Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: IWC Doppel on March 23, 2013, 07:24:56 am
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hi,
I can't find if LR adjusts automatically for blackpoint compensation with media type choice in LR4, I have found low IRE shadow detail a little blocked out and have compensated for in part using the ABW driver adjustment shadow tonality in advanced colour print settings. Any advice regarding black point for matt papers like HFA Museum etching, Canson PhoRag and Fotospeed Nat Text would be appreciated
Mac 10.7.5
Epson 3880
LR 4.3
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All color space conversions used within Adobe app's support BPC if, when accessible, you select ACE. In LR, there's no option to select a different CMM so you get ACE and thus BPC.
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Thanks,
Sorry to say I have tried to guess and google ACE and CMM but I have no clue !
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ACE=Adobe Color Engine
CMM= Color Matching Method
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I would like to add a question on this same topic. I am learning to use my new Canon 8300, after many years of Epson printers and printing from Photoshop. It appears that the Canon printing plug-in does not offer black point compensation, but has the advantage of "sticky" settings. Printing from Photoshop, I can invoke black point compensation (as I have always done in the past), but the settings are not sticky -- a real drawback. I would love to hear from those of you with significant printing experience about how much weight I should give to using or giving up the black point compensation. Feedback on this site has been extremely helpful to me over the years and has turned me into someone who loves to print! --Barbara
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I believe you can only use BPC when you have Adobe CMM installed, but Adobe has never upgraded it for 16bit, or some similar restriction that makes it less than ideal for modern color management.
I would like to add a question on this same topic. I am learning to use my new Canon 8300, after many years of Epson printers and printing from Photoshop. It appears that the Canon printing plug-in does not offer black point compensation, but has the advantage of "sticky" settings. Printing from Photoshop, I can invoke black point compensation (as I have always done in the past), but the settings are not sticky -- a real drawback. I would love to hear from those of you with significant printing experience about how much weight I should give to using or giving up the black point compensation. Feedback on this site has been extremely helpful to me over the years and has turned me into someone who loves to print! --Barbara
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BPC should always be on. IF it isn't needed, nothing happens. If it's needed, something good happens (the black compensation is applied). Now if you have a profile that doesn't need this, having it off will be OK, but having it on and sticky makes more sense.
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All color space conversions used within Adobe app's support BPC if, when accessible, you select ACE. In LR, there's no option to select a different CMM so you get ACE and thus BPC.
I find this a bit confusing. In Photoshop I have ACE selected and have the option of using or not using BPC. In LR there is no option to use BPC, but use of BPC is not mandatory when one is using ACE as shown by the Photoshop option. I think the option to use BPC was omitted in LR because Mr. Hamburg's intention was to keep things as simple as possible and not offer the choice of not using it, since it should almost always be enabled.
Bill
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I find this a bit confusing. In Photoshop I have ACE selected and have the option of using or not using BPC.
Correct, you're not forced to do so. IOW, ACE can operate without BPC (why I can't say, I've yet to see a case where BPC either doesn't do squat or helps).
LR is a different animal. The idea was not to provide every geeky option or preference like Photoshop. You can't turn off BPC or for that matter use another CMM. Frankly I like this behavior but it makes it more difficult to write complex books or blogs if that floats your boat <g>
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I would like to add a question on this same topic. I am learning to use my new Canon 8300, after many years of Epson printers and printing from Photoshop. It appears that the Canon printing plug-in does not offer black point compensation, but has the advantage of "sticky" settings. Printing from Photoshop, I can invoke black point compensation (as I have always done in the past), but the settings are not sticky -- a real drawback. I would love to hear from those of you with significant printing experience about how much weight I should give to using or giving up the black point compensation. Feedback on this site has been extremely helpful to me over the years and has turned me into someone who loves to print! --Barbara
If you're running 32-bit Photoshop, you can install the Adobe CMM and use that in the iPF print plug-in, giving you the option of using black point compensation (BPC).
If you're running x64 version of Photoshop, there's not 64-bit version of the Adobe CMM to install. So you're stuck with not having BPC if you use the iPF plug-in's color management. I've found this is not an issue with perceptual rendering intent; BPC has no effect on perceptual, at least not with any of the profiles I've used (I currently do my own profiles using i1Profiler).
For images where you want to use relative-colorimetric intent, I do not recommend using the IPF plug-in's color management on x64, because BPC does matter with rel-col (especially with canvas and matte papers). Instead, do the ICC conversion within Photoshop (using BPC), and then just disable color management in the iPF plugin.
