White on Canvas

[jacunivac]

I have scanned an original oil painting. It is a Christmas scene in a tourist town with all the lights and decorations. There is a slight bit of snow on the trees and buildings. I'm printing on a Fredrix roll canvas, coated for inkjet receptivity. The colors look great. The white (snow) looks gray and very disappointing.

Any tips? The substrate (canvas) has a pretty good degree of whiteness for canvas.

Thanks,

Jac

[seangirard]

Jac, Have you measured the white areas in Photoshop or something? It sounds like you want the highlights to be almost, if not pure, "white".

[DougMorgan]

I think the full course would take too much space for here but you basically have a choice -- set the highest highlights to a very light grey or let the canvas show through for the whites.

The problem is that your printer does not have a "white" ink and cannot print very light colours without scattering a couple drops of ink here and there which looks just like a couple drops of ink scattered here and there rather than a near-white.  

Either you must correct the file in photoshop so that "pure" white becomes a light gray that the printer is capable of actually printing or you must place the highest highlights so high that the printer does not put down any ink and the media shows through unhindered.  

The first option entails lowering the highlights to a colour that the printer can print.  In photoshop this is usually done with levels or curves.   Since the eye really only sees color in relation to the neighboring colors having "white" as a light grey will look fine provided there is no pure white nearby.   The same thing is usually done to the shadows to make a solid black really a very dark grey.

The 2nd option only really works if the image has no gradual transitions to white since there will be a line where the printer is no longer capable of the appearance of a continuous tone.  Also if the media itself isn't pure white you can't get a pure white in the first place.  If you were reprinting a poster with a white background, for example, you would basically make sure that white is 255,255,255 (pure white) in the image before printing using the curves or levels dialog.

Any good photoshop how-to book should detail both options but I'd be happy to give you the 2-second course if you want.  If you don't have photoshop someone else may be able to help.

Good luck...
Doug

[Ernst Dinkla]

Either you must correct the file in photoshop so that "pure" white becomes a light gray that the printer is capable of actually printing or you must place the highest highlights so high that the printer does not put down any ink and the media shows through unhindered.   

The first option entails lowering the highlights to a colour that the printer can print.  In photoshop this is usually done with levels or curves.   Since the eye really only sees color in relation to the neighboring colors having "white" as a light grey will look fine provided there is no pure white nearby.   The same thing is usually done to the shadows to make a solid black really a very dark grey.

The 2nd option only really works if the image has no gradual transitions to white since there will be a line where the printer is no longer capable of the appearance of a continuous tone.  Also if the media itself isn't pure white you can't get a pure white in the first place.  If you were reprinting a poster with a white background, for example, you would basically make sure that white is 255,255,255 (pure white) in the image before printing using the curves or levels dialog.

Good luck...
Doug
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Do not forget that the printer profile used still can shift the 255,255,255 white in your image to other numbers if that profile was made to compensate media white (yellowish most of the time) to neutral white.

If you do a profile>profile conversion in Photoshop with that printer profile on that image and check what the white numbers are after that conversion you will know more. You could as a fast and dirty method then bring the whites back to 255x3 in PS and send that image to the printer with CM off. In the end that profile needs to be replaced or tweaked for the media you use. Canvas with varnish will never be completely white but some canvasses are more white than others. UV blocking varnish is more yellow too than normal varnish and will reduce the optical brightener's effect in canvas and inkjet coating.

If the idea is to get a bluish white snow on an off-white canvas then you end with a bluish grey snow more or less. The eye can be fooled though with illumination light level and color + shifting the non-snow part color and tone in the image. The white snow in an oil painting isn't as white as in nature or on a poster with optical brighteners in the paper and coating.


Ernst Dinkla

try:  [a href=\"http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/[/url]

[Harry Carpenter]

Is your whole workflow calibrated?
I am just wondering if when you have scanned this image into photoshop it is appearing correctly but just not printing using the full range of colours?
Also maybe the scanner is automatically  reducing the white of the snow, especially as it is a scanned painting

[jacunivac]

Thank you all for the help. I went back in with Photoshop CS3 and adjusted curves and played a little with Levels. Those of you who said the eye can be fooled are right. It looked acceptable. There are not a great deal of choices with canvas for ink jet printing but the Fredrix roll stock at 17" width and 40' in length at $69 is brighter and costs slightly less (lol) compared to the Epson at $349.

Thanks again,

Jac

[ssgphoto]

Jac,
Sounds like it may jusy be a color management issue but I recently tested several brands of canvas and the fredrix was far from the brightest white, (nor did it have a deep black either). The Sunset Select matte from Lexjet and the Breathing Color Brilliance Chromata White have by far the whitest white and the crispest detail. Some may prefer a more irregular canvas fot the texture, but for reproduction sake these are way better than Fredrix or Epson. They are both available in small rolls as well. They are a poly blend and they wont crack at the corners when you stretch them, something epson and fredrix definitely will.

Hope that helps.

[Scott Martin]

Those of you who said the eye can be fooled are right. It looked acceptable. [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=147400\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

One little tip you might find useful in Photoshop prior to printing is to temporarily extend the canvas area with white. Seeing the highlights of your image juxtaposed with pure white really gives you an idea as to how they will print.

On a similar note Lightroom users might consider changing the background fill color in the preferences to white for the same reasons. Although the default dark gray background goes nicely with the (ED Darkroom inspired) interface esthetic, it often leads to unrealistic print density expectations.

[eronald]

One little tip you might find useful in Photoshop prior to printing is to temporarily extend the canvas area with white. Seeing the highlights of your image juxtaposed with pure white really gives you an idea as to how they will print.

On a similar note Lightroom users might consider changing the background fill color in the preferences to white for the same reasons. Although the default dark gray background goes nicely with the (ED Darkroom inspired) interface esthetic, it often leads to unrealistic print density expectations.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=147872\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This media color issue is a permanent nuisance in fine-art printing. Hi-quality glossy magazines now get around it in some adverts by screening a background pattern onto the paper, changing the color in effect; however the background patterns they use look too fine to be employed in inkjet printing, at least with normal drivers.

Edmund