe that the iPF8400 is not capable of producing that colour!
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Mark - I take your point about having to go in and do targeted adjustments, but like Marcin, I also cannot believe that the iPF8400 is not capable of producing that colour!
Looks like a head-banger! Can you try this test: read several characteristic spots of the troublesome colour off the original with a spectro; read the LAB values of the colours you sampled, then go into Photoshop this time and create patches having those LAB colours, save them as TIFF files, softproof them with your printing profile and see what emerges - check with Relative, Perceptual and Absolute RI just in case they are OOG, to see which handles them best. Are you using ProPhoto colour space for all your work? if not, there is more risk of saturation clipping.
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4. All this is done through Lightroom on a MacPro with NEC display
How did you print targets to create the profile? Are you aware of Canon iPF driver issue with ColorSync? Did you use Doyle Yoder's patch to fix it?
http://www.dypinc.com/Canon/AppColorMatchingInfo.xml.zip
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Adobe Color Print Utility downloadable free from the Adobe website as well.
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Adobe Color Print Utility downloadable free from the Adobe website as well.
Due to ColorSync + iPF driver issue LR doesn't turn off ColorSync conversion, so when you manually select ICC profile in LR Print module, double color management occurs. You need to apply Doyle's patch to fix this issue.
This could also affect targets printed to create custom HGE profile, that's why I'm asking about the way they were printed.
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Hi Marcin, yes I know what the issue is. I was just suggesting that an alternative way of printing profiling targets without risk of interfering colour management is to use the Adobe Color Print Utility - it was designed for that and at least it works fine from Epson printers, as it did when I used it for Canon's new Pro-1000. Is there a reason why it wouldn't work as well for the previous generation of Canon professional printers?
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The iPF PRO series drivers are fixed by Canon.
As for ACPU and iPF x400, I'm just not certain - I fixed the issue with Doyle's patch years ago, and always printed targets from PS Print Plug-in (which is more convenient than ACPU).
There's a chance that the target was printed the right way, so the OP should just apply the Doyle's patch and everything should get back to normal. Otherwise I'd use stock Hahnemühle profile, or Canon profile for textured heavyweight fine art paper.
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OK thanks.
Actually ACPU is pretty easy to use - same basic driver settings as for regular printing. It eliminates colour management as a concern for printing profiling targets. I've found it really reliable. You may recall the history.
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I doubt the problem is on the printer side. It sounds more like the photographed image is being processed using the normal Output Referenced process. For artwork reproduction you need a Scene Referenced (except for white point) DCP or ICC and the image has to start off as a RAW image. Camera images that are generated as jpegs are virtually always Output Referenced and have S-curves applied for dynamic range reduction. This will never produce good images for reproduction.
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I doubt the problem is on the printer side. It sounds more like the photographed image is being processed using the normal Output Referenced process. For artwork reproduction you need a Scene Referenced (except for white point) DCP or ICC and the image has to start off as a RAW image. Camera images that are generated as jpegs are virtually always Output Referenced and have S-curves applied for dynamic range reduction. This will never produce good images for reproduction.
OP doesn't say directly, but some information suggests he probably works with raw files. The intriguing thing that points to printing as the issue was his statement that he got a good match between the softproofed photo on his display and the painting itself. This would seem to suggest that the capture end of the process may be OK.
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OP doesn't say directly, but some information suggests he probably works with raw files. The intriguing thing that points to printing as the issue was his statement that he got a good match between the softproofed photo on his display and the painting itself. This would seem to suggest that the capture end of the process may be OK.
True. But he also says his normal printing works fine. Hard to know what's going on. We really need more specific information on his workflow and settings from the camera on. It sure looks like he isn't using scene referenced processes. And he may have printer workflow issues on top of that. With a reasonable setup you can get pretty good results doing repro without even looking at a monitor image. Even though cameras are not particularly good colorimetric devices they do have excellent linearity in RAW mode and reasonably good color. But I've never seen blue colors as far off as he's getting.
What color space are the linked images in? They are untagged so I assume sRGB. Cyan and teal in sRGB are well within the gamut of virtually any printer.
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True. But he also says his normal printing works fine. Hard to know what's going on. We really need more specific information on his workflow and settings from the camera on. It sure looks like he isn't using scene referenced processes. And he may have printer workflow issues on top of that. With a reasonable setup you can get pretty good results doing repro without even looking at a monitor image. Even though cameras are not particularly good colorimetric devices they do have excellent linearity in RAW mode and reasonably good color. But I've never seen blue colors as far off as he's getting.
What color space are the linked images in? They are untagged so I assume sRGB. Cyan and teal in sRGB are well within the gamut of virtually any printer.
Yes, I also raised the colour working space issue in Reply #7. If indeed they are in sRGB, it's quite conceivable that the troublesome part of the colour spectrum is OOG for sRGB, and if that's the case, then depending on his RI, the OOG colours would be remapped to "something", and it is that "something" which bears such poor resemblance to the original artwork. But you are quite correct we need more information - this is only suggestive and hypothetical.
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Yes, I also raised the colour working space issue in Reply #7. If indeed they are in sRGB, it's quite conceivable that the troublesome part of the colour spectrum is OOG for sRGB, and if that's the case, then depending on his RI, the OOG colours would be remapped to "something", and it is that "something" which bears such poor resemblance to the original artwork. But you are quite correct we need more information - this is only suggestive and hypothetical.
Indeed. Those are all good points.
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I just did a test conversion of his sRGB? top reference image (the one the OP says looks exactly like the original painting) converting to numerous coated/uncoated web press profiles, Frontier Dry Lab profiles using RI, AbsCoL and Perceptual intents and they all reproduced the jade color without a problem considering Soft Proof works as it should.
The jade in the reference sRGB image has a clipped red channel to zero, converting to AdobeRGB shows no clipped numbers. I bet you my $50 Epson All In One using Printer Manages Color on my Mac could reproduce that jade easily. Something is really screwed up with the profile or how it's communicating with the Canon printer driver.
Like Marcin suggested try using the downloadable paper profile or a canned profile to see if it can reproduce the jade color.
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Something is really screwed up with the profile or how it's communicating with the Canon printer driver.
Like Marcin suggested try using the downloadable paper profile or a canned profile to see if it can reproduce the jade color.
Tim, if you go back to William's originating post, Step 3, the softproof generated from his custom profile works at least on his display. Not ruling out the possibility that his B>A and A>B tables in the profile are behaving inconsistently (i.e. as you suggest, screwed-up profile), but I wonder how likely. In any event the suggestion to try using a canned profile would indeed be a good check for that.
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Edit: ignore this post. pure nonsense. I found I could simulate the blue outcome in softproof, but there's no way to do this in a print dialogue, so my hunch that the OP was hitting an incorrect setting somewhere is a waste of time.
Looking at the two images in the original post I tried to simulate the blue outcome in PS by messing around with assigning profiles and trying various soft-proofing settings.
Questions for the OP:
Are you printing through PS?
If so, is the 'Preserve RGB numbers' box perhaps checked?
If not then I'm out of ideas for now.
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I doubt the problem is on the printer side. It sounds more like the photographed image is being processed using the normal Output Referenced process. For artwork reproduction you need a Scene Referenced (except for white point) DCP or ICC and the image has to start off as a RAW image. Camera images that are generated as jpegs are virtually always Output Referenced and have S-curves applied for dynamic range reduction. This will never produce good images for reproduction.
Hi Doug
I am not sure what "Output Referenced" and "Scene Referenced" processes are...to be clear, I am using a Canon 5dSR, RAW and ProPhoto Colour Space. The artwork was lit by two 5500k "Neutral daylight" softboxes at 45 degrees to the artwork and the colours were matched from the display to the artwork under the same lights.
