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Author Topic: New article - printing with Imageprint  (Read 10719 times)

colorbyte

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #40 on: January 05, 2018, 12:25:31 pm »

Hi John,
Thanks for the detail. Out of curiosity, is there a philosophy you and Irene have when making color profiles (particularly the relative colormetric variety)? There were a few comments about handling blues and magneta color cast. I have not experienced these issues in real photos so far.  I would be great to understand what the underlying philosophy is. Is it accuracy, pleasing results, or something else? 

Also, since there is interest in Canon printers these days (I am happy with my Epson), can you speak to where IP stands in terms of full Canon support?

Philosophy only comes into to play with Perceptual.  Relative Colormetric is a defined standard.  We write our own profiler.  It is very much tailored for the reproduction of photographic capture.

I assume by Full Canon Support you mean narrow gamut BW.  We will be releasing an update in the near future that will have that in it.
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loganross

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #41 on: January 05, 2018, 04:56:06 pm »

Hi,
Regarding Canon, I thought that currently IP prints through the Canon driver, but that an update due soon will enable direct printing as you have on Epson.

Regarding Profiles, that is good to know. I have noticed slightly less saturation in some photos compared to manufacturer profiles, but I think that is not very relevant. In most cases, I prefer it over overly saturated profiles.  Also,I have not been able to duplicate the magneta cast mentioned about older versions of the software (yeah!).  However, I do notice a bit of one when soft proofing (BenQ SW320 monitor). That doesn't bother me as I only care about the prints.  Thank you again so much for this SW. I was printing last night, and it really makes a massive difference.

 
Philosophy only comes into to play with Perceptual.  Relative Colormetric is a defined standard.  We write our own profiler.  It is very much tailored for the reproduction of photographic capture.

I assume by Full Canon Support you mean narrow gamut BW.  We will be releasing an update in the near future that will have that in it.
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ramd41@gmail.com

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #42 on: January 07, 2018, 09:55:08 pm »

Hi

I have been using ImagePrint for many years with various iterations of the Epson Stylus Pro 4000 (now 4900).  I am not a commercial printer and use ImagePrint for fine art printing (or at least as close to "fine are" as my photography will get me).  Yes, it is expensive.  But when compared to either paying for professional profiling of various media, or purchasing X-Rite i1Photo Pro 2 Color Management Kit for Photographers  at over $1,200, I prefer the cost of IP.  I use an NEC PA-302 color monitor and while no profiling is perfect, I find then colors are extremely close to what the monitor internally profiled with Spectraview shows on screen.  I'm thinking of adding a 44" printer (leaning toward Canon despite having used Epson for many, many years - due to the infamous ink clogging problems and Epson's notorious poor customer support - but that's a whole 'nother issue.  I will have to swallow hard to purchase IP for that printer given it's cost.  But I will likely go with it, given what it has provided me, particularly in its most recent iteration.

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colorbyte

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #43 on: January 08, 2018, 01:46:02 pm »

Hi,
Regarding Canon, I thought that currently IP prints through the Canon driver, but that an update due soon will enable direct printing as you have on Epson.

Regarding Profiles, that is good to know. I have noticed slightly less saturation in some photos compared to manufacturer profiles, but I think that is not very relevant. In most cases, I prefer it over overly saturated profiles.  Also,I have not been able to duplicate the magneta cast mentioned about older versions of the software (yeah!).  However, I do notice a bit of one when soft proofing (BenQ SW320 monitor). That doesn't bother me as I only care about the prints.  Thank you again so much for this SW. I was printing last night, and it really makes a massive difference.

The new drivers when we release them will be direct.  It won't change the profiles though just the way we connect to the printer.
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Jim Kasson

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #44 on: January 08, 2018, 04:43:04 pm »

I've looked at the IP website, and I can't tell if the user has any control over the resampling algorithm or not. I also can't tell if IP resamples to 720 ppi or 360 ppi for Epson printers, and whether that is under user control.

Anybody know?

Jim

loganross

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #45 on: January 08, 2018, 11:12:38 pm »

 Since using imageprint, I have not had to worry about resampling, resizing, cropping, or otherwise. Nor have I had to worry about other tasks that should only be necessary at the output (print stage), such as output sharpening, borders, frames, and gallery wrap borders.  My workflow is greatly simplified by not having to generate multiple files based on various print tasks.  I know there are certain print quality settings, but I don't recall an option to select resampling algorithm. Also, even when comparing to specialty programs like "re-size", I have never been able to discern a difference vs imageprint on the actual prints.  Why not download the demo and check it out for yourself?


