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Author Topic: Experiments with Interstitially Nested Grid Profiling Charts and the Z3200.  (Read 3589 times)

MHMG

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I have been following another interesting thread entitled:  New Approach for Generating Optimal Profile Patch Sets

In the discussion cited above, Doug Gray presented an idea of combining two uniform grids of RGB triplets by offsetting the values of a smaller grid such that those values are packed and centered within the larger grid. Graeme Gill noted the same  "body centered cubic" technique can be invoked in ArgyllCMS and also cited earlier literature where the concept has been described previously. 

I’d like to share some more thoughts on what I’ve been calling  “interstitially nested grid” color charts or more simply “nested grid” charts. The concept is the same as the body centered cubic approach, but I have been packing even more grids within grids. The resulting color charts are part of an ongoing collaborative Z3200 profiling project with Mark Lindquist of Lindquist Studios and John Dean of Dean Imaging.  Hopefully, Mark L. and John Dean will chime in with some more comments on our findings as the thread evolves.

First, Mark L. and I started over a year ago just mastering the “art”  of getting the Z3200 to print and measure custom reference charts. We retraced the steps outlined by Geraldo Garcia in this thread. Using the HP Z3200 spectrophotometer to generate profiles for other printers. We ran into a number of technical hurdles (“bugs” more like it in the HP utility), but finally got that process down to a repeatable craft. Next, Mark  L. challenged me to make a very high patch count reference chart that could be read by the Z3200. So, I took the largest patch set generated by the i1Profiler app (6000 patches), outputting the chart in CGATS format, then reformatting it using Excel and Patchtool in order to get it into a final text format such that the Z3200 would read it.  Then Mark printed and measured this 6000 patch chart on his Z3200. I ran the measurement file through BasicColor DropRGB and Mark L. also used ArgyllCMS to create a custom ICC profile. Both apps yielded very similar output using Relcol/bpc rendering from Photoshop. Mark discusses that effort here: Amazing Breakthrough - HP Z3200ps 6000 Patch Target ICC Profile

Mark L. then shared the 6000 patch reference chart and methodology for use on the Z3200 with John D. and John took it one step further. He sent Mark and Mark each a set of prints made with various B&W printing methods on different printers plus two color prints. I will let Mark L and John discuss that part of the project if they wish to, but we all concluded our Z3200’s produced prints with subtle but real improvements in smoothness, color discrimination, and grayscale neutrality with the 6000 patch profiles compared to profiles built with the classic 12x12x12 (1728 patches) uniform grid chart design. FWIW, buried inside the i1Profiler 6000 patch target is an 18x18x18 (5832 patches) uniform grid plus 168 more patches chosen by the i1Profiler app with some proprietary algorithm to round out the patch count to 6000!

Suffice to say, Mark L. then challenged me to go bigger and bolder than 6000 patches!  And after a hiatus caused by other project commitments, I finally took up that challenge last November. I built a number of custom nested grid targets, the biggest one being 10445 patches! And we’ve been printing, measuring, and looking at output from them. I have attached a couple of photos of a nested grid chart design having a total of 3315 patches. The Z3200 automatically lays out the color chart patches on the fly depending on what size media one chooses (roll or cut sheet).  A Patchtool‑scrambled version of this 3315 reference chart is shown laid out to print on a 42 inch roll. The other photo shows the 3315 nested grid chart laid out for printing on a 24 inch roll.  Because the patches for the 24 inch wide print were sent without randomization or scrambling in the reference chart file, the nested grids can be clearly observed in the chart pattern.

The 3315 target shown here consists of 1) a 9x9x9 (729 patches) uniform grid, followed by 2) an 8x8x8 (512 patches) offset so as to fit centered within the 9x9x9 grid, followed by 3) a 16x16x16 offset 8 grid and filtered on HSB saturation for those colors occupying 22% of 9x9x9 RGB cube volume (644 patches), thus centered about the diagonal neutral line in the primary RGB cube  and finally, 4) a  32x32x32 offset 4 interstitial grid filtered on HSB saturation for those colors occupying 11% of RGB cube volume (1428 patches) centered about the diagonal neutral line in the RGB cube.
 