Marcin, thanks for the link to the Doyle's patch - Before I do anything, does this screenshot tell you whether I need to use the patch?
Thank you all for your input so far!
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Hi Doug
I am not sure what "Output Referenced" and "Scene Referenced" processes are...to be clear, I am using a Canon 5dSR, RAW and ProPhoto Colour Space. The artwork was lit by two 5500k "Neutral daylight" softboxes at 45 degrees to the artwork and the colours were matched from the display to the artwork under the same lights.
Marcin, thanks for the link to the Doyle's patch - Before I do anything, does this screenshot tell you whether I need to use the patch?
Thank you all for your input so far!
When you Scene Refer and convert a RAW file you retain colorimetric values and are limited only by the gamut boundaries in whatever colorspace you choose. Conventionally you are allowed to white balance but that's all.
As an example if you had a camera with a perfect (theoretical only) CRI (color rendering index) you could take a picture of a ColorChecker (or anything else) in D50, Convert the RAW image as Scene Referenced to ProPhoto and look at the Lab values of each of the squares and they would match, within instrumentation error, the measured values of the patches.
If you took the same RAW image and converted it as Output Referenced, i.e., images not intended for repro purposes, then both colors and tone curve would be significantly different. When printed, the second whitest patch would be brighter due to "S curve" compression. Same in the opposite direction for the blackest patch.
http://www.color.org/scene-referred.xalter
A scene-referred image is an image where the image data is an encoding of the colors of a scene (relative to each other), as opposed to a picture of a scene. In a picture, the colors are typically altered to make them more pleasing to viewers when viewed using some target medium.
The emergence of a wider variety of reproduction media, and the penetration of digital workflows into virtually all aspects of imaging have led to increased interest in the exchange of camera raw and scene-referred images. Such images can subsequently be color rendered to different reproduction media, optimizing the image for each. Camera raw and scene-referred workflows are fundamentally different from output-referred workflows, such as those based on sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998) image exchange.
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I am not sure what "Output Referenced" and "Scene Referenced" processes are...
http://www.color.org/ICC_white_paper_20_Digital_photography_color_management_basics.pdf
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Marcin, thanks for the link to the Doyle's patch - Before I do anything, does this screenshot tell you whether I need to use the patch?
Everything seems to be ok, so apparently it's not a matter of this issue and you don't need a patch.
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Everything seems to be ok, so apparently it's not a matter of this issue and you don't need a patch.
Thanks! I followed the "Scene Referenced" instructions as per the ICC white paper - the colours appear (on the display) pretty close to the original painting - the problem seems to be in the printing. I will try a canned profile.
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Something basic, rather than esoteric is wrong. Those colors might be (probably are) out of gamut, but bringing them back into gamut would be much, much closer to the original compared with what your results are. in this case, those colors in your two images are not off a little and are unacceptable.....they are a million miles apart.
Brad
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Something basic, rather than esoteric is wrong. Those colors might be (probably are) out of gamut, but bringing them back into gamut would be much, much closer to the original compared with what your results are. in this case, those colors in your two images are not off a little and are unacceptable.....they are a million miles apart.
Brad
Yes, I agree, something basic; but what? It isn't clear yet whether the problem is at the capture end or the printing end of the workflow. It could be either, though there was some evidence it may be at the printing end (the screen match between image and painting). A friend is having a similar issue and in his case it turns out that a custom camera profile made with BasicColor Input and very careful attention to lighting has gone a very long way to solving his problem. Doesn't necessarily mean the same applies to this case. The OP needs to do more stage by stage analysis to ascertain the real cause; then a solution would be closer at hand.
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I have just had a frustrating day trying to make a print from a painting.
2. I then made a few small adjustments, with the painting still illuminated, on my calibrated NEC PA272W. I made an accurate on-screen match with the painting.
What exactly do you mean by that? It sounds like you uncalibrated a previously calibrated monitor to make it match your uncalibrated camera.
The camera profile converts RGB to LAB numbers in the computer. The monitor profile then converts those LAB numbers in the computer to an RGB value on the screen.
If the LAB numbers captured were wrong then adjusting the monitor makes it worse.
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Take the display itself out of the equation for a moment and simply print a reference test print such as those, for example, on Keith Cooper's or Andrew Rodney's websites:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/test_images.html
or
http://www.digitaldog.net/files/Gamut_Test_File_Flat.tif
for example. These kinds of files are constructed to be "correct" and test the capabilities of your printer and print workflow - depending upon which you select, there may be colors in the reference file that are out of gamut for your printer. However, you can print a reference print without even displaying it on your monitor, the point being that it should print "correctly" without your intervention, editing, worrying about color balance, etc. If you print it and then compare it to your display, and one looks way out of whack compared to the other, then you can start to isolate the problem without speculating as to the effects of your workflow on the output of each device.
It may be "better" to select or contrive a test file that is in sRGB so that the colors in the image file will fit into the gamut of both your display and your printer (within reason), eliminating the issues of way out of gamut color from confounding your troubleshooting.
Also, while not exactly germane to your specific workflow, here is a worthwhile read regarding repro imaging and the under-the-hood mechanics of raw conversion for artwork.
http://www.trumpetpower.com/photos/Exposure
good luck,
kirk
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The camera profile converts RGB to LAB numbers in the computer.
it actually depends on raw converter... some don't use lab anywhere in color transform related processing all, but use for other purposes - like masking - ACR/LR for example
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What exactly do you mean by that? It sounds like you uncalibrated a previously calibrated monitor to make it match your uncalibrated camera.
The camera profile converts RGB to LAB numbers in the computer. The monitor profile then converts those LAB numbers in the computer to an RGB value on the screen.
If the LAB numbers captured were wrong then adjusting the monitor makes it worse.
No Bob, what I meant to say was that my monitor is properly calibrated, the tweaks I made were in Lightroom, so that the the colours on the (properly calibrated) display matched the colours of the painting.
The print is where I am battling to match the colours on both the display and the painting itself.
Keep in mind that it is only with this particular image that I am having a problem. My "normal' day-to-day printing of my landscape photography and for other people for who I print are fine.
I digitised 22 pieces of artwork for another artist and had a similar problem with 2 of those, the rest were fine. The problem seems to be in the green/blue areas. It just seems crazy that my prints normally get pretty close to what I see on the display, but not in this instance...
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I digitised 22 pieces of artwork for another artist and had a similar problem with 2 of those, the rest were fine. The problem seems to be in the green/blue areas. It just seems crazy that my prints normally get pretty close to what I see on the display, but not in this instance...
Do you mind providing link to download the custom profile you made for your printer+paper combination?
kirk
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The print is where I am battling to match the colours on both the display and the painting itself.
Keep in mind that it is only with this particular image that I am having a problem. My "normal' day-to-day printing of my landscape photography and for other people for who I print are fine.
I digitised 22 pieces of artwork for another artist and had a similar problem with 2 of those, the rest were fine. The problem seems to be in the green/blue areas. It just seems crazy that my prints normally get pretty close to what I see on the display, but not in this instance...
Hi,
I suggested the printing of a Granger rainbow test image (https://www.dropbox.com/s/iiizewy9nzu0pvy/GrangerRainbow.tif.zip?dl=0), as it would indicate if there is a gap or other discontinuity in the blue-green colour rendering by the output profile. If there is, then you've found the issue (and need another profile for the specific medium). Do try printing with different Rendering intents, they will make different trade-offs.
Cheers,
Bart
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Everything seems to be ok, so apparently it's not a matter of this issue and you don't need a patch.
Hi Marcin - when I try to print from Colormunki to create a new profile, I get these "options"...(this is with Doyle's Patch) which are greyed-out.
