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Author Topic: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation  (Read 7667 times)

Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #20 on: February 16, 2019, 11:01:29 pm »

Useful to remember that the Epson 9800/9500 are quite dated by now. The Pro-1000 incorporates all of Canon's newest printer and ink technology in a series that was thoroughly re-engineered. It also produces visibly superior prints compared with Canon's own previous models.

It (the 9800) is certainly long in the tooth but the darn thing just keeps working. And, in spite of its flaws, once one has a good profile, it is just really stable. Very little drift over the years. But, at some point it will give out and turn into a large boat anchor. The 9500 had a smoother tone curve and required fewer patches for a good profile but in all other ways was quite inferior to the 9800. Drifted. Colors had a dependency on adjacent colors. Very poor black point, amongst others. OTOH, it too still works.
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vikcious

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #21 on: February 17, 2019, 05:04:22 am »

Also, I've determined that the default (no calibration) profiles have a larger gamut in the dark violets, Hue angle about 280 - 300. at low L*.  This is the case on both matte and glossy. interesting.
Doug, correct me pls if I'm wrong but this gamut gain is gone forever once you calibrate the printer, isn't it?
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vikcious

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #22 on: February 17, 2019, 05:07:13 am »

For sure Mark. Pretty bad for replication work as well. The remaining issue is if the Rel. Col. has BPC or not. Odd it isn't selectable.

Oddly enough the BPC in present in Canon's new PLL (Professional Print & layout), the PS plugin still in beta which Canon promotes as the replacement of PSP, eventually.
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Panagiotis

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #23 on: February 17, 2019, 06:04:42 am »

Ver. 2.2.3

Just ran across another problem. PSP only offers Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric when using an ICC profile. Also, where's BPC option ins PSP? That's pretty useful with Rel. Col.

What's up with that? Where's Abs. and Sat.???

I use Abs. to provide a secondary verification color management is closing the loop. It's also pretty important for replication work.

While there's a lot to like about PSP what the actual printer settings are less than clear. Going directly through the driver is much cleaner to me. Also, PSP appears to use the OS's CMM and I prefer Adobe ACE for CMM though I haven't seen much difference between the two with printer profiles, unlike RGB matrix profiles which are can produce significant conversion errors with Windows' CMM.

It is reassuring that PSP latest version 2.2.3 can be used to print calibration charts (despite that it says that the chart files are converted to a color space).
 
BPC in PSP requires Adobe CMM which is an old win 32bit application. This information is from Keith Coopers' PRO-1000 review (look at "Printing with Print Studio Pro" section):

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-1000-printer-review/



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Czornyj

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #24 on: February 17, 2019, 06:46:57 am »

This will be a running commentary. Purpose is to establish where and how differences in printing occurs


My printer arrived today. No issues setting it up. Impressive printer.
IK have not run Plat Pro paper to calibrate. Just at the defaults for now

First steps will be to print targets using I1Profiler's print direct then ACPU then Null trick, then PSP using the XPS driver. Next will be running a calibration with Plat Pro Paper.

Pro-1000 calibrates itself automatically while print head installation using attached sheet of HW Coated. So in fact it's already calibrated (linearised), and additional calibration with Platinum Pro will most probably not introduce any noticeable difference.
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #25 on: February 17, 2019, 12:07:07 pm »

Doug, correct me pls if I'm wrong but this gamut gain is gone forever once you calibrate the printer, isn't it?

No, you can reset the printer in the maint. tab which brings it back to the initial installation/calibration.

However, it's a tiny effect on the gamut volume (2% or so) and almost entirely effects the darker magentas. It is very unlikely you would ever see a difference purely from gamut clipping in that area.

That said, there are fairly significant differences in other colors within the gamut if you use a profile made before a new calibration that affects your paper setting. My inclination is to not use calibration after you make your own profiles. It may be necessary after some time or with a head replacement but that's usually the case with any printer.
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #26 on: February 17, 2019, 12:18:37 pm »

Pro-1000 calibrates itself automatically while print head installation using attached sheet of HW Coated. So in fact it's already calibrated (linearised), and additional calibration with Platinum Pro will most probably not introduce any noticeable difference.

It does, to the supplied MP101 with the corner clipped. My tests, initial installation then calibration with LU101, a luster paper. Fairly significant changes resulted.

I ran a comparison of 3 target prints on matte and glossy, before and after recal. with LU101. While the gamut limits were unchanged except for dark magentas, there was a significant shift of in-gamut colors. More so with the glossy than matte.  The shifts were only very slightly visible on the Kodak PDI image viewed side by side. Viewed apart, I couldn't tell one from the other.

Here's histograms showing the differences. I generated 100,000 random RGB values. Ran them through AtoB1 tables in profiles created from 3 targets each for both matte and glossy. The delta E2000 was calculated and histograms of the differences generated. See attached.

The largest dE00 was on the glossy at RGB 35,84,248, which generated LAB values of  29.1, 32.0, -78.6 before recal and  35.3, 21.2, -73.4, 6.9 after recal with LU101.