So what does this interstitially nested grid concept do?

If you fill the primary grid with correctly offset values derived from a grid just one size smaller, it essentially gives you the precision of a much larger uniform grid without using as many patches. Indeed, it essentially becomes one much larger uniform grid everywhere except at the facets of the RGB cube, thus dropping the precision back to the same precision of the primary grid but only on the facets of the RGB cube. I tend to think of it as a “lossy compression” technique for color charts where the values thrown away on the facets of the main RGB cube reduce the chart size significantly but only at locations which don’t require so much spacing precision.  For example, combining a 9x9x9 grid with an interstitially centered 8x8x8 grid = 9+8 = 17, i.e., the equivalent of a 17x17x17 uniform grid everywhere except on the facets of the RGB cube. The facets drop back to 9x9x9 spacing precision. Because the colors on the edges and facets of the cube represent the most saturated colors possible at any given L value generated by the printer as long as the printer isn’t seriously over inking the media we are sacrificing precision only where we really don’t need it.

My research on the I* metric taught me that observers can accept much less color accuracy in vivid colors compared to low chroma colors and the I* is weighted to take that into account (much more than dE2000 weights this response). Hence, the practical benefit of a nested grid color chart is that it dramatically boosts the RGB spacing precision where we do want it while helping to keep total patch count down to a more reasonable amount. For example, in a 9+8 nested grid design, inserting the 8x8x8 grid into a 9x9x9 grid combines 512 patches with 729 for a total patch count of 1241. This nested grid chart punches well above its weight because it is behaving identically to a17x17x17 uniform grid over approximately 94% of the entire RGB cube volume. If one chose a single 17x17x17 inch uniform grid for a color chart, it would contain 4913 total patches! That’s just one example of the practical value of the nested grid or “body centered cubic” method as Graeme Gill likes to call it.

A second example of patch count efficiency is found in our 10445 patch chart. I kid Mark L. that he has inspired  “The Mother of all profile charts”! Totally outrageous but doable with the Z3200 spectrophotometer.  It was designed with monochrome printing in full color mode in mind, and it maps 94% of the RGB cube with 33x33x33 equivalent (i.e., 17 + 16 = 33) uniform grid spacing, but it also maps the low saturation (neutral and near neutral) RGB triplets with 4 RGB unit spacing precision that would otherwise require a single 65x65x65 uniform grid. A 65>3 uniform grid would map 100% of the RGB cube at 4 unit spacing intervals, but it would also contain 274,265 patches! Hence, our 10445 chart was a good test as to whether the Z3200 can be overfitted with too much spacing precision which might cause profile accuracy and smoothness to decline. We have found that it does not cause a decline in quality, and in fact the quality of the output is superb. How much better is the print quality than, say a 2000, 4000, or 6000 patch chart? We are working on this question now. The differences are indeed subtle, but one thing we have proven for sure. The Z3200 prints with noticeably higher print quality when patch counts climb above the biggest chart HP supplies with its Color utility, i.e., a 1728 12>3 RGB cube color chart.  So custom charts with extended patch counts are indeed worth pursuing.

Another advantage of nested grid chart designs, IMHO, is that they can place more precision into lower saturation colors where it is often beneficial without having to resort to a two step optimization process or know precisely where the neutral gray scale is occurring.  I’d rather approach my profiling activities with a “one and done” target printing session!

Mark, John, and I are now working on both objective and subjective evaluations comparing various nested chart designs to other conventional charts with both smaller and greater total patch counts. As I noted earlier, we quickly concluded that our Z3200 printers really do benefit from charts greater than the classic Atkinson 1728 patch target. That said, where the sweet spot lies is going to take more testing. Moreover, as I study how ICC profiles are evaluated these days both objectively and subjectively, the current methods may very well need to be augmented with yet unforeseen approaches to color metrics and to printer evaluation targets.