Is this my problem?
Thanks
William
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Hi Marcin - when I try to print from Colormunki to create a new profile, I get these "options"...(this is with Doyle's Patch) which are greyed-out.
Is this my problem?
Thanks
William
Will,
Color Mode: greyed-out "Color" indicates that the printed targets are color managed by printer driver so yes, there's something wrong, there should be "No Color Correction".
Try saving the targets and print them from PS using Photoshop iPF PrintPlugin:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19059944/Zrzut%20ekranu%202016-06-17%2017.49.06.png)
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The jade in the reference sRGB image has a clipped red channel to zero, converting to AdobeRGB shows no clipped numbers.
The over-saturation (clipped reds) in both posted images seems to be similar, according to Show Image.
Here's the saturation planes compared:
http://kronometric.org/phot/post/LL/compSat.jpg
The hues are quite different though. Might be a clue there:
http://kronometric.org/phot/post/LL/compHue.jpg
Rgds,
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The over-saturation (clipped reds) in both posted images seems to be similar, according to Show Image.
Here's the saturation planes compared:
http://kronometric.org/phot/post/LL/compSat.jpg
The hues are quite different though. Might be a clue there:
http://kronometric.org/phot/post/LL/compHue.jpg
Rgds,
Have you printed a crop of the jade color in the OP's posted jpeg of the source file on your printer using similar hot press type paper/profile, or just printing with "Printer Manages Color"? This is a tagged image that should communicate to the printer what ink amount combination gets dropped on the paper to reproduce that jade color. The numbers don't matter of course.
I only made that point to indicate that particular hue of jade may or may not be right on the edge of the printer's color gamut capabilities to where there may now be a very narrow space on the target to get it or not get it on paper. Can't recall in this thread if someone mapped that jade to see if it fits within that particular printer/paper combo reproduction capability.
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I would like to start off by thanking everyone who has helped me!
I have been quite busy this week and have not been able to respond as quickly as I would have liked.
I have spent the most of today trying to make some progress...
A. I made new profiles for three different papers using Simon Simpson's PDF work-around (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=91177.0) and have not had any success. When soft-proofing, the picture becomes very "muddy" - awful. The print then ends up looking nothing like neither the original nor the soft-proof!
B. I tried a glossy Canon photo paper with both my profile and the canned profile and ended up with the same blues that I started with originally.
C. I printed the Granger rainbow as per Bart's instructions (Perceptual frist and then Relative) and have posted the results below. What do you make of that Bart? Clearly a problem there. (NB!! That is on the Canon Photo Paper with the canned profile.)
D. Finally, as a long shot, I used some cheap coated paper with a Canon "Coated Paper" Canned Profile and got as close to the jade as to be just about perfect!???
I am not sure now if I am any closer to an answer...perhaps someone can pick up something from this?
Thanks again for your time! I really appreciate it!
William
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C. I printed the Granger rainbow as per Bart's instructions (Perceptual frist and then Relative) and have posted the results below. What do you make of that Bart? Clearly a problem there. (NB!! That is on the Canon Photo Paper with the canned profile.)
Hi William,
As I somewhat expected, there is a profile issue in that Blue/Green/Jade region. The Relative Rendering intent is a bit smoother than Perceptual, but not real smooth yet. So I suspect a reprofiling might be at least a partial solution, since camera sensitivity curves do not play a role in the Granger Rainbow.
It's still a bit strange that the resulting color shift is so drastic, but it might be tied to the profile issue.
Cheers,
Bart
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Reviewing the discussion to date on this thread, and based on gamut testing I've done in the context of my various printer and paper reviews for this website, I am landing on a high probability that Tim Lookingbill nailed it correctly in his post #37. I do know that between an Epson 4900 (very wide gamut capability) and an Epson P800 or Canon iPF Pro-1000 (narrower range of gamut capabilities compared with the 4900), there is a reduction of gamut potential and the colours that most bore the brunt of that were in a narrow band of bright green to yellow-ish. This seems pretty close to some variants of jade, and therefore support's Tim's observation.
So, the path to a solution that occurs to me is to try to eek-out the widest possible gamut rendition you can from that iPF8400, which of course raises questions about the capability of the iPF8400, the gamut rendering potential of the paper and the "reach" of the profile. So I had a look at all this for you. Because Canon's website is a train-wreck for finding such things, I went to Ilford's instead, where I easily downloaded their profiles for Gold Fibre Gloss (a very wide gamut paper) for both the Epson 4900 and Canon iPF 8400. Then I compared these profiles in ColorThink Pro, and here is what I found: for the 4900, gamut volume is very close to 978K. For the iPF8400, gamut volume is a tad over 880K - hence considerably less gamut on the IPF8400 for the same paper. Then the question is, where does the gamut take a hit on the iPF8400. For that, a three dimensional diagram generated in ColorThink Pro helps a lot. Please see the illustration, where the multi-colour is the Epson 4900 and the solid red is the Canon iPF8400. You will see that in the full range where that jade hue could fall, it may just be out of gamut for that printer/paper combination.
I have also determined from my prior research that making custom profiles - with high quality profiling equipment - can often expand gamut relative to OEM profiles. So perhaps your next step would be to either make or order a high quality profile for the widest gamut paper you can use and see whether it eeks out enough to reproduce the jade more correctly. Wide gamut papers would include such as Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Ilford Gold Fibre Gloss, Hahn FA Baryta Satin, Canon Pro Luster, Epson Legacy Baryta, Canson or Epson Legacy Platine, Canson Baryta Photographique, and there are others. The custom profiling should be done with better than a Colormunki. If you don't have an i1Pro and i1Profiler, I would recommend using a good custom service that does. If you do not have ColorThink Pro for analyzing the profiles you are now using or the one you eventually order, you can send them to me and I shall read them for you. I do suspect we are closing-in on a gamut/profiling issue that just happens to hit that part of the spectrum a bit hard. The only other thing I can think of is that the spectral properties of the paint are such that conventional ICC profiling targets are not well-adapted to the subject matter at hand. I have also seen this issue some years ago. But I suggest first seeing what is the best that can be produced from that printer and a really good profile on paper that has very wide gamut rendering potential.
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The only other thing I can think of is that the spectral properties of the paint are such that conventional ICC profiling targets are not well-adapted to the subject matter at hand. I have also seen this issue some years ago. But I suggest first seeing what is the best that can be produced from that printer and a really good profile on paper that has very wide gamut rendering potential.
Good observation and a definite possibility. Some pigments are spectrally not very smooth in their transitions. This can interact with spectrally spiky illuminants tor produce significant metameric error. I encountered this on products ostensibly designed with spectrally smooth pigments. GMB had a color hue test they sold with carefully pigmented tiles in adjacent hues which you would line up and score based on the number of out-of-sequence tiles. I could normally arrange them perfectly under a North facing window but had a couple out of sequence when using a high CRI (93) CFL color booth. Out of curiosity I recorded the spectrum of the illuminant and mismatched tiles. Sure enough there was a slight, narrow, bump up in the reflectance spectrum where a major illuminant spectral spike presented.
Artists, unlike GMB's tile specifiers, aren't looking at the spectral smoothness of their pigments and there could be some sort of amplification of color shift due to the relative position of peaks both in the pigments and illuminant.
Might be worth an investment in Solux 5000K lamps or higher CRI studio lamps. Flash strobes are also very good.
On another point, since the OP has a colormunki I would recommend creating several patches in Photoshop around the colors that are not reproducing correctly. Print them using Absolute Colorimetric. Then measure the Lab values of those patches with Argyll's free software. If there's a gamut issue or if supposedly in gamut colors are being printed with a large hue shift then it can be quantified and any new profile, customer, manufacturer, or otherwise, can be easily compared for accuracy in those colors by doing the same.
