A couple of months ago I started writing profiles für my Epson SC-P800 with i1Profiler/i1Pro2.
Now, comparing my own profile for Hahnemühle MuseumEtching with the "canned" profile provided by Hahnemühle, I see:
- At Digitaldog's Printer Gamut Test File: With Perceptual R.I., canned profile shows visually darker primaries and severe banding issues in Bill's balls and gradients. Mine is much smoother. Rather the same with Rel.Col.
- Using Rel.col., Test images without Bill's balls show marginal visual difference between the two profiles.
- Using Perceptual R.I. on such images, the "canned" profile seems to better balanced, with better rendering of dark shadows.
As a beginner, on a first look at Andrew's Gamut Test File, I'd say my profile is better then Hahnemühle's (regarding transitions, overall tonality, three-dimensionality). I assume it is "more colorimetrically correct".
But I ask myself (and subsequently, you ;-)
- whether I missed some point. Has the "canned" profile perhaps some hidden advantages I haven't discovered yet?
- Can those banding issues be the side effect of "intentional" profile tuning?
- Are those banding issues practically relevant? What explanatory power do they have?
Of course, I could settle on "use what pleases". But at this my stage of the learning curve, I would prefer some analysis to gain better understanding of the fundamentals of color management.
Please find attached a screenshot of the compared softproofs (Perc. RI), a scanned print of the compared printing results (Perc. RI) and the profiles themselves. I wrote mine (the one starting with MK_) with 1230 patches, 2880dpi, bidirectional. I measured the printed target twice and let i1Profiler average the data.
Any suggestions on how to fulfill more compelling tests to evaluate and compare profiles (those and in general) are very welcome!
Regards, Michael
PS: Haven't overpowered myself to purchase ColorThinkPro yet. Same for PatchTool. But if such analysis required some of those tools, I would go for it.