Enough for now.  I hope Mark Lindquist, John Dean, and others will also share their thoughts in this thread.

Cheers,
Mark McCormick-Goodhart
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: March 02, 2019, 06:24:28 pm by MHMG »
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Mark Lindquist

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On December 7, 2017, I posted the “Amazing Breakthrough - HPZ3200ps 6000 Patch Target ICC Profile” thread: 

6000 Patch Target ICC Profile Thread

Since the discussion opened up at that time, with several participants, Mark McCormick of Aardenburg Imaging and I have been working on further experiments going well beyond that perceived “ceiling” actually printing and testing major extended patch targets that Mark (MHMG) has been creating.

Unquestionably, Doug Gray has made significant progress in a related area, just as we have continued our research.
A salient quote from years back, the source of which I can’t remember, which described artists working in similar areas (such as Matisse and Picasso, Monet and Manet, etc.), went something like this, simply:

“…when we go to the orchard, there is much fruit for everyone…” (probably sounded better in French)

Interestingly, actually printing and measuring the results provided specific feedback, but creating a specific double blind test was needed, and John Dean of Dean Imaging in Atlanta created a special test that both Mark MHMG and Mark L (me, from Lindquist Studios) could participate in.  John created (12) 8-1/2 x 11 black and white image prints printed on several different printers and papers and asked which had the most pleasing neutral print color of them all.

There were prints made using 1728 patch target profiles and prints made using the 6,000 patch target profiles.

Additionally, prints made with the Z3200ps on Canson Rag Photographique and any number of combinations including Canson Platine with the 6,000 patch target profile.

And finally prints made with an Epson 3880 with piezography inks.

So, many prints, different papers, different profiles, all black and white prints of the same image using great papers and the best ink sets.

We were instructed to lay them out on a table in natural light and to choose the single one that had the most pleasing neutral and the best dimensionality of tonal relationships .

All three of us picked the Canson Platine made with the 6,000 patch target ICC profile.  It was unquestionably the most pleasing neutral gray with the best grayscale and looked the most like prints we all were used to from the Black and White darkrooms we all had worked in years ago.

So we felt we were on to something.  In my (other) world, as a sculptor, bigger has been always better.  And in creating custom machines and robotics, nothing exceeds like excess.  So I challenged Mark to make ever bigger profiles and I continued to print and test them.  Gradually, as Mark understood that for me, the sky was the limit (no limits) he gradually began getting a handle on his interstitial nesting technique and started sending target chart files to be printed and measured and tested.

We used the Z3200ps 44 inch printer because I don’t have an iSis, and by printing once and measuring 3 times then combining and averaging we felt we could get the best results given the best equipment available to us.

And on up to the 10,455 nested patch target ICC profile which I have printed large - 44” x 44”.  It is my contention that the extended patch target ICC Profiles work best on large prints, and at full size, they come into their own.

There’s still experimentation and testing to be done, still a lot of work to do, but gradually, we are breaking barriers, and it is not without a lot of shimmying and shaking just as when attempting to break the sound barrier.

The beauty of the 10,455 patch target profile is that it confirms that at that level, not only is there beauty, but there is proof that there is nothing wrong, such as increased noise, banding and other problems associated with theories that larger patch target profiles would eventually break down and fail.  So far, not the case.

What is also amazing is that the Z3200ps embedded spectrophotometer system just hangs in there, not without issues, but nevertheless accomplishes the goals.

It’s an honor to work with Mark McCormick and to have John Deans input and to be making advances in this area. 

And this all goes back to my asking Geraldo Garcia for help making the 1728 patch target ICC profile.

Thanks Geraldo!
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Doug Gray

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Very cool. You guys have been doing some serious work on humongous patch sizes!