A pretty big change well inside the gamut. Very visible comparing before/after prints. Note, this is unrelated to gamut limit changes which were largely insignificant. The largest dE changes were all inside the gamut and not from gamut limit clipping.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2019, 12:27:14 pm by Doug Gray »
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #27 on: February 17, 2019, 12:29:02 pm »

BPC in PSP requires Adobe CMM which is an old win 32bit application. This information is from Keith Coopers' PRO-1000 review (look at "Printing with Print Studio Pro" section):
It's been quite a long time since I was running 32 bits. This is really a major problem for windows installations.
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #28 on: February 17, 2019, 02:01:47 pm »

I wouldn't know about a difference between Windows and OSX because I left the Windows world about ten years ago. In the PSP I worked with there were no hidden options. That was the whole point - all the settings one needed in the driver to make a print were laid-out very obviously to make it easy; so I'd be surprised if you are missing anything. In fact, the piece of the PSP Manual I found on-line suggests that there are only the two options: PSP Manual CM . This is truly annoying. They should definitely have ABSCOL available because it's necessary for those doing proofing work.   

Mark,

I probably should point out the workaround that would be needed on the 2000 if using the driver directly from Photoshop differs from PSP in Windows. The pro1000 doesn't differ in Windows x64 so one can just go through the driver directly for Abs. Col. or BPC.

workaround:
In Photoshop, convert the image to the printer/paper profile using the desired intent and BPC setting. Then print in PSP with color management turned off just as one would print a target.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #29 on: February 17, 2019, 02:06:20 pm »

Mark,

I probably should point out the workaround that would be needed on the 2000 if using the driver directly from Photoshop differs from PSP in Windows. The pro1000 doesn't differ in Windows x64 so one can just go through the driver directly for Abs. Col. or BPC.

workaround:
In Photoshop, convert the image to the printer/paper profile using the desired intent and BPC setting. Then print in PSP with color management turned off just as one would print a target.

Sounds sensible to me.
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #30 on: February 17, 2019, 04:14:44 pm »

Another few pieces of info:

Closing the loop on color accuracy, I printed the standard ISIS_CC Chart which has CC patches arranged like a CC but with each patch composed of 9, 6mm squares. This provides statistical info on printing same patches as well as good averages for each of the 24 CC colors. It also has LAB neutral strips on one edge in increments of 1 to get info on the neutral tone curve. The chart is in standard letter size iSis readable format of 957 patches. It's not a full gamut spread but is great for fast, visual comparisons with an actual CC as well as providing good info when scanned for color accuracy stats.

For Canson Photo Rag 210gsm from the standard, 1 pg default-isis target profile:
Average dE00 for all 24 CC patches: .46, Max 1.08
Average dE00 over neutral patches from L*=5 to 95 in steps of 1:  .46

___

Next, does it print with 16 bits?  No, it doesn't.
Results: Printed 16 bit image "black balls" which is designed show 8 bit banding.
All printing methods, xps, regular driver, or through PSP produced identical banding which was the same as if the image was converted first to 8 bits. However, setting the color settings "dither on conversion" option eliminated the banding printing the 16 bit image.

Should be noted that to actually see the difference between 16 bit and 8 bit print banding you really have to create synthetic images to have a chance. With any normal photo image the intrinsic noise (even at .1%) results in very smooth gradients. Even with synthetic images I scanned the prints and bumped up the contrast 10x to bring out the banding. Just barely visible otherwise. 8/16 bit printing is 99.9% marketing nonsense.
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Panagiotis

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #31 on: February 17, 2019, 05:03:10 pm »

Another few pieces of info:

Closing the loop on color accuracy, I printed the standard ISIS_CC Chart which has CC patches arranged like a CC but with each patch composed of 9, 6mm squares. This provides statistical info on printing same patches as well as good averages for each of the 24 CC colors. It also has LAB neutral strips on one edge in increments of 1 to get info on the neutral tone curve. The chart is in standard letter size iSis readable format of 957 patches. It's not a full gamut spread but is great for fast, visual comparisons with an actual CC as well as providing good info when scanned for color accuracy stats.

For Canson Photo Rag 210gsm from the standard, 1 pg default-isis target profile:
Average dE00 for all 24 CC patches: .46, Max 1.08
Average dE00 over neutral patches from L*=5 to 95 in steps of 1:  .46


Sorry it's late here and I am a bit slow. Is these accuracy stats with a profile made with color calibration on or off? Thanks.
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GWGill

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #32 on: February 17, 2019, 05:33:34 pm »

Sad really, as I was expecting calibration to at least not decrease gamut and provide a good way to adjust for head wear or aging ink. Color me surprised.
Yes - one of the trade-offs in using calibration is choosing maximum density aim points. Aim too low, and every device can hit it, but you limit the gamut. Aim too high, and you have to cope with most devices not hitting the target, and the profile not being so accurate in those areas. A trick was to make the calibration smoothly tail off to the achievable maximum, rather than clipping abruptly.
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #33 on: February 17, 2019, 06:07:04 pm »

Sorry it's late here and I am a bit slow. Is these accuracy stats with a profile made with color calibration on or off? Thanks.

