Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: cryptoprint on October 28, 2014, 12:34:15 am
-
Hi. I just got my first LFP last week. I've been reading for days trying to learn as much as possible. This forum has been great.
I seem to be having an ink problem. Here's where I am:
- I have a Canon IPF 6400
- I ran my calibration with the paper provided by Canon, I guess it went ok.
- I'm now printing on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Pearl 320
- I'm printing with the PS Plugin and using the icc file from Hahn
- I'm selecting media type "special 9" as that is what Hahn suggested on a .pdf in a zip file with the icc file I downloaded.
The prints look amazing-- even better than my local printer. However, I noticed that after 3 days the ink doesn't seem to be dry. If I touch it, it will come off on my fingers, or smear to the margin with a swipe.
Someone on this site mentioned using Special 3 (and I read special 5 somewhere else), but both of these options created massive banding in the print. However, they dry almost immediately <sigh>.
Any ideas?
Thank you!
-
The only reason that I know of that might do this is that you are printing on the wrong side of the paper. Prints should be dry as they leave the printer. I know nothing about Canon printers but no inkjet print should be smearable the way you describe it.
-
Thanks. It's a roll, and I'm printing on the glossy side of the PRP.
-
That's good, but there is something really wrong. Here's a link to some Red River Paper info: http://www.redrivercatalog.com/infocenter/tips/inkjet-print-drying-time-guide.html
-
It appears the vacuum strength on the media type setting you selected isn't strong enough to keep the paper flat resulting in head strikes on the paper.
-
It appears the vacuum strength on the media type setting you selected isn't strong enough to keep the paper flat resulting in head strikes on the paper.
My thoughts exactly!
-
I just downloaded the profile and handling instructions and it says 5 not 9.
-
I just downloaded the profile and handling instructions and it says 5 not 9.
You are right. Sorry, I also plan to print the German Etching and was looking at the wrong pdf. Trying special 5 now...
-
Special 9 uses matte black ink, which does not adhere well to glossy media. That is why you are able to smudge the print. Special 1 - 5 uses glossy black ink, Special 6 - 10 uses matte black.
-
Special 9 uses matte black ink, which does not adhere well to glossy media. That is why you are able to smudge the print. Special 1 - 5 uses glossy black ink, Special 6 - 10 uses matte black.
Ahhh... just got through reading that. Thanks! Slowly but surely....
-
It appears the vacuum strength on the media type setting you selected isn't strong enough to keep the paper flat resulting in head strikes on the paper.
Guess I research this tomorrow. Thanks!
-
For historical records, head strikes/vacuum was the issue:
http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/Head+Strikes
I'm using HW Semi Gloss Photo Paper 2.
Sadly, my colors are not as vibrant now. The print is much darker.
-
Sadly, my colors are not as vibrant now. The print is much darker.
- I ran my calibration with the paper provided by Canon, I guess it went ok.
- I'm … using the icc file from Hahn
Profiles should be used with printers that have been color calibrated with the same paper that the profile creator used to color calibrate their printer.
According to Canon rep, the calibration paper that comes with the iPF6400 is intended for use for head alignment, not color calibration. You can certainly calibrate the printer to that printer, but keep in mind that that may not be the best paper for that purpose and that it may not (probably not) be the paper that Hahn used to calibrate their iPF printer before they created the paper profile you’re using. The profile they provide can best do its job only if your printer is calibrated in the same manner that theirs was. See my post…http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=94519.0 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=94519.0)
I am new to this as well and I’m in the process of having a custom profile made for some Moab paper, as the profile I got from Moab was no help at all in soft-proofing. I eventually got my print to look gorgeous on the Moab paper, but it took two exasperating days and lots of wasted paper.
-
Profiles should be used with printers that have been color calibrated with the same paper that the profile creator used to color calibrate their printer.