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Thanks for the replies! I now understand that the root of my difficulty is that I am using the 64-bit version of Photoshop, and have always used relative colorimetric for my rendering intent. I would like to keep doing that. Jeff, I don't understand the very last part of your message -- the part about doing the ICC conversion in Photoshop, then disabling color management in the iPF plugin. Are you talking about somehow going from the Photoshop printer dialog to the plug-in, and printing from the plug-in, rather than directly from Photoshop? How do I do that? --Barbara
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I now understand that the root of my difficulty is that I am using the 64-bit version of Photoshop, and have always used relative colorimetric for my rendering intent.
You may want to rethink a blind conversion like this and instead, soft proof and then select the RI that just looks best. That said, IF I had to blindly set a RI, I'd pick RelCol, at least based on the profiles I use most often. But sometimes, Perceptual and maybe even Saturation may look better. Keep in mind ICC profiles don't know anything about color in context! One image may appear more desirable with Perceptual, the next RelCol. Unless you look at each, you'll never know.
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Thanks for the replies! I now understand that the root of my difficulty is that I am using the 64-bit version of Photoshop, and have always used relative colorimetric for my rendering intent. I would like to keep doing that. Jeff, I don't understand the very last part of your message -- the part about doing the ICC conversion in Photoshop, then disabling color management in the iPF plugin. Are you talking about somehow going from the Photoshop printer dialog to the plug-in, and printing from the plug-in, rather than directly from Photoshop? How do I do that? --Barbara
I'm not suggesting you use the Photoshop print dialog. I do all my printing through the iPF plug-in because I prefer the consistent interface and also want to take advantage of the 16-bit printing path. Here are the steps I would take for rel-col printing in x64 Photoshop.
1) Make sure image is saved.
2) From edit menu, choose Convert to Profile, and convert to the printer profile using rel-col and BPC.
3) Open the iPF print plug-in, and on the Main tab set the Output Profile to "None (no color correction)".
4) Print from the iPF plug-in using the other options you normally use.
5) Make sure not to save the document after again after printing, since it's currently in printer color space rather than working color space.
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You may want to rethink a blind conversion like this and instead, soft proof and then select the RI that just looks best. That said, IF I had to blindly set a RI, I'd pick RelCol, at least based on the profiles I use most often. But sometimes, Perceptual and maybe even Saturation may look better. Keep in mind ICC profiles don't know anything about color in context! One image may appear more desirable with Perceptual, the next RelCol. Unless you look at each, you'll never know.
I agree with Andrew that soft-proof is the best approach when deciding on rendering intent, as it really depends on the specific image as well as the profile. Back in the days of using i1Match/Profilemaker Pro, I almost always preferred the rel-col intent. But with i1Profiler-generated profiles, I tend to prefer perceptual intent in the majority of cases (though not always).
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"Thank you"s to both Jeff and Andy. Jeff, your step-by-step was exactly what I needed! And I will start to try the comparison you suggested, Andy. I got hooked on relative colorimetric early on, and didn't think to look further. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will be helped by the advice you two have kindly offered. Many thanks again. --Barbara
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Thanks for the replies! I now understand that the root of my difficulty is that I am using the 64-bit version of Photoshop, and have always used relative colorimetric for my rendering intent. I would like to keep doing that. Jeff, I don't understand the very last part of your message -- the part about doing the ICC conversion in Photoshop, then disabling color management in the iPF plugin. Are you talking about somehow going from the Photoshop printer dialog to the plug-in, and printing from the plug-in, rather than directly from Photoshop? How do I do that? --Barbara
Barbara, here's another solution. Just install the 32 bit version of Photoshop and switch to that version for printing when you want BPC in the Canon print plug in. Works fine in Windows 7.
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I believe you can only use BPC when you have Adobe CMM installed, but Adobe has never upgraded it for 16bit, or some similar restriction that makes it less than ideal for modern color management.
Perhaps Andrew can verify this, but AFAIK the Adobe CMM does handle 16 bit and I think you may be confusing bit depth to the printer. The Mac has offered a 16 bit printer path for some time, and 16 bit printing was enabled in Windows Vista. According to this post (http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/16-bit-printing.html), the 8 bit bottleneck with Epson printers is the Epson printer drivers for windows, which are only 8 bit. 16 bit editing is essential with wide gamut spaces such as ProPhotoRGB, but 8 bits for the final output is usually sufficient to prevent posterization. In my own work with the Epson 3880 and Windows 8, I have seen no posterization in clear blue skies or other problematic tones. The author of the above article reports that many observers can see no difference between printing with the two bit depths. What have Mac users on the forum noted?