I make accuracy tests with a regular, colorspace tagged, tiff file and print it using normal color managed settings except that  use Abs. Col. for the intent. Thus, ideally, a color looked at in Lab with the info tab in Photoshop will print and read the same Lab value with a spectro.

The image file is formatted to be read with an iSis but is tagged as Adobe RGB instead of the usual untagged target image.
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #34 on: February 17, 2019, 06:41:46 pm »

Yes - one of the trade-offs in using calibration is choosing maximum density aim points. Aim too low, and every device can hit it, but you limit the gamut. Aim too high, and you have to cope with most devices not hitting the target, and the profile not being so accurate in those areas. A trick was to make the calibration smoothly tail off to the achievable maximum, rather than clipping abruptly.

I've tried a related thing with the 9800, printing, and measuring, gradients from RGB 30 down to 0 and looking for a smooth transition to the best black point. Turned out the defaults on the 9800 were very close to optimal so I choose to leave them at default and make profiles based on that.
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Doug Gray

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #35 on: February 17, 2019, 07:19:10 pm »

I've included the CC iSis target file I use to check color accuracy. It's in Adobe RGB and is a 16 bit tif. Also included is the RGB CGATs file that can be loaded into I1Profiler's patches as well as the spectro scan from the printed file.

The three are zipped and attached. The file should be printed at 100% using standard color management and selecting Abs. Col. intent. It can be used with any paper/printer/profile. Even without a spectro it's useful for comparing to a real Colorchecker for gross error. With an I1 Pro one can spot read each of the 24 colors. But it's ideal for reading with an iSis though you may need a little work in Excel or MATLAB (What I use) to accumulate and get the stats.

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Panagiotis

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #36 on: February 18, 2019, 12:40:04 am »

I've included the CC iSis target file I use to check color accuracy. It's in Adobe RGB and is a 16 bit tif. Also included is the RGB CGATs file that can be loaded into I1Profiler's patches as well as the spectro scan from the printed file.

The three are zipped and attached. The file should be printed at 100% using standard color management and selecting Abs. Col. intent. It can be used with any paper/printer/profile. Even without a spectro it's useful for comparing to a real Colorchecker for gross error. With an I1 Pro one can spot read each of the 24 colors. But it's ideal for reading with an iSis though you may need a little work in Excel or MATLAB (What I use) to accumulate and get the stats.

Thanks!

Reading your comments and GWGills' above regarding maximum density I wonder if the ink limit setting of a media type plays a role in gamut volume. If you examine the characteristics of the media types with MCT you will notice various settings on ink upper limit such as ...Standard/Medium/MediumHigh/Highest etc.
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GWGill

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #37 on: February 18, 2019, 02:35:42 am »

I wonder if the ink limit setting of a media type plays a role in gamut volume.
Yes indeed. Setting the ink limits is something of an art though. If you look at the trajectory of raw individual colorants in L*a*b* space, they typically start OK from white, but then compress and curve as they approach their maximums. Typically they end up curling back from some peak density. Dot gain can be extreme. In some printing modes, a single channel 100% can correspond to 400% ink on paper or more due to dot overlap. So a tradeoff with gamut is how much ink you are putting on the page, and whether this will run, or clog detail or take too long to dry, or result in some other undesirable artifact, such as yellow floating to the top etc.
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Panagiotis

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #38 on: February 18, 2019, 03:06:53 am »

Yes indeed. Setting the ink limits is something of an art though. If you look at the trajectory of raw individual colorants in L*a*b* space, they typically start OK from white, but then compress and curve as they approach their maximums. Typically they end up curling back from some peak density. Dot gain can be extreme. In some printing modes, a single channel 100% can correspond to 400% ink on paper or more due to dot overlap. So a tradeoff with gamut is how much ink you are putting on the page, and whether this will run, or clog detail or take too long to dry, or result in some other undesirable artifact, such as yellow floating to the top etc.

Thank you!

Canon in its Media Configuration Tool includes a procedure to determine the ink limit for a custom media type. It is a file which the user has the option to print and check it visually during the setup of the custom media type:

At the end of this page:
https://ugp01.c-ij.com/ij/webmanual/MediaConfigurationTool/W/1.3/EN/MCT/tp191034.html
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Pro 1000 Color Management Investigation
« Reply #39 on: February 18, 2019, 08:39:48 am »

Thank you!

Canon in its Media Configuration Tool includes a procedure to determine the ink limit for a custom media type. It is a file which the user has the option to print and check it visually during the setup of the custom media type:

At the end of this page:
https://ugp01.c-ij.com/ij/webmanual/MediaConfigurationTool/W/1.3/EN/MCT/tp191034.html
Maybe Canon provides more tools than Epson for third party media.  Scott Martin published something useful about a decade ago that I found useful for my Epson 3880.  However, Epson only has some limited choices and then one might have to fine tune things in the print driver in terms of ink lay down and dry times which is difficult and time consuming.  As my 3880 nears the end of life, I'll be faced with the choice of Canon and Epson 17inch printers.  Doug's comments on this thread will be useful information in that regard.
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