I'm curious how much variation you see on the same patches when you make 3 duplicates and average them. The Z3200ps has pretty much the same hardware as an iSis but prints much larger patches. Much of the variation I see is paper dependent with matte paper being much more repeatable. The paper texture makes a difference and the position of the patches on the paper as well. Also the standard patch size of 6mm results in only a few square mm's of each patch being effectively read due to the large margins needed to prevent adjacent patch light contamination. I suspect the Z3200ps produces more consistent readings just from the larger effective scan area. The issue of over fitting is mostly an artifact of noisy readings. And just adding 3 duplicate patch scans should reduce the point where overfitting is an issue quite a lot. Possibly more than doubling the number of patches before overfitting would become an issue.

I've been focusing on the other side, a minimalist patch set. Today, I was looking at how much advantage packed grids (N grid with an offset N-1 grid occurs at very small patch counts. In particular comparing a N=6 set which is 216 outer+125 inner grids. Turns out to be very close to the full iSis default 957 patch set. Not quite as good but less than  dE00 .1 difference. At least on Costco Glossy with the Pro1000. And with an average dE00 of about .6.
 
A particularly good aspect of the packed grid approach is that the device space neutral spacing is almost doubled. For instance with the above N=6 packed grid the number of device space RGB neutrals is N+(N-1) or 11. With the conventional evenly spaced single grid that would require 1331 instead of 341 patches. While device space neutrals is not the same as Abs. Col, or Rel. Col. neutrals, it's close enough to benefit. And that is the area that visual sensitivity to small changes is the greatest.


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deanwork

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Sorry I'm late to this but I wanted to make a few more prints this morning before commenting.

As Mark Lindquist and Mark McCormick have noted, before Christmas I printed out the 6000 patch target that they had been working out. We did this with the help of Mark L's engineer son on the phone.
That profile was made for PK ink and the Canson Platine media. Essentially you linearize and run the paper advance calibration as usual, then go through the extended profile workflow which took a long time to print and even longer to read.
I compared the same files to my Z3200 normal workflow prints, which are 1728 patch icc profiles.

Here is what I found out with the Platine 6000 patch profile. For color the prints, they are all just noticeably better than anything I've done on this printer or my Canon or Epson 7890 printers. I have not used Studio Print rip cmyk workflow for any color work, but this profile reminds me of what I have seen on an Epson 9900 with that rip and complex iterative readings ( which in addition to  the steep cost, has a multitude of hair pulling issues for anyone who had been there including banding if media or inks change ) . FOR COLOR PRINTS, what I"m seeing is not so much a big bump in better saturated color gamut, what I'm seeing is more refinement of that gamut, like more subtlety of hue transitions, giving it more depth. But what I think is the factor that makes my prints on Platine with this profile work so well, is the dimensionality of the specific colors in a zone in regard to the luminance subtlety that gives a greater sense of volume of an object. This effect often gives you the illusion of more sharpness in certain files, but it is not an isolated factor of resolution as much as it is tonal precision in the way the color dots are laid down. I'm not a color management guru, nor do I aspire to that world, I'm just a long time photographer and experienced printmaker so I'm not doing scientific patch and resolution tests, but I've made enough prints in the last 40 years to know when I'm excited about a significant improvemeny in the way my files are on being rendered by the software and this is clearly noticeable.

I'm even MORE excited about the rendering of my black and white work on the Z printers. As the guys mentioned, I made a lot of prints of the same file and BY FAR the best one at that time before trying the big matte profile, the one that was the most dimensional, was done with the Platine 6000 Patch profile that we made on my Z3200. We haven’t made a 10 k for Platine.

All of the tonal range is great and subtle, as is the sharpness, and no noise or other artifacts visible, but what really makes this profile shine is high value rendition, even as it turns from very light gray to paper base white, it is seamless. The other thing is that this 6000 patch profile gives me  the PERFECT print color on this type of paper which is noticably more neutral than what I was getting with the 1740 patch target, and less cool than the Canon inks with True Black and White rip using no color channels.
So, there is no adding any ink from the other color channels at all to finesse my print color. It is perfect as it is, less cool than what I was seeing with the 1728 target, but not yellow or geenish in any way either. Totally clean. The galleries who drool over gelatin silver prints were confused as to what it was and kept holding it up to the light ( In addition to the great gloss optimizer coat I also gave it another layer of Hahnemuhle uv varnish, though is really not  necessary just adds a little extra protection) . So I'm totally happy with the 6k profile on Platine, and have no desire to look for any improvements beyond this for this media. Just hope my Z printers last many more years.