Regards,
Bill
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Adobe CMM doesn't care about the bit depth of the image nor the print path, but the Adobe CMM that is accessible from the Canon Plug-in isn't 64-bit capable. So we're talking about different bit depth's in different areas.
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Perhaps Andrew can verify this, but AFAIK the Adobe CMM does handle 16 bit and I think you may be confusing bit depth to the printer.
If you are starting with 16-bit/channel images on Windows and print through Photoshop (or LR) using ACE, the color transform is going from 16-bit working space to 16-bit printer space in 20 bit precision before dropping the final color to 8-bits/channel. In addition to the BPC, Thomas added higher precision transforms to ACE. If you are working in 16-bit and going out to a Windows printer which is 8-bit limited (and this is a chicken/egg situation) and using ACE I seriously doubt there would be much benefit to 16-bit to the print head.
One can create an image with gradations that can band when printed to an 8-bit printer on Mac that won't band when printed as 16-bit. But you need to know how to do it and photos that have grain/noise is unlikely to exhibit the same 8/16-bit banding potential...
The question relating to the Canon print plug-in using ACE is that Adobe has only released a 32-bit version of ACE and is less likely to release a 64-bit version in the near future. So, on Windows the Canon plug-in can only use ACE when run in a 32-bit app. The plug-in will have to use something else when hosted by a 64-bit app.
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All color space conversions used within Adobe app's support BPC if, when accessible, you select ACE. In LR, there's no option to select a different CMM so you get ACE and thus BPC.
So using Camera RAW - LR4.3 - 3880 I have BPC turned on (Which is what I want) ?
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Yes...since in LR you can't turn it off anyways...
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BPC should always be on. IF it isn't needed, nothing happens. If it's needed, something good happens (the black compensation is applied). Now if you have a profile that doesn't need this, having it off will be OK, but having it on and sticky makes more sense.
Andrew, I'm not sure you are correct about BPC never does any harm. It seems at least in PS's implementation of BPC, the compensation is being applied by checking the chosen ICC printer profile for what maximum black is reproducible and then scaling the image tone curve from that value whether the image contains those dark values or not. That's not the same as evaluating the image content to see if the actual image has any shadow or black values that would require some compensation to stay within the chosen printer/ink/media color gamut. In other words BPC behaves like a variant of an ICC profile Look up table rather than a variant of a "smart" CMM.
Try this softproofing test. Use a profile like HnPHoto Rag for your printer. It will be able to reproduce gray values down to about L* = 18 without any need for BPC. Now create a gray ramp that stops above that value, say sRGB =50,50,50 which renders L*=21. Since all is in gamut within this image, BPC should do nothing. Yet, on my screen it lifts (i.e., compensates the gray scale) as if full RBG 000 black is also present. Hence, dumb CMM not "smart CMM".
Where turning off BPC becomes useful then is in the occasional high key/lower contrast image or painting reproduction where all is within gamut for the paper without requiring any further compensation to bring colors and/or tones into gamut. In those instances, RelCol without BPC will a better choice whereas Perceptual and Relcol w/BPC will attempt to lower the image contrast somewhat further to make headroom for additional deep colors and tones that aren't even in that image. Again, it's a "dumb" CMM versus "smart" CMM issue, and until modern color management gives us a truly smart CMM, having both BPC and no BPC available extends our rendering choices (i.e., perceptual, relcol, relcol w/BPC, and abscol) in a useful way.
Where I agree that BPC does nothing in PS is when checked on along with use of perceptual rendering. In that instance, the vendors' perceptual tag secret sauce has already accounted for the necessary black compensation so BPC does nothing.
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Barbara, I'm not sure how well this issue got covered for you, so I'll give it a go. Because ACE isn't an available 64-bit CMM option with the iPF8300 plugin, the simplest and safe workaround when wanting to use ACE and its BPC feature with the 8300 plugin is to duplicate your image in PS and then use PS's "convert to profile" menu. Making the conversion in PS gives you the all the ACE rendering intent options including BPC. Then export the converted file to the 8300 plugin and make sure that in the plugin you've got "color management off" selected on the main page of the plugin. I use a duplicate because the layers get flattened during conversion. If I decide to make further image edits, then I throw the duplicate out, rinse and repeat ;) This workflow is much faster than trying to step out of PS 64 bit mode to open PS running in 32 bit mode.
cheers,
Mark
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Andrew, I'm not sure you are correct about BPC never does any harm.