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Have you printed a crop of the jade color in the OP's posted jpeg of the source file on your printer using similar hot press type paper/profile, or just printing with "Printer Manages Color"? This is a tagged image that should communicate to the printer what ink amount combination gets dropped on the paper to reproduce that jade color. The numbers don't matter of course.
Sorry, I don't print. My post was offered for it's worth, not as a rebuttal of anything said.
I only made that point to indicate that particular hue of jade may or may not be right on the edge of the printer's color gamut capabilities to where there may now be a very narrow space on the target to get it or not get it on paper. Can't recall in this thread if someone mapped that jade to see if it fits within that particular printer/paper combo reproduction capability.
Can't do that kind of mapping; could open each image in ColorThink but don't have the profiles compare, sorry.
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Something basic, rather than esoteric is wrong. Those colors might be (probably are) out of gamut, but bringing them back into gamut would be much, much closer to the original compared with what your results are. in this case, those colors in your two images are not off a little and are unacceptable.....they are a million miles apart.
Brad
You got me to think about that and upon further examination of the OP's original shot of the print, not only is the jade way off but all the rest of the colors as well which looks kind of familiar. So familiar that with some rummaging around in my printer profiles in Photoshop I found ONLY ONE (Epson Proofing Paper) that mimics those colors exactly (or close enough) by assigning it to the OP's original sRGB image after first converting it to AdobeRGB. See screengrab below.
Decided to print a crop of the OP's original sRGB image on my Epson NX330 "All In One" using "Printer Manages Color" and at first try got a white balance mismatch as I've always gotten and to correct reduce the blue channel middle slider in Photoshop Levels. Pretty good match.
See Raw shot of the print lit under daylight fluorescent T8 tubes taken with my Pentax K100D and processed to match in ACR 6.7.
It's not hairsplitting exact but at least it's not a million miles off compared to the OP's original shot of the print. The jade is within gamut of an inkjet.
And just FYI the Epson NX330 print of this jade lit under my daylight flotubes was difficult to get the same intensity viewed on my sRGB display. Sliding the Aqua Hue/Sat in ACR barely made a dent in changing the jade. It just got lighter so I just made look as close to the Epson print as possible.
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You got me to think about that and upon further examination of the OP's original shot of the print, not only is the jade way off but all the rest of the colors as well which looks kind of familiar. So familiar that with some rummaging around in my printer profiles in Photoshop I found ONLY ONE (Epson Proofing Paper) that mimics those colors exactly (or close enough) by assigning it to the OP's original sRGB image after first converting it to AdobeRGB. See screengrab below.
Decided to print a crop of the OP's original sRGB image on my Epson NX330 "All In One" using "Printer Manages Color" and at first try got a white balance mismatch as I've always gotten and to correct reduce the blue channel middle slider in Photoshop Levels. Pretty good match.
See Raw shot of the print lit under daylight fluorescent T8 tubes taken with my Pentax K100D and processed to match in ACR 6.7.
It's not hairsplitting exact but at least it's not a million miles off compared to the OP's original shot of the print. The jade is within gamut of an inkjet.
And just FYI the Epson NX330 print of this jade lit under my daylight flotubes was difficult to get the same intensity viewed on my sRGB display. Sliding the Aqua Hue/Sat in ACR barely made a dent in changing the jade. It just got lighter so I just made look as close to the Epson print as possible.
You managed in quite a methodical way to get some convergence, but it's a fair bit of work-about which perhaps shouldn't be necessary in a normal workflow producing acceptable output, so reverting to Square-1: His original photo is a raw file in ProPhoto space, so it is unlikely that he clipped the jade at the capture stage. He used Museum Etching paper, which is a relatively lower gamut paper (being matte). He also says this colour is the only one he sees as "off". So I am still thinking he has an OOG problem with that particular colour range, which may be resolved using a luster paper and a good custom profile. .
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You managed in quite a methodical way to get some convergence, but it's a fair bit of work-about which perhaps shouldn't be necessary in a normal workflow producing acceptable output, so reverting to Square-1: His original photo is a raw file in ProPhoto space, so it is unlikely that he clipped the jade at the capture stage. He used Museum Etching paper, which is a relatively lower gamut paper (being matte). He also says this colour is the only one he sees as "off". So I am still thinking he has an OOG problem with that particular colour range, which may be resolved using a luster paper and a good custom profile. .
I didn't say the OP clipped the jade at the capture stage.
He also says this colour is the only one he sees as "off".
He also said the original ProPhotoRGB image which he posted in sRGB in his OP looks very close to the painting. That sRGB image shows skin tone a somewhat saturated pinkish orange while the print shows it as dull yellow.
How can only the jade be off.
But even more puzzling is how can you explain the close match of the assigned Epson printer profile to the AdobeRGB. In color management either it's WAY off or it's slightly off. But to have some random box of colors that represents the print shot with a digital camera match up by just assigning ONE out of a long list of printer profiles is more than a coincidence wouldn't you say?
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Correct - it's not you, it's me saying he didn't clip at the capture stage - I'm just trying to rehash from "SQ-1" where we have headed from....to!
I'm taking his word about the other colours because he sees what's actually on paper relative to what is on his display, but we don't. Who knows what happened going from ProPhoto raw to sRGB JPEGs posted here. It can get very confusing. I'm not sure what to make of one profile amongst many working reasonably well - could be a fluke, especially as it's a profile that isn't related to the paper he is using. I don't have a view one way or another on that happy coincidence.
So knitting together eveything he told us and assuming he has good visual perception, as seems reasonable based on what he reports about what he is doing, I would prefer to take his word that he is having one CM issue with the reproduction of the "jade range" and if that's the case, I think the cause is one of four things: (1) the paper gamut is inadequate (quite likely); (2) the printer gamut is inadequate (less likely with wide gamut potential paper); (3) the profile is inadequate (more likely), (4) the spectral response of that colour range is causing an issue (quite possible). To deal with items (1), (2) and (3) he should get a high quality custom profile made by a reputable provider and test it. If that solves the problem, he's home free and has his colour-managed work flow back in order. If it doesn't solve the problem, the issue is then likely item (4) in which case he probably needs a profile based on a target that can handle those paint hues.
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Continuing further from Reply 46, I went to the Hahnemuhle site and downloaded/analyzed their Museum Etching profile for the iPF 8400. The gamut volume is a slender 479K, while in that printer for IGFG it is 880K. When you compare it with the gamut volume of IGFG in the same printer, the result is what you see in the attached illustration, where IGFG is multi-colour and Hahn Museum Etching is red. There is no red to be seen in the 3D anywhere near where the jade range would sit. I think William you should try printing this photo with IGFG or a paper similar to IGFG using the manufacturer's profile and see what happens to the rendition of jade. Perhaps do this before going to the trouble of getting a custom profile. The whole problem may be gamut constraint in that particular colour range for that paper.
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As I said in my post yesterday, the last ditch print I did using a 180gsm "Bond Paper" with Canon's Bond Paper Canned Profile produced a colour "close enough". I mean, really close.
Here is a picture taken with my iPhone showing the difference, which is: the larger print on the left would be the colour blue that appeared on just about everything I tried (from matt to glossy) - including canned profiles.
The smaller print on the right is the Bond paper print (no soft-proofing) - the difference you see there is what the problem has been from the start. The small print is fine as far as I am concerned - which means the iFP 8400 can print that particular colour.
Does this not narrow this down to the profile then?
William
PS. Mark, I am blown away by the trouble that you have gone to! Thank you.
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As I said in my post yesterday, the last ditch print I did using a 180gsm "Bond Paper" with Canon's Bond Paper Canned Profile produced a colour "close enough". I mean, really close.