 
I've looked at the IP website, and I can't tell if the user has any control over the resampling algorithm or not. I also can't tell if IP resamples to 720 ppi or 360 ppi for Epson printers, and whether that is under user control.

Anybody know?

Jim
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colorbyte

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #46 on: January 09, 2018, 12:26:08 pm »

I've looked at the IP website, and I can't tell if the user has any control over the resampling algorithm or not. I also can't tell if IP resamples to 720 ppi or 360 ppi for Epson printers, and whether that is under user control.

Anybody know?

Jim

This can be a bit confusing.  If you print from Photoshop for example, PS has to send the data through the OS print path before that data gets to the OEM print driver.  The OS does all data transformation in a bi-linear fashion.  This is very bad for photographic printing.  To avoid this, users are instructed to make sure you are setting the PPI in PS to exactly what the printer driver wants.  For Epson that is 360.  There has been discussion that 720 is better but from a technical point of view 720 will be scaled back to 360 at the time of dithering so oversampling won't have much benefit.  With ImagePrint, Non of the above ever happens so there is no need to do or control that.  You can give us any size you want and we will perfectly prepare it for our dithering routines.   On some printers we allow you to control our dithering routine but that is mainly a large format feature to go lower not higher for those printing very large murals where the dithered file could exceed the limitation of the OS.
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Jim Kasson

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #47 on: January 09, 2018, 01:34:30 pm »

This can be a bit confusing.  If you print from Photoshop for example, PS has to send the data through the OS print path before that data gets to the OEM print driver.  The OS does all data transformation in a bi-linear fashion.  This is very bad for photographic printing.  To avoid this, users are instructed to make sure you are setting the PPI in PS to exactly what the printer driver wants.  For Epson that is 360.  There has been discussion that 720 is better but from a technical point of view 720 will be scaled back to 360 at the time of dithering so oversampling won't have much benefit.  With ImagePrint, Non of the above ever happens so there is no need to do or control that.  You can give us any size you want and we will perfectly prepare it for our dithering routines.   On some printers we allow you to control our dithering routine but that is mainly a large format feature to go lower not higher for those printing very large murals where the dithered file could exceed the limitation of the OS.

Are you doing something like this:

http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/lets-do-away-with-resampling-for-printing/

If so, I think that's wonderful!

Jim

alainbriot

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #48 on: January 09, 2018, 01:39:51 pm »

ImagePrint does not require resampling to the exact printer DPI.  It's a great feature because it saves having to worry about that aspect of printing. 
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Jim Kasson

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #49 on: January 09, 2018, 03:31:57 pm »

This can be a bit confusing.  If you print from Photoshop for example, PS has to send the data through the OS print path before that data gets to the OEM print driver.  The OS does all data transformation in a bi-linear fashion.  This is very bad for photographic printing.  To avoid this, users are instructed to make sure you are setting the PPI in PS to exactly what the printer driver wants.  For Epson that is 360.  There has been discussion that 720 is better but from a technical point of view 720 will be scaled back to 360 at the time of dithering so oversampling won't have much benefit.

It sounds like you're talking about Mac OS. I've done some reverse engineering under Windows -- but several years ago -- that indicated the following with Epson printers:

The OS does not resample the image.
The driver does, using nearest neighbor.
When finest detail is checked, the driver resamples to 720 ppi (with NN)
When finest detail is unchecked, the driver resamples to 360 ppi (with NN)
The driver performs error diffusion with blue-noise dither on the resampled image.

Sounds like you skip the resampling. That is, IMHO, the right way to do it.

Jim

colorbyte

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Re: New article - printing with Imageprint
« Reply #50 on: January 09, 2018, 03:56:14 pm »

Are you doing something like this:

http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/lets-do-away-with-resampling-for-printing/

If so, I think that's wonderful!

Jim

Yes.  We own our own pipe to the printer so no resampling needed.  Depending on the application sending the data the OS and or Driver can get involved at various levels and yes, it is slightly different between Mac and Windows.
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