I've yet to see when toggling on and off, it isn't better looking with BPC (in cases where the toggling affects the image).
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Mark, yes, I have been following the explanations. Suppose I just print out of Photoshop, using Relative Colorimetric and Black Point Compensation, and forgo the "stickiness" of the settings in the plug-in? Doesn't that solve it? (when I want that combination) --Barbara
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Mark, yes, I have been following the explanations. Suppose I just print out of Photoshop, using Relative Colorimetric and Black Point Compensation, and forgo the "stickiness" of the settings in the plug-in? Doesn't that solve it? (when I want that combination) --Barbara
Since CS5 and now CS6, I"ve have not had good luck printing from PS and also find the menus and submenus confusing (and not sticky as noted by others), but YMMV. However, I'm on a Mac, and that may contribute. The 8300 plugin is pretty much foolproof, and also when I use "convert to profile" in PS and no color management in the plugin, I never worry about double profiling or losing setting values. That said, printing from PS should allow you to invoke Canon's "free layout" feature which is really fantastic when printing multiple images or copies to roll rather than cut sheet because it's turns your printing pipeline into a full blown RIP with nesting capabilities. For many printing jobs this nesting capability trumps the convenience of the plugin. I wish Canon would also have put the free layout capability into the plugin but whatever. So, when I want to print to roll, I use Indesign and check the free layout box in the driver to get the full nesting capability. And Indesign is very robust on it's print dialog menu and settings are sticky plus it has always played nicely with the Mac regarding color management, whereas other Adobe programs like Acrobat, LR, and PS seem to be OS challenged in Mac 10.7 and 10.8. I"m not sure those OS conflicts have ever been fully resolved, but again, the plugin and Indesign just work right all the time on my Mac.
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My next post could be veering a little bit OT, but all this stuff is so inter-related! I'm starting with images in ProPhotoRGB, editing in ACR and Photoshop on a Windows7 computer, then printing to a Canon iPF 8300. If I print from Photoshop, is my file being printed as an 8-bit file, while if I printed from the Canon plug-in, it would be read as a 16-bit file? (I became confused on this point, especially after reading Jeff Schewe's post.) My first (earlier) question was posed thinking black point compensation was the deciding factor in deciding which software to print from. Now I am wondering if the bit-depth of the file at the printer end of the process is also a factor. I do think I've comprehended the discussion to this point; but this aspect remains unclear to me. At first, I thought what I was giving up by printing from Photoshop was only the stickiness of the settings in the Canon plug-in. Now I am wondering if, to keep the file 16-bit to the very end, I need to print from the plug-in. And then, of course, there is the question of whether keeping it 16-bit makes any/much difference in a final print. I am enlarging images to print at 20 or 30-inch shorter dimensions, and imagine that an enlarged image might be more prone to posterization in the printing process (but maybe I am wrong about that). Would you all be so kind as to weigh in to clarify this? --Barbara P.S. I actually enjoy the complexity of each of the aspects of digital photography and printing and enjoy understanding what I am doing. If it were easy, anyone could do it!
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If I print from Photoshop, is my file being printed as an 8-bit file, while if I printed from the Canon plug-in, it would be read as a 16-bit file?
Correct. The standard printing pipeline in Windows supports an 8-bit data path, which is what you get printing through the Photoshop dialog to the regular print driver for the iPF.
The iPF print plugin bypasses the Windows print pipeline and supports 16-bit data path to the printer. Some will tell you it makes no difference; for many images that's probably true. But the 16-bit option will never make things worse, and for some images it can be an improvement; so I'd rather just stick with it and know I'm always getting the best possible output from my printer.
Plus, as Mark mentioned the options in the iPF plug-in are pretty straightforward/consistent and don't change with every Photoshop release so I'd rather stick with what I know.
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ACE=Adobe Color Engine
CMM= Color Matching Method
CMM= Color Matching Module (at least in the context of color conversion "engines") ;)
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Jeff, thanks again! Your answers have been really helpful. Now I need to start practicing the new "workflow" until it feels automatic! --Barbara