Here is a picture taken with my iPhone showing the difference, which is: the larger print on the left would be the colour blue that appeared on just about everything I tried (from matt to glossy) - including canned profiles.
The smaller print on the right is the Bond paper print (no soft-proofing) - the difference you see there is what the problem has been from the start. The small print is fine as far as I am concerned - which means the iFP 8400 can print that particular colour.
Does this not narrow this down to the profile then?
William
PS. Mark, I am blown away by the trouble that you have gone to! Thank you.
So the one on the left is Hahn Museum Etching Paper? This is what you indicated in your OP. Or is that Bond Paper too?
The Bond Paper version on the right is REALLY close and that iPhone is pretty accurate with color rendering which is surprising. Don't know if you had to edit it.
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So the one on the left is Hahn Museum Etching Paper? This is what you indicated in your OP. Or is that Bond Paper too?
The Bond Paper version on the right is REALLY close and that iPhone is pretty accurate with color rendering which is surprising. Don't know if you had to edit it.
No Tim, that particular print - on the left - was the Canon Glossy Photo paper with their canned profile. However, it is representative/typical of all the prints I made regardless of paper, texture or profile.
Thanks to you too for your interest!
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William - the whole discussion is totally over engeneered, while there's some basic issue in your workflow/application settings.
Printed on matte fine art paper with Fine Art Heavyweight Photo stock Canon profile, with iPF8300:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19059944/Jade.jpg)
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The whole problem may be gamut constraint in that particular colour range for that paper.
Nonsense. This phtalo green doesn't get even close to the gamut of iPF8300 on matte FA media:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19059944/Zrzut%20ekranu%202016-06-19%2013.13.18.png)
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No, it's not *necessarily* nonsense because I've seen this kind of thing before. Starting from his original file in ProPhoto space, it depends on the specific Lab recipe of the jade range relative to the specific gamut size and more important perhaps gamut shape of the profile(s) that seem(s) to be causing the problem. You claim there is a *basic issue* in William's workflow and application settings. I think William has provided enough information putting together the content of several posts above to indicate that he knows his way around colour management and printer settings; not to say mistakes can't still happen, but for avoidance of doubt William, perhaps you can provide screen grabs of all the colour management and printer settings you used that gave you the wrong outcome, so we can see whether Marcin's suggestion turns out to be correct.
I wanted to add, William, as Tim has found a profile that he thinks seems to work for your image, it may be an idea to use that same profile on the Museum Etching paper in your iPF 8400 (I know, a mismatch of profile and paper) to see whether *by any chance* it contributes to a solution.
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William provided enough information to conclude there's something terribly wrong, so that the colours on his prints are completely distorted.
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William provided enough information to conclude there's something terribly wrong, so that the colours on his prints are completely distorted.
As I said, not impossible, but precisely WHAT? That's why I suggested we see all his settings and that he try several experiments, rather than be contented with general statements to the effect that "something is wrong" or there is a "basic issue". William needs a solution and as you no doubt know, the right solution depends on a clear and specific understanding of the problem's cause. Some of us are trying to be helpful by pursuing a number of approaches that may lead to an operationally significant diagnosis.
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As I said, not impossible, but precisely WHAT?
It looks exactly like an sRGB image printed with no color conversion (like a target):
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19059944/IMG_4958.JPG)
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Well, this isn't my understanding of what he is doing.
William, at the risk of getting tedious, grateful if you could gather in one place the details and screen grabs of ALL the capture, colour management and print settings you used that generated the original problem you observed and let's see if we can detect more or different than what has been said so far.
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No Bob, what I meant to say was that my monitor is properly calibrated, the tweaks I made were in Lightroom, so that the the colours on the (properly calibrated) display matched the colours of the painting.
The print is where I am battling to match the colours on both the display and the painting itself.
Keep in mind that it is only with this particular image that I am having a problem. My "normal' day-to-day printing of my landscape photography and for other people for who I print are fine.
I digitised 22 pieces of artwork for another artist and had a similar problem with 2 of those, the rest were fine. The problem seems to be in the green/blue areas. It just seems crazy that my prints normally get pretty close to what I see on the display, but not in this instance...
OK, so how did you "tweak" these colours to be the same? The only way is to measure them, not by eye. The values displayed in the application will always be different to the values on the monitor seen using Digital Color Meter.
If the colours that you are photographing are out of gamut of the monitor then it will never look the same. Ignore the display.
Ideally you shoot a ColorCheckR or similar to adjust the colours recorded. Phocus does this almost automatically for Hasselblad.
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Well, this isn't my understanding of what he is doing.
William, at the risk of getting tedious, grateful if you could gather in one place the details and screen grabs of ALL the capture, colour management and print settings you used that generated the original problem you observed and let's see if we can detect more or different than what has been said so far.
Mark, William made it clear this odd color mismatch marcin points out looks like a "color target" rendering which also resembles my Epson Proof Paper profile assign to AdobeRGB data experiment with this quote...
No Tim, that particular print - on the left - was the Canon Glossy Photo paper with their canned profile. However, it is representative/typical of all the prints I made regardless of paper, texture or profile.
So this "color target" look as marcin described is even happening with canned profiles, not just the custom profile. So it appears there could be some transform getting turned on/off within the printer driver/profile hand off that might be caused by the way those particular profiles are written, maybe some line of code or tag causes the driver to flip a setting off/on that needs to be thoroughly and carefully checked out.
If my $50 Epson NX330 can print a reasonable facsimile of his sRGB original using "Printer Manages Color" then William shouldn't be getting such poor results using canned and custom profiles.
And the one on the right in William's iPhone shot of the two prints was also done with a canned profile on glossy Bond Paper and it is a very close match.
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OK. I seem to have reached some kind of conclusion!
The print on the right is correct! I used the Hahnemuhle Canned Profile with RELATIVE Intent!
The conclusion therefore is that my Colormunki Profile is not great, and, because that profile showed no difference between Perceptual and Relative I did not attach enough importance to those settings with other profiles!
So, I have made a print, on HNM Museum Etching, that satisfies me in terms of colour matching.
I will make further tests with all my own Colormunki-created profiles and weed out those that are not good enough.
Although this exercise has cost me quite a bit of ink and paper, and you guys a lot of time and effort - I have learned something and made a further step forward with my printing!
For this I thank everyone who took the trouble to help! How fortunate we are to be able to do this...thank you Michael Reichmann!
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Super, glad it is solved to your satisfaction William.
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OK. I seem to have reached some kind of conclusion!
The print on the right is correct! I used the Hahnemuhle Canned Profile with RELATIVE Intent!
The conclusion therefore is that my Colormunki Profile is not great, and, because that profile showed no difference between Perceptual and Relative I did not attach enough importance to those settings with other profiles!
So, I have made a print, on HNM Museum Etching, that satisfies me in terms of colour matching.
I will make further tests with all my own Colormunki-created profiles and weed out those that are not good enough.
Although this exercise has cost me quite a bit of ink and paper, and you guys a lot of time and effort - I have learned something and made a further step forward with my printing!
For this I thank everyone who took the trouble to help! How fortunate we are to be able to do this...thank you Michael Reichmann!
This is completely illogical. I checked Hahnemühle HFA GE profiles for x300 and x400 and the chromatic differences between relcol and perceptual rendering intent are relatively small, at least way, way smaller than on your photo.
Please, forgive my curiosity, by would you mind showing your LR Print module Color Management and printer driver settings?
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This is completely illogical. I checked Hahnemühle HFA GE profiles for x300 and x400 and the chromatic differences between relcol and perceptual rendering intent are relatively small, at least way, way smaller than on your photo.
