P75xx printing light? Update - it's fine

[TeamG]

Evening,

Sanity check here.  I got a new P7560 (Australia) a week ago and when I do any profiling my darks don't seem to go anywhere near down where I think they should be

For eg: Canson's canned profile for Edition Etching has a luminance value about L:3, best I seem to get when I print and spot test is L:16.  This is the same behaviour across Rag Photographique and PrintMaking

I even printed a black square using the Canson profile and it still metered at L:16.5

Comparing my profile with Canson's it's obvious I'm nowhere near in the shadows/darks that I should be

So I'm worried my printer is not getting depth in the darks

My workflow for this so far is

• Create charts in i1profile
• Open in Mirage - which throws a warning about no colour profile (as expected)
• Print using Epson VFA as the media type, but no colour profile
• Leave to dry overnight
• Measure with i1Pro2

I even uninstalled EVERYTHING today and reinstalled so have latest versions and drivers for Epson, Mirage and i1Profile.  Still the same outcome

Am I going crazy, am I missing something obvious? What L values have others gotten for their blacks?

Attachments a spot of an RGB 0,0,0 black test square showing L:16.28. The other is the comparison of my profile (blue) to Canson's (red), this same behaviour has occurred across multiple papers and attempts

TIA

[JRSmit]

For fine art matte a black point of L is 15 - 16 is normal. Fine Art Gloss can go down to L is between 2 and 3
Did you mix up your profiles by any chance?

[TeamG]

For fine art matte a black point of L is 15 - 16 is normal. Fine Art Gloss can go down to L is between 2 and 3
Did you mix up your profiles by any chance?

Thank you so much, maybe I have grabbed the wrong profiles...  Doing my head in.  But you saying that l:15-16 is normal for matte gives me a lot of hope.  I'll look more closely in the morning when I am not so crosseyed

[JRSmit]

Does that work? Using Mirage to print without color management?

I use the Drycreek utility, and did not try Mirage because it is color managed, so i learned from their documentation.

[TeamG]

Yeah, when you use profile creation mode. 

[TeamG]

Just as a follow up, dropped various other icc profiles into i1Profile and sure enough matt paper generally around L:15-16 - really wish I had checked that before I burned through so much paper

Still though, maybe something up with Canson's canned profiles because I redownloaded their Rag Photographique, PrintMaking, Edition Etching and all report values of ~L:3, the same as their Platine and Baryta for eg 

This v's Hahnemuele's canned Photorag which is L:15.12

 

[TeamG]

And as the last update so I can stand down on the subject

Just scanned and profiled a 2371 patch chart for Hahn Photo Rag, compared it to the Hahn canned profile and they are a very very close match

The black RGB 0,0,0 swatch returned L:14.86 for my scan, and Hahn's ICC reports at L:15.12

So I feel like I just speared off on the wrong path with Canson and got too focused on the results when I should have compared other profiles from other matte papers to rule out issues

[Mick Sang]

For fine art matte a black point of L is 15 - 16 is normal. Fine Art Gloss can go down to L is between 2 and 3
Did you mix up your profiles by any chance?

Levels of L*3 or even lower can be achieved with matte stocks when the profile is made from M3 (polarized) data. The new i1Pros are M3 capable. While the achievable L* value may be lower, the actual D-max is the same as from M0, M1 or M2 data. So, the L* value in that case is misleading. On the other hand, profiles from M3 data can result in improved shadow detail which is visually obvious on some matte papers. Nevertheless, I think it would be unusual for a paper manufacturer to go this route without saying something.

Mick

[TeamG]

Levels of L*3 or even lower can be achieved with matte stocks when the profile is made from M3 (polarized) data. The new i1Pros are M3 capable. While the achievable L* value may be lower, the actual D-max is the same as from M0, M1 or M2 data. So, the L* value in that case is misleading. On the other hand, profiles from M3 data can result in improved shadow detail which is visually obvious on some matte papers. Nevertheless, I think it would be unusual for a paper manufacturer to go this route without saying something.

Thanks for that, Mick.  And looking at the Canson profile you are right, it is on M3 data.  That's really useful for me to know, thank you

Canson Rag Photographique canned profile attached