The following describes the matt profile used on the image that I've included as a jpeg in this post.

Mark McCormicks amazing 10,445 patch, icc profile which was read several times and data averaged.
This is the most dimensional, cleanly neutral print I’ve ever made with oem inks, and the most cleanly neutral print color I’ve ever seen with any photographic process. This is on the Moab Entrada Natural Media it was made for. Same profile printed on the Entrada Bright White is a beautiful cooler neutral. No color toning added. Not sure about making warm prints by adding degrees of color. That will be my next test.
In addition, printing this same profile on Canson Rag Photographique produced an even slightly better print. Not surprising as the Canson coating is the sharpest and most subtle, and most durable coating I’ve ever used. The natural Entrada will most likely beat it in long term longevity, and both are great papers.

The only print  that came even close to Mark's 10K profile was the Piezography K7 Carbon print. Actually the tonal subtlety was as far as my eyes can see with strong glasses about the same. I've never even come close to reproducing a K7 print with subtle highlight detail on the Z or any other oem ink printer as far as that goes. They always looked flat in comparison, much like the QTR Ultrachrome prints, that can be really good, but not like this

I have not printed matte Color prints with the Entrada 10k profile yet, but I will and report back. That will be interesting. Should be amazing.

John



 
« Last Edit: March 06, 2019, 11:23:01 am by deanwork »
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Mark Lindquist

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Very cool. You guys have been doing some serious work on humongous patch sizes!

I'm curious how much variation you see on the same patches when you make 3 duplicates and average them. The Z3200ps has pretty much the same hardware as an iSis but prints much larger patches. Much of the variation I see is paper dependent with matte paper being much more repeatable. The paper texture makes a difference and the position of the patches on the paper as well. Also the standard patch size of 6mm results in only a few square mm's of each patch being effectively read due to the large margins needed to prevent adjacent patch light contamination. I suspect the Z3200ps produces more consistent readings just from the larger effective scan area. The issue of over fitting is mostly an artifact of noisy readings. And just adding 3 duplicate patch scans should reduce the point where overfitting is an issue quite a lot. Possibly more than doubling the number of patches before overfitting would become an issue.

I've been focusing on the other side, a minimalist patch set. Today, I was looking at how much advantage packed grids (N grid with an offset N-1 grid occurs at very small patch counts. In particular comparing a N=6 set which is 216 outer+125 inner grids. Turns out to be very close to the full iSis default 957 patch set. Not quite as good but less than  dE00 .1 difference. At least on Costco Glossy with the Pro1000. And with an average dE00 of about .6.
 
A particularly good aspect of the packed grid approach is that the device space neutral spacing is almost doubled. For instance with the above N=6 packed grid the number of device space RGB neutrals is N+(N-1) or 11. With the conventional evenly spaced single grid that would require 1331 instead of 341 patches. While device space neutrals is not the same as Abs. Col, or Rel. Col. neutrals, it's close enough to benefit. And that is the area that visual sensitivity to small changes is the greatest.

Our initial tests were done on my Z32200ps 44" machine using Epson and/or HP semigloss and gloss rolls. Usually the measured targets were extremely close when remeasured.
We moved to Moab Entrada Natural 300gsm two-sided to do the "Monster" Aardenburg 10,445 patch target profile doing a print/measure sequence on 44" sheets.  The HP Utility has a length stop point at which it will print the sheet, but fails to read or even load the sheet when it is past the length stop, so by splitting the sheets into two 44" sheets, the Win 10 HP Utility would read them.  The beauty is that since Moab Entrada Natural 300gsm is two sided, I was able to make the entire target on one 44" sheet, both sides. Since it's 300gsm, it's thick enough that there is no light contamination/ink bleed during the spectrophotometer read.