Please, forgive my curiosity, by would you mind showing your LR Print module Color Management and printer driver settings?
I was a bit tied up today - will do it tomorrow....
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This is completely illogical. I checked Hahnemühle HFA GE profiles for x300 and x400 and the chromatic differences between relcol and perceptual rendering intent are relatively small, at least way, way smaller than on your photo.
Please, forgive my curiosity, by would you mind showing your LR Print module Color Management and printer driver settings?
I have now spent the entire morning trying to replicate my "successful" print, and I cannot! I am now back to where I started...I made prints with (all on Hahnemuhle Musuem Etching):
1. Canned profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
2. Canned Profile with Custom Made Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
3. Colormunki Profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative & Perceptual.
Previous unsuccessful attempts - Colormunki Profile with Custom Media Settings - Perceptual.
This means that the same combination (#1) that produced the "successful" print on Monday did not produce a similar print today.
Marcin, I have included as many screenshots as I think may be helpful. Please let me know if there is anything else you need!
Many thanks
William
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All of this looks pretty normal to me. The only disconnect I see is that you have resolution set to 600 in the printer driver and 300 in Lightroom Print Module, but that should not be the cause of this issue. Am I correct to assume "Special 9" is the correct media type corresponding to the profile for Hahn Museum Etching and the name of the profile in Lightroom's Print module is for the same profile?
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All of this looks pretty normal to me. The only disconnect I see is that you have resolution set to 600 in the printer driver and 300 in Lightroom Print Module, but that should not be the cause of this issue. Am I correct to assume "Special 9" is the correct media type corresponding to the profile for Hahn Museum Etching and the name of the profile in Lightroom's Print module is for the same profile?
Hi Mark
Perhaps you could clear up the point regarding the resolution.
I set the printer driver to "600dpi Highest" but change the Lightroom setting as per "From Camera to Print" on an image by image basis...Below 300ppi I set to 300ppi - above 300 I set it to 600.
Should I be changing the Print Driver on an image-by-image basis too?
The Special 9 Media Setting is the one recommended by Hahnemuhle when using their Museum Etching. When I get a new paper the Printer goes through a procedure to establish the optimum settings for that paper. I changed that just in case there was something wrong there.
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Hi Mark
Perhaps you could clear up the point regarding the resolution.
I set the printer driver to "600dpi Highest" but change the Lightroom setting as per "From Camera to Print" on an image by image basis...Below 300ppi I set to 300ppi - above 300 I set it to 600.
Should I be changing the Print Driver on an image-by-image basis too?
The Special 9 Media Setting is the one recommended by Hahnemuhle when using their Museum Etching. When I get a new paper the Printer goes through a procedure to establish the optimum settings for that paper. I changed that just in case there was something wrong there.
On second thoughts the resolution settings are probably fine. The PPI in LR is the pixel dimensions output resolution of the image, the dpi for the printer driver is the resolution setting for reproducing those PPI. Perhaps leave it alone.
What did you change relative to Hahn's recommendations and why? Usually those settings deal with paper weight, thickness and ink lay-down appropriate for the specific media.
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William, one more thought - and I know Marcin thinks the notion of gamut clipping is nonsense, but I'm not totally convinced about this. As I may have suggested already, I think you should try printing this same photo on a gloss/luster paper with much higher gamut volume (Try Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Hahn Fine Art Baryta Satin or some such) in both RelCol and Perceptual Rendering Intents and see whether you get a close match for the problem colour range.
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What is a good indication of something out of gamut is to go into softproof mode in LR and switch between perceptual and colorimetric. If the image appearance changes there is some part out of gamut. Even if the oog overlap does not show.
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William,
If you will post an image by doing the following I will examine the profile and identify whether there are any gamut issues using Matlab. I have the tools to do so quite precisely.
1. Convert the image to Adobe RGB.
2. Attach (do not convert) the printer profile you are using. The image will change but don't worry about that.
3. Make a post here including this image.
If you wish you can also do the same but attaching the custom Colormunki profile and I can compare them.
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The approach is good, but why not convert the photo to ProPhoto just in case colours of interest lie outside ARGB(98) but inside printer gamut (not the case for matte papers, but can be for gloss/luster papers).
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I have now spent the entire morning trying to replicate my "successful" print, and I cannot! I am now back to where I started...I made prints with (all on Hahnemuhle Musuem Etching):
1. Canned profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
2. Canned Profile with Custom Made Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
3. Colormunki Profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative & Perceptual.
Previous unsuccessful attempts - Colormunki Profile with Custom Media Settings - Perceptual.
This means that the same combination (#1) that produced the "successful" print on Monday did not produce a similar print today.
Marcin, I have included as many screenshots as I think may be helpful. Please let me know if there is anything else you need!
Many thanks
William
Keep in mind that the rendering intent set in the Develop module of LR will override the setting in the print module. If it is set as perceptual for the soft proof, then it will print with perceptual regardless of setting RelCol in the print.
MS
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I have now spent the entire morning trying to replicate my "successful" print, and I cannot! I am now back to where I started...I made prints with (all on Hahnemuhle Musuem Etching):
1. Canned profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
2. Canned Profile with Custom Made Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
3. Colormunki Profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative & Perceptual.
Previous unsuccessful attempts - Colormunki Profile with Custom Media Settings - Perceptual.
This means that the same combination (#1) that produced the "successful" print on Monday did not produce a similar print today.
Marcin, I have included as many screenshots as I think may be helpful. Please let me know if there is anything else you need!
Many thanks
William
William, this may be a bit of a long shot – but perhaps worth checking/trying.
I don't have an Epson printer (I have Canons), but I do have a ColorMunki. Recently I encountered a printing problem when the colours were totally out. I tried everything including making a new profile and 'tuning' it via the ColorMunki software. Long story short I found that if I deselected "16 bit Output" (Lightroom) or "Send 16 bit data" (Photoshop) this cured the awful looking prints.
Trouble is with this kind of problem is that its a slow process of eliminating all variables until you finally hit on the cause. So, best of luck !
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Keep in mind that the rendering intent set in the Develop module of LR will override the setting in the print module. If it is set as perceptual for the soft proof, then it will print with perceptual regardless of setting RelCol in the print.
MS
Can you point to where you got this information, because I don't believe it's correct. When you are finished soft-proofing in the Develop Module, once you decide which profile and Rendering Intent you want for the print, you must set these independently in the Print Module. What you set in the Print Module determines what gets used for making the print.
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The approach is good, but why not convert the photo to ProPhoto just in case colours of interest lie outside ARGB(98) but inside printer gamut (not the case for matte papers, but can be for gloss/luster papers).
I don't see how this is a gamut issue going by William's point quoted again below I think everyone has just overlooked or didn't read...
I have now spent the entire morning trying to replicate my "successful" print, and I cannot! I am now back to where I started...I made prints with (all on Hahnemuhle Musuem Etching):
1. Canned profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
This means that the same combination (#1) that produced the "successful" print on Monday did not produce a similar print today.
This means something is getting flipped on/off either with LR and/or the OS.
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The approach is good, but why not convert the photo to ProPhoto just in case colours of interest lie outside ARGB(98) but inside printer gamut (not the case for matte papers, but can be for gloss/luster papers).
Indeed, it could be in any RGB color space before attaching the printer profile. I was recommending Adobe RGB but it could just as well be ProPhoto. Adobe RGB gives somewhat better resolution between 8 bit RGB values. Like Tim said, I don't believe it is a gamut issue but on the posted samples some of the colors were right on the edge of sRGB's gamut so it seemed reasonable to use an Adobe RGB space.
The most important thing is that the color space used prior to attaching the printer profile is known. After I extract the printer profile for analysis I will re-attach that RGB known profile to the image.
