Hahnemuhle Sugar Cane, ipf8300 and media type

[shewhorn]

Has anyone built a custom media type for this paper. The suggestion from the Media Configuration Tool is Fine Art Watercolor. I've tried that with the various max ink usage settings. If you print a target with each one and create a profile, the gamut volume continues to go up for each one. Here's some numbers:

Medium Low - 438,078
Medium - 447,810
Medium High - 455,468
High - 462,834

What I've often seen is that the gamut volume dips down a bit after a certain point which at least indicates that it can't handle the extra ink. I wish I had a tool that tracked chroma as Scott Martin suggested a few months ago but... I can't justify the cost of the RIP JUST for that and for the most part I've been doing alright without it. Anyhow, I'm also printing Granger Charts...

The Granger Charts are truly nauseating at medium, medium high, and high. What's happening is that on the high points of the paper texture I'm getting shiny spots of ink with the cyan and green inks (and note that without a profile on the IPF8300, cyan appears as blue). It almost looks like a banding of sorts (but it's definitely not as the amount of this phenomenon directly correlates with the maximum ink usage setting). Out of curiosity I tried Special 9 which is what Hahnemuhle recommends. I think that's a pretty bad recommendation.

I think I'm on the right track by going with medium low but I wanted to see if anyone has had any experience with this media on the 8300.

Cheers, Joe

[Ernst Dinkla]

There is an odd texture on Sugar Cane and you can not print the same image in two directions on that paper and hang them next to one another on the same wall, the prints will differ due to the lighting on the texture, it has a linear bias. But there could be more to it. I wonder whether your experience is related to that: how the droplets get on the paper texture. It might influence the spectrometer readings too. Turning the paper 90 degrees for the next target may reveal something.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

New: Spectral plots of +175 inkjet papers:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

[keith_cooper]

I'm looking at Innova IFA 13 Cold Press Rough Textured on the 8300

Suggested media setting from Innova is Fine Art Textured

If you use the MCT suggestion, it depends on whether you enter the weight (315g) or the thickness (520 micron).
Weight suggests Fine Art Textured, whilst entering the thickness suggests ArtMatte canvas.

With either, at anything above 'low' ink settings there is pronounced mottling visible in deep colours. Even at 'low' it's still there in some places. It looks as if the raised surface and the hollows of the texture behave like two different papers.

Not having any desire to print off miles of test samples, I was wondering if there were any suggestions for media settings for the paper (I've seen premium Matte paper suggested, but there's not much difference from ArtMatteCanvas at low ink setting)

[shewhorn]

There is an odd texture on Sugar Cane and you can not print the same image in two directions on that paper and hang them next to one another on the same wall, the prints will differ due to the lighting on the texture, it has a linear bias. But there could be more to it. I wonder whether your experience is related to that: how the droplets get on the paper texture. It might influence the spectrometer readings too. Turning the paper 90 degrees for the next target may reveal something.

Interesting. I'll print out some targets opposed 90º to one another today and scan them both in to see what happens. I'll try the polarizing filter on this one as well. I'm thinking the optimal profile might come from a mix of polarized, and non-polarized readings.

Cheers, Joe

[shewhorn]

If you use the MCT suggestion, it depends on whether you enter the weight (315g) or the thickness (520 micron).
Weight suggests Fine Art Textured, whilst entering the thickness suggests ArtMatte canvas.

I've found the disparity between whether or not you specify weight or thickness to be quite maddening at times. Canon doesn't really provide any information at all on the differences between media types. One difference I have noticed is that with the canvas types as well as Special 9, the number of passes is restricted to high. You cannot select highest. I wonder what the reason for this is? Is it because of the physics involved? Might more passes actually degrade image quality or is it perhaps a case of Canon simply determining that with these highly textured surfaces, more passes will not result in better image quality so you may as well go for the speed? I tried both high and highest in my tests last night and didn't see any quantifiable difference in the areas that featured pooling on the granger charts.

Speaking of which... I mentioned that it looked like there were shiny areas on the peaks of the texture. A magnifying glass revealed that the ink is actually pooling in the troughs of the texture (which makes FAR more sense) and doesn't appear to be adhering as well to the peaks.

Cheers, Joe