So the initial print/read is sequential, meaning it prints then reads one side, then asks for a new sheet, at which point I turn the printed target over to the reverse side and feed it in to finish the next print/read cycle.  Normally, that first measurement is right on, but to print once and measure twice to verify, works well, then to measure a third time and average all three makes it all the better.  It takes time and materials and is not for the faint of heart, but I'm more than pleased with the results, and apparently, so is John Dean, based on his comments.

Since Moab Entrada is my main Matte paper, It was worth doing testing to get the one main "monster Profile".

The Z3200ps printer has many advantages, particularly being able to set it and forget it in making profiles.  I can't imagine feeding an iSis or i1Pro to make a chart this size, so again, this puts the Z3200ps printer in a class of its own, even though it is now EOL (end of life).  Those of us that have the Z Series printers will be able to make tiff files for other printers to print, then read them and make measurement files for conversion to ICC profiles long after the ink has dried up.

In this sense, the Z3200ps is worth the money as a stand alone spectrophotometer.

Mark McCormick is focusing on "distilling" his nested grid, interstitial approach as well, and we are planning on doing significant testing to find the sweet spot in terms of smallest/best target yield.

Mark
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Mark Lindquist

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Excellent!

Of course, the profile would be even more accurate if you made it on your own machine.  But it takes a lot of time and a 44" sheet of Moab Natural (to print both sides) or 2  44" sheets of whatever paper you would want to make an in-house profile for.

I'm not surprised that it works well on your machine however.  That 10,445 profile is bullet-proof.  Mark pulled a rabbit out of his hat making that one.

It will be interesting to see how it does on Photorag, etc.

Mark
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Yea, I had tested it initially on the wrong Moab sheet !

Why didn’t HP tell us about this 12 years ago. They could have offered these profiles to their customers and blown everyone away.

This is THE BEST neutral monochrome inkjet print I’ve ever done on any printer with any inkset.
It’s also cleaner in print color than any analogue print I’ve ever made, as chemical developers always had some print color variation, as did paper age and batches.

This is an incredible profile. I’m sending you prints. Like I said, neutral on Entrada natural, cool neutral on Moab bright white. I’m very curious to see this weekend what adding color inks for very warm prints might do, and what capability that has.



Excellent!

Of course, the profile would be even more accurate if you made it on your own machine.  But it takes a lot of time and a 44" sheet of Moab Natural (to print both sides) or 2  44" sheets of whatever paper you would want to make an in-house profile for.

I'm not surprised that it works well on your machine however.  That 10,445 profile is bullet-proof.  Mark pulled a rabbit out of his hat making that one.

It will be interesting to see how it does on Photorag, etc.

Mark
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MHMG

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Yea, I had tested it initially on the wrong Moab sheet !

Why didn’t HP tell us about this 12 years ago. They could have offered these profiles to their customers and blown everyone away.

This is THE BEST neutral monochrome inkjet print I’ve ever done on any printer with any inkset.
It’s also cleaner in print color than any analogue print I’ve ever made, as chemical developers always had some print color variation, as did paper age and batches.

This is an incredible profile. I’m sending you prints. Like I said, neutral on Entrada natural, cool neutral on Moab bright white. I’m very curious to see this weekend what adding color inks for very warm prints might do, and what capability that has.

Because the 10445 patch target has 4 unit spacing not only in the pure neutral RGB triplets but also in the near neutrals extended as far as one probably needs to go in order to achieve tinted shades (warm tone, cool tone, sepia, etc), you should be able to work in full color mode, tweak a color curve in photoshop to suit the color tint of you own choosing, and the print should match the soft proof with high accuracy.