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Can you point to where you got this information, because I don't believe it's correct. When you are finished soft-proofing in the Develop Module, once you decide which profile and Rendering Intent you want for the print, you must set these independently in the Print Module. What you set in the Print Module determines what gets used for making the print.
I spent some time (perhaps a bit too much :( ) looking around for the reference(s), but couldn't remember exactly where I saw it. I do recall that the people making the claims were respectable experts (perhaps Jeff Schewe, Andrew Rodney and/or an Adobe employee ?), enough so that I believed it. It was really bothering me that it couldn't find the original posting(s), so I ran some tests myself. I took an ProphotoRGB Granger? rainbow (cropped from Andrew Rodney's test image) and made two virtual Proof Copies for Epson Lustre paper, one with Perceptual RI and the other RelCol using the canned Epson profile. I printed each one from the print module twice, once with the matching RI set in the print module and once with a mismatch between the RI of the proof and the RI in the print setup (4 prints total, on the same sheet of paper, with the same P600 printer/inkset done back-to-back).
I'll try to attach pictures of the prints (please excuse the crappy iPhone shots), but examining them closely especially in the magenta region I can confidently say that the Print module is honouring the RI of the proof (set in develop) and ignoring the choice made in the print module.
I think the caveat here is that you have to make Virtual Proof Copies of the image and print from that for the embedded RI to take precedence.
MS
PS.
I found a reference in Jeff Schewe's "The Digital Print" in a side box on page 221 that suggests this should be the expected behaviour, although its a bit unclear how "you can override that". I believe if you select a different ICC profile in the print module, then the print module settings take precedence (my recollection from the past references that I can't seem to find...so don't quote me on that part, i haven't tested it).
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William,
Everything seems to be perfect, that's what makes this issue so mysterious! I had tried to replicate your issue using virtually the same setup (OSX, LR, PA272W, iPF8300), but - no matter what setting, profile, rendering intent - I'm always getting quite similar results, unless I switch off the whole color management and print RGB numbers directly.
Do you have Photoshop? Please try to print this image using Canon PS Print Plug in (it's printing directly, "bypassing" iPF printer driver):
https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/professional-large-format-printers/professional-photo-fine-art/ipf8400?tab=drivers#Z7_MQH8HIC0L88RB0AMD0F1Q42K25
I have now spent the entire morning trying to replicate my "successful" print, and I cannot! I am now back to where I started...I made prints with (all on Hahnemuhle Musuem Etching):
1. Canned profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
2. Canned Profile with Custom Made Media Settings - Relative and Percpetual;
3. Colormunki Profile with Special 9 Media Settings - Relative & Perceptual.
Previous unsuccessful attempts - Colormunki Profile with Custom Media Settings - Perceptual.
This means that the same combination (#1) that produced the "successful" print on Monday did not produce a similar print today.
Marcin, I have included as many screenshots as I think may be helpful. Please let me know if there is anything else you need!
Many thanks
William
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I can confidently say that the Print module is honouring the RI of the proof (set in develop) and ignoring the choice made in the print module................I believe if you select a different ICC profile in the print module, then the print module settings take precedence
It can't be both. Martin Evening's book is pretty clear that the settings in the Print Module determine the colour management for the print, and this only makes common sense. The reference on page 221 is specific to what happens when you create a virtual copy and soft-proof it; but he also says you can over-ride it, which means changing the profile or RI in the Print module. One can play around with this, but the safest thing is to make sure that the settings in the Print module correspond with how you want the photo printed.
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William,
If you will post an image by doing the following I will examine the profile and identify whether there are any gamut issues using Matlab. I have the tools to do so quite precisely.
1. Convert the image to Adobe RGB.
2. Attach (do not convert) the printer profile you are using. The image will change but don't worry about that.
3. Make a post here including this image.
If you wish you can also do the same but attaching the custom Colormunki profile and I can compare them.
Hi Doug
From Lightroom (ProPhoto) - "Edit In" - Photoshop. In Photoshop: "Edit" - "Assign Profile" - I chose my Colormunki Musuem Etching profile (Sample1) and the Hanemuhle Canned profile (Sample 2). I hope that is what you meant by "attach". If not, please explain!
Thanks
William
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William,
Everything seems to be perfect, that's what makes this issue so mysterious! I had tried to replicate your issue using virtually the same setup (OSX, LR, PA272W, iPF8300), but - no matter what setting, profile, rendering intent - I'm always getting quite similar results, unless I switch off the whole color management and print RGB numbers directly.
Do you have Photoshop? Please try to print this image using Canon PS Print Plug in (it's printing directly, "bypassing" iPF printer driver):
https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/professional-large-format-printers/professional-photo-fine-art/ipf8400?tab=drivers#Z7_MQH8HIC0L88RB0AMD0F1Q42K25
BOOOM!
Print on the left....
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Hi Doug
From Lightroom (ProPhoto) - "Edit In" - Photoshop. In Photoshop: "Edit" - "Assign Profile" - I chose my Colormunki Musuem Etching profile (Sample1) and the Hanemuhle Canned profile (Sample 2). I hope that is what you meant by "attach". If not, please explain!
Thanks
William
Why are you assigning HFA GE profile? If it's rendered to ProPhoto it should stay in ProPhoto!
BOOOM!
Print on the left....
The image is turned upside down on preview, so the correct image is on the right on the preview and on the left when you open it in the full size. Which one is the result from the PS Plug in?
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Hi Doug
From Lightroom (ProPhoto) - "Edit In" - Photoshop. In Photoshop: "Edit" - "Assign Profile" - I chose my Colormunki Musuem Etching profile (Sample1) and the Hanemuhle Canned profile (Sample 2). I hope that is what you meant by "attach". If not, please explain!
Thanks
William
That's fine but I don't see a Sample 1 or a Sample 2 attached to this post. Your subsequent post has 2 attachments. One in sRGB and one in an Apple RGB colorspace. Also, I am not asking for screenshots of printer settings or an image of the actual prints.
Let me restate my request for clarity.
1. Since your working space is ProPhoto edit the original image in Photoshop as ProPhoto.
2. Make 2 duplicates. Resize them so to take less space so the longest sides are 1000 pixels. This protects your IP.
3. Attach the printer's profiles (colormunki and manufacturer's) to image 1 and image 2, respectively.
4. Save both images in "tif" format using "save as."
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That's fine but I don't see a Sample 1 or a Sample 2 attached to this post. Your subsequent post has 2 attachments. One in sRGB and one in an Apple RGB colorspace. Also, I am not asking for screenshots of printer settings or an image of the actual prints.
Let me restate my request for clarity.
1. Since your working space is ProPhoto edit the original image in Photoshop as ProPhoto.
2. Make 2 duplicates. Resize them so to take less space so the longest sides are 1000 pixels. This protects your IP.
3. Attach the printer's profiles (colormunki and manufacturer's) to image 1 and image 2, respectively.
4. Save both images in "tif" format using "save as."
Sorry Doug! I forgot to attach the files!! Will do it in the morning.
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Why are you assigning HFA GE profile? If it's rendered to ProPhoto it should stay in ProPhoto!
The image is turned upside down on preview, so the correct image is on the right on the preview and on the left when you open it in the full size. Which one is the result from the PS Plug in?
Not sure how it ended up upside down...so the PS Plugin is on the left when viewed right-side up!
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Not sure how it ended up upside down...so the PS Plugin is on the left when viewed right-side up!
Assuming that the PS Print Plug in prints correctly, let's find out if the bug is on iPF printer driver, or LR side. Please print the image from PS using regular driver (Cmd+P):
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19059944/Zrzut%20ekranu%202016-06-23%2016.29.23.png)
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That's fine but I don't see a Sample 1 or a Sample 2 attached to this post. Your subsequent post has 2 attachments. One in sRGB and one in an Apple RGB colorspace. Also, I am not asking for screenshots of printer settings or an image of the actual prints.