According to Canon rep, the calibration paper that comes with the iPF6400 is intended for use for head alignment, not color calibration. You can certainly calibrate the printer to that printer, but keep in mind that that may not be the best paper for that purpose and that it may not (probably not) be the paper that Hahn used to calibrate their iPF printer before they created the paper profile you’re using. The profile they provide can best do its job only if your printer is calibrated in the same manner that theirs was. See my post…http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=94519.0 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=94519.0)
The Canon rep was flat wrong - that would mean a re-cal with every different paper you're using, and certainly chasing your tail. The internal calibration is designed to return the printer to a standard state that has nothing to do with profiles - just consistency - and the HW Coated paper roll supplied with my iPF for this purpose has worked just fine. The idea is to use the SAME paper for your periodic re-calibration.
About the dark, flat prints, a too bright and contrasty monitor is the by far the most common cause for this.
Pete
-
For historical records, head strikes/vacuum was the issue:
http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/Head+Strikes
I'm using HW Semi Gloss Photo Paper 2.
Sadly, my colors are not as vibrant now. The print is much darker.
my experience with hm papers on ipf6400 is special 5, but need to set the paper thickness , rule of thumb is hm specified paper thickness rounded up plus 1 (0.1mm) (i work in metric).
-
The Canon rep was flat wrong - that would mean a re-cal with every different paper you're using, and certainly chasing your tail. The internal calibration is designed to return the printer to a standard state that has nothing to do with profiles - just consistency - and the HW Coated paper roll supplied with my iPF for this purpose has worked just fine. The idea is to use the SAME paper for your periodic re-calibration.
About the dark, flat prints, a too bright and contrasty monitor is the by far the most common cause for this.
Pete
I believe you may have misunderstood my remarks. :)
Yes, as I stated, you can use the paper provided with the printer to color calibrate, but (according to the Canon rep) there are better papers available which provide a higher range of ink density on the paper. (The iPF6400 sensor is basically a densitometer.) Those papers (there are 17 listed available in North America) are listed in the User Manual and the paper provided for head alignment with the iPF6400 is not one of them. I only received five sheets of this paper and it is not labeled. I thought I would use it for color calibration as well as head alignment, but knowing that I would always need to color calibrate to the same paper, I wanted to know what it was so I could buy more of it in the future. The rep was unable to tell me what kind of paper it was and suggested I use one of the recommended papers instead. If that paper was labeled so that I could feel confident that I would always be able to obtain it in the future for calibration, I would have called it good and used it for that purpose, as you do.
But back to your point...
Yes, if you had profiles from different manufacturers who used different papers to calibrate their printers, then to get the best performance from their profiles you would need to recalibrate before using each profile, with the paper the manufacturer used to create their profile. Trouble is they don't tell you what that paper is, so, in general, it's not possible to do it, even if you thought it was worth the trouble. If you are getting satisfactory performance from those profiles then I would just pick a paper for color calibration and always calibrate to that paper, so at least you will get consistent results.
If you are using your own custom profiles, there is no need to recalibrate for every paper you use, assuming you made all the profiles with your own printer calibrated to one paper. As you state, the calibration only returns the printer to a [repeatable] state that has nothing to do with profiles. The only reason to recalibrate would be if enough time/use has passed, or perhaps a head has been replaced, that the consistency of the printer may have drifted and you want to bring it back to the same state again.
Note that I substituted "repeatable" for "standard". I did so because the term "standard" can be somewhat misleading, as there is no standard state that color calibration brings a printer to. It is "standard" only in the sense that if two printers are color calibrated with the same paper, they should be in the same state.
Yes, you should always use the same paper to color calibrate, and that is exactly my point. If you color calibrated your printer to paper X, then made a custom profile for a special paper that you want to use for fine art printing, would you then use that profile to soft proof a print after you had color calibrated you printer again, but this time with paper Y. I don't think so because, as you stated, you should always use the same paper when calibrating. But that is likely exactly what the original poster is doing.