On my to do list is to work with my friend, Oleg Baburin who is the owner of Chicago Albumen Works (very close by where I live), to print some step wedges on a number of vintage processes (albumen, platinum, palladium, van dyke brown, Orotone, etc) to develop a set of color curve presets for photoshop that will match the color of those vintage processes very accurately when used in conjunction with ICC profiles made by the Nest Grid approach. So much to do, so little time :)

Glad you are getting great results with Mark L's Monster profile. It is always gratifying when an idea of seemingly academic interest only turns out to have practical utility as well.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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I have found that printing with this profile makes for a versatile solution, where image files become even that much more malleable.

Obviously, not just anyone would go to the trouble and expense of making this profile but I feel it's well worth it.  Try getting this quality out of anyone making custom profiles - it's just not going to happen.  Mark McCormick has been a really good sport about indulging my quest for a ceiling or an outer boundary to push for and understand the limits.  I actually think we're there at this point, and interestingly, I recently made the 3315 Aardenburg profile on HP's Matte Litho paper on my 24" Z3200 and it printed and measured fine and produced an exceptional profile as well.  I haven't been able to do further comparison testing because I'm finishing a new larger print studio with more space and better storage, etc.

Eventually, we'll be working on a new project, and I'm looking forward to working with Mark MHMG again.

Looking forward to seeing your prints John, and also what you come up with Mark working with Oleg Baburin.

After a year of working on this, it's gratifying that we've come so far.  I am looking forward to getting back into testing in the near future.

Here's an example of printing the 10,445 target on both sides of Moab Entrada Natural 300gsm Double Sided:


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I’m so happy with this I’m even going to try it on my z3100.

One thing occurred to me is that with Angel’s workflow on the z3200 you could make killer digital negs this way for alternative process prints.



I have found that printing with this profile makes for a versatile solution, where image files become even that much more malleable.

Obviously, not just anyone would go to the trouble and expense of making this profile but I feel it's well worth it.  Try getting this quality out of anyone making custom profiles - it's just not going to happen.  Mark McCormick has been a really good sport about indulging my quest for a ceiling or an outer boundary to push for and understand the limits.  I actually think we're there at this point, and interestingly, I recently made the 3315 Aardenburg profile on HP's Matte Litho paper on my 24" Z3200 and it printed and measured fine and produced an exceptional profile as well.  I haven't been able to do further comparison testing because I'm finishing a new larger print studio with more space and better storage, etc.

Eventually, we'll be working on a new project, and I'm looking forward to working with Mark MHMG again.

Looking forward to seeing your prints John, and also what you come up with Mark working with Oleg Baburin.

After a year of working on this, it's gratifying that we've come so far.  I am looking forward to getting back into testing in the near future.

Here's an example of printing the 10,445 target on both sides of Moab Entrada Natural 300gsm Double Sided:
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Ultimately the new "Z9" printers will become widespread, despite HP shyness, and I wonder if this development will be possible with them.
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Ultimately the new "Z9" printers will become widespread, despite HP shyness, and I wonder if this development will be possible with them.

At this point it will not be possible with the new Z9 printers but I’m working on it.
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Hello,

sorry to revive an old thread, but being now a late-to-the party owner of an Z3200 24" I am very interested in creating high quality icc profiles.
Would it be possible to publish some targets for people not owning  I1P somewhere on z3200.com ?

thanks a lot!
regards
Gernot
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kers

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    • Pieter Kers

+1

i think i just need a simple textfile to get the HpZ3100 going.
It is already working with a 1728 textfile .
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Pieter Kers
www.beeld.nu/la

GST

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You are right, the textfile describing the patch to import into the HP Color Utility would be sufficient.
Is there a copyright issue posting such files?
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MHMG

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+1

i think i just need a simple textfile to get the HpZ3100 going.
It is already working with a 1728 textfile .

Attached is the 3315 Aardenburg Chart I described in the first post to this topic. Adding it to the HP color utility using the color measurements functionality is relatively straight forward. Printing and measuring should proceed just like working with the 1728 text file HP provided. If you have the old advanced profiler app for your Z3100, I don't know whether it will accept the nested grid data, but modern profiling apps like Argyll, BasicColor RGB drop, etc., have no trouble making the calculations with the nested grid measurement data. i1Profiler can do it as well, but a modification has to be made to the data set. This modification has been discussed in an earlier thread created by Geraldo Garcia, so I will only mention it briefly.