Let me restate my request for clarity.
1. Since your working space is ProPhoto edit the original image in Photoshop as ProPhoto.
2. Make 2 duplicates. Resize them so to take less space so the longest sides are 1000 pixels. This protects your IP.
3. Attach the printer's profiles (colormunki and manufacturer's) to image 1 and image 2, respectively.
4. Save both images in "tif" format using "save as."
Hi Doug - I have followed your instructions. Not sure why I could not upload here, not Jpeg? Too large?
I hope this link works!
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lkffz2nglpv1jx8/AABDij-BFr00SQsv_LmVo9coa?dl=0
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Assuming that the PS Print Plug in prints correctly, let's find out if the bug is on iPF printer driver, or LR side. Please print the image from PS using regular driver (Cmd+P):
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19059944/Zrzut%20ekranu%202016-06-23%2016.29.23.png)
The larger print is the one I did yesterday with the Canon Print Plugin. The smaller print I have just done through Photoshop. I used my Colormunki Profile with Relative Intent for both.
It is clear that, even though the prints are not identical, the "jade" that I have been looking for is sufficiently present. Compare this with the blue of one of my "problem Lightroom prints" underneath the small print on the right-hand side.
It seems to me that Lightroom is the source of the problem...
Added Later: I have just tried "16 bit Off" in Lightroom which had no effect on the prints coming out of Lightroom - still horribly wrong!!
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So the LR bug is the main suspect. Are you using the newest LR CC 6.6?
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So the LR bug is the main suspect. Are you using the newest LR CC 6.6?
What LR bug?
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So the LR bug is the main suspect. Are you using the newest LR CC 6.6?
2105.6 Latest (Last Week)
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What LR bug?
Apparently there's a bug that makes LR print unconverted RGB numbers of an synthetic color space of the image (target like). All setting screen shots provided by William seem to be correct, the iPF PS Print Plug-in and PS with the printer driver prints correct, so it looks like some kind of LR bug.
It's quite weird, as I tested virtually same setup trying to reproduce this problem and didn't encounter any issues.
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2105.6 Latest (Last Week)
Try to uninstall and install drivers and LR. Unfortunately I'm out of other ideas - everything looks ok, so it's either a LR bug, or I'm missing something...
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Apparently there's a bug that makes LR print unconverted RGB numbers of an synthetic color space of the image (target like). All setting screen shots provided by William seem to be correct, the iPF PS Print Plug-in and PS with the printer driver prints correct, so it looks like some kind of LR bug.
It's quite weird, as I tested virtually same setup trying to reproduce this problem and didn't encounter any issues.
Interesting and strange, but I've never heard of or experienced this.
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Hi Doug - I have followed your instructions. Not sure why I could not upload here, not Jpeg? Too large?
I hope this link works!
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lkffz2nglpv1jx8/AABDij-BFr00SQsv_LmVo9coa?dl=0
Exactly what I needed. Thanks.
A few comments:
It's clear the big problem is on the printer side but not related to the profiles. Neither profile should result in the dark blue shift you are seeing on your prints. I would install Photoshop on a different machine and print the image there to see if there is some sort of driver issue. If possible use a Windows machine.
That said, there are lesser issues with the profiles. The custom profile exhibits some unusual non-linearity in the Cyan regions. I'm going to look closer at those. Also, the custom profile is a V4 profile while the canned profile is V2. That shouldn't affect Relative Colorimetric printing but you will get more consistent results when using Perceptual if you generate V2 profiles from the ColorMunki s/w. However, none of this explains the strong blue shift you are getting.
On the positive side the black point is around L=19 on both profiles with maybe a deltaE of 1 difference. This indicates the canned profile is not, incorrectly, incorporating a BPC inside the profile for RC. Some OEM profiles do this.
Also, the image itself exhibits a strong "S-curve" characteristic of output referred image capture. One side effect of this is that lower luminance are reduced further and high luminance regions are compressed. This is also evident in the capture with a colorchecker passport that was posted earlier.
More later.
I grabbed a cyan section from the right side of the ProPhoto image then ran a round-trip using Relative Colorimetric for the Custom and Canned profiles. These colors are roughly around the printer's gamut boundary. The attached image contains the histograms of the resulting deltas and the image section from the original in ProPhoto. Horizontal axis are the deltas.
The canned histogram exhibits typical behavior near a gamut boundary. I suspect the Custom, ColorMunki histogram looks like it does as a result of too few patches to create good profile LUTs.
However, this is a curiosity as the effects are still very small compared to the strong dark blue shift William is getting. The printer issue clearly needs to be resolved.
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However, this is a curiosity as the effects are still very small compared to the strong dark blue shift William is getting. The printer issue clearly needs to be resolved.
Exactly - you don't need spectral measurements to see there's something very wrong going on here. My wild guess is it's rather LR releated than printer driver releated.
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Exactly - you don't need spectral measurements to see there's something very wrong going on here. My wild guess is it's rather LR releated than printer driver releated.
I'll agree with you that it's a wild guess, because the problem is very specific, whereas if it really were LR-related, one would see more generalized issues across a wider range of images. LR operates in a very wide-gamut native colour space and the rest of its color management uses conventional ICC technologies. I think Doug is onto something with the gamut boundary business and why I made some specific recommendations above for printing on a wider gamut paper to see whether this solves the problem - notwithstanding your disagreement with this as a possible source of the problem :-).
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I've attached images in ProPhoto RGB for testing the color rendition quality. These are "Color test.tif" and "Color test RC.tif." "Color test.tif" is designed to be printed using absolute colorimetry and contains a Colorchecker patch layout which should, when printed, look very close to a standard Colorchecker card. However, it's a 2007 CC and the darker blue/violet colors are faded a small amount so a correctly printed image may look very slightly faded there. It is a very small affect and is quite hard to see even side by side.
The "Color test RC.tif" image should be printed using Relative Colorimetric Intent without BPC selected and should produce the same image visually. This provides a way to check the workflow using RC which is a more normal workflow than Absolute Intent.
The blue/cyan patches below the colorchecker image have Lab colors in steps of 10 in the image's blue region. Their Lab values can be measured with Argyll and a Colormunki and should be reasonably close to the values printed on the chart with a typical variation averaging about 3 dE's being good and 5 dE's being marginal.
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I'll agree with you that it's a wild guess, because the problem is very specific, whereas if it really were LR-related, one would see more generalized issues across a wider range of images. LR operates in a very wide-gamut native colour space and the rest of its color management uses conventional ICC technologies. I think Doug is onto something with the gamut boundary business and why I made some specific recommendations above for printing on a wider gamut paper to see whether this solves the problem - notwithstanding your disagreement with this as a possible source of the problem :-).
Well, I can print form LR without any issue, no matter how wide the operating gamut is. The problem is not in couple of ∆E's territory, the problem is night and day, dozens of ∆E difference, so it can't be gamut/profile/rendering releated.
As you can see, William can print ProPhoto rendered image from PS or PS print Plug-in flawlessly, while the result from LR is deep in the forrest. You don't need to be a color scientist to draw obvious conclusions.
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The whole problem may be in this thread which just surfaced on LuLa this evening: Printing Bug in LR and PS (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=111358.0)
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The whole problem may be in this thread which just surfaced on LuLa this evening: Printing Bug in LR and PS (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=111358.0)
Thank you all again for your efforts in the matter! I really appreciate it!
It has, however, become a little too technical for me, so I will see how this other problem progresses...!
Thanks again,
William