It is most likely that Hahn did NOT use the identical paper to calibrate their printer that the poster used to calibrate his printer. If Hahn color calibrated their printer using paper X and the poster color calibrated his printer using paper Y, then they are not calibrated to the same state and he is using a profile that was created for a printer calibrated to a different state. For that reason, he should not expect that profile to perform as well as it otherwise would.
I am new to this and have only printed with two kinds of paper from two manufacturers so far - Canon and Moab/Legion. The Canon profile has allowed me to use soft-proofing to quickly get my prints to look very good on that particular Canon paper. The Moab profile is worse than useless. If I soft-proof with it I get a result that is worse than where I started. I'm in the process of getting a custom profile made for my Moab paper and hopefully that will allow me to soft-proof for that paper. If the custom profile works substantially better than the one provided by Moab, then I'm guessing that one reason could be that their iPF printer is color calibrated to a state that is substantially different from mine, due to their using a different paper for color calibration. At least I'll be eliminating that factor.
-
I"ve been using that media on the IPF8300 for years using my X-rite custom profile and media setting 4 and even with large black areas I can roll them up within an hour. If it is extremely humid you could use a hair dryer, but I've never had to do that.
john
-
Pete Berry is correct. Calibration has only one purpose and that is to return the printer to its original state. On my iPF the menu will not let me do a calibration on the wrong paper.
-
Yes, Pete Berry is correct. And this is exactly what my Canon tech confirmed when I asked. This is a printer calibration, not a paper calibration. If it were a paper calibration you would need in internal spectro to do that. Now with the HP Z series you are doing a paper calibration each time, specifically for that media, and that becomes your media setting for that paper. But the HP has a built in I1 spectro, which functions both to calibrate the grayscale of the media, and then in a separate pass makes the RGB icc profile, the Canon doesn't. The media setting on the Canon determines the amount of ink laid down for that media, and determines dmax, etc.
john
-
Calibration has only one purpose and that is to return the printer to its original state.
Are you sure that the purpose is not to return it to a known and repeatable state, which is not necessarily a specific original state or standard? If that were the case you could use any of the 17 recommended papers to get it back to that original state and it would not be necessary to always use the same paper when you calibrate, since they would all calibrate the printer to the same state.
It makes sense to me that the printer will calibrate itself to a slightly different state, depending on which paper you use to calibrate it with. And that then is the reason to always use the same paper, so the printer always goes to that state and remains consistent. It also makes sense then that if you want two printers to print exactly alike, that you calibrate them with the SAME paper, so that they will go to the same state.
-
My Canon tech said I could use the Canon HW Matte as I was using, or the Canon rc gloss, or the Canon rc satin. In other words anything Canon :-) .
He said he prefers the gloss rc and the canon data sheet said to use HW Matte. I wouldn't surprise me if you could use a lot of papers for that.
-
Are you sure that the purpose is not to return it to a known and repeatable state, which is not necessarily a specific original state or standard? If that were the case you could use any of the 17 recommended papers to get it back to that original state and it would not be necessary to always use the same paper when you calibrate, since they would all calibrate the printer to the same state.
It makes sense to me that the printer will calibrate itself to a slightly different state, depending on which paper you use to calibrate it with. And that then is the reason to always use the same paper, so the printer always goes to that state and remains consistent. It also makes sense then that if you want two printers to print exactly alike, that you calibrate them with the SAME paper, so that they will go to the same state.
Yes, I would say standard or known repeatable state rather than original, as the printer cannot be factory tested without printheads installed. You set the standard state with the initial calibration on paper you will keep for this procedure in the future. I don't understand why Canon doesn't just specify the single supplied paper to be used, though.
If you are unhappy with prints from stock profiles, and have eliminated monitor cal. problems by printing an unmodified printer test image that is "off" in the same way your own files print, then custom profiles for your various papers should solve the problem. I've not found this to be the case over 8 years with several iPF's, though.
Pete