If you own a copy of BabelColor Patchtool, the modification can be made simply by opening the HPZ3100/Z3200 measured data set in BabelColor Patchtool then resaving in Cgats format. I1Profiler software will then accept the saved txt file. Or you can modify the HP generated csv file by opening it in Excel, knocking out the columns with spectral data greater than 730nm, and saving the corrected file. If memory serves me correctly, you may also have to adjust the information in the header field with Excel to tell i1Profiler how to interpret the data. Just compare the HP generated text file to another one i1Profiler made in order to figure out how I1Profiler wants the header fields to identify the data in the file.

Good luck. There are lots of little pitfalls with all this HP spectrophotometer advanced target making , but it can be done.  I'm not a programmer, but I managed to get through it. ;)

Cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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GST

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Re: Experiments with Interstitially Nested Grid Profiling Charts and the Z3200.
« Reply #16 on: September 05, 2020, 12:30:43 pm »

Hello Mark,

thanks for all the explanations and the provided 3315 chart.
I was able the create profiles for the Z3200 and my old trusty 130NR as well, looks perfect to me.
The only real hassle is to feed the paper properly back in for scanning later, but once you get it right scanning works amazingly well.
I then used ICCGEN and ARGYL CMS, just the same way as creating an 'ICC from a 1728 patch target.

thank you very much again for providing this!

regards
Gernot


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deanwork

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Re: Experiments with Interstitially Nested Grid Profiling Charts and the Z3200.
« Reply #17 on: September 05, 2020, 01:31:29 pm »


I have a restored Z3100 with a newly replaced  spectro but it is not one of the APS PS models.

Can I print this 3k patch target on the Z3100 then  feed it into my PS Z3200 to read and generate the final profile?


John






Hello Mark,

thanks for all the explanations and the provided 3315 chart.
I was able the create profiles for the Z3200 and my old trusty 130NR as well, looks perfect to me.
The only real hassle is to feed the paper properly back in for scanning later, but once you get it right scanning works amazingly well.
I then used ICCGEN and ARGYL CMS, just the same way as creating an 'ICC from a 1728 patch target.

thank you very much again for providing this!

regards
Gernot
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GST

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Re: Experiments with Interstitially Nested Grid Profiling Charts and the Z3200.
« Reply #18 on: September 05, 2020, 02:02:22 pm »

You dont need the APS at all, my z3200 doesnt have it either. The standard spectro with HP Color Center is enough.
I believe you can use your Z3100 just the same, as well as the Z3200 for scanning.
Follow http://z3200.com/ICC_GEN_For_WIN-MAC-for_%20use_%20with_%20HP-Z3200_Printers.htm

regards
Gernot


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MHMG

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Re: Experiments with Interstitially Nested Grid Profiling Charts and the Z3200.
« Reply #19 on: September 05, 2020, 02:02:32 pm »

I have a restored Z3100 with a newly replaced  spectro but it is not one of the APS PS models.

Can I print this 3k patch target on the Z3100 then  feed it into my PS Z3200 to read and generate the final profile?


John

I don't have a Z3100, so I'm not 100% sure whether the Z3100 will be able to directly import the Aardenburg 3315 reference file without the old APS software. The latest HP color utility version for your Z3100 may be on a par with the Z3200 such that the old APS software is no longer needed, but any printer can be profiled using your Z3200 as a a standalone automated spectrophotometer by first importing the reference file into the Z3200 driver, then using the "color measurement" features to export this reference file to a tiff image file. The exported tiff file is scaled and arranged so that the Z3200 will be able to scan it later. All you have to do is to print the tiff file with a no color adjust workflow on another printer, in your case, the other printer being your older Z3100.


cheers,
Mark
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