I am still having problems developing a good profile with the Greta Macbeth i1 pro sytem. In particular, the current problems are with the Canon Pro 9000 printer. Prints are "too dark/contrasty". To the eye, compared to the screen, the images seem to be the equivalent of about 1/2 stop "underexposed".
I understand that the generated profiles should yield "almost perfect" results with only minor tweeks needed in the profile editor. In my case, "large" profile changes to brightness is needed. Obviously, I am doing something wrong or have missed some critical step.
This is the process I used:
--- printer configuration ---
The print calibration uses the i1 TC 9.18 Testchart
color handling: Photoshop manages colors
printer profile: generated by Greta Macbeth i1
rendering intent: perceptual
canon printer preferences color/intensity: manual
canon manual color adjustments: none
canon print quality: custom (fine, diffusion)
--- monitor calibration ---
white point: 6500K
gamma: 2.2
luminance 108.4 cd/m2
min luminance: 0.4 cd/m2
ambient light: 4200k
illuminance: 21 lux
--- print viewing ---
viewing illuminance: 1000 lux (can vary between 600 and 1900)
lamp temperature: 5500 K (fluorescent)
The screen image is has good colour with appropriate contrast. Printing with the new profiles yields a darker than expected image and, because of the extra saturation, seem contrastier. Of course, the profiles can be edited to adjust the output image.
To approximate the print on-screen, I can adjust the Curves of the photoshop image. Viewing the print and screen as carefully as possible while adjusting the curves, the amount of darkening is quite substantial - the curves input/output numbers are
input: 150
output: 130
If I were to guess in terms of camera exposure, it almost looks as though the print is under-exposed by about 1/2 or more f-stops compared to the screen :-). This is under my 5500K fluorescent viewing lamp with more than adequate intensity.
Soft proofing (CTL/Y) does not show the darkening effect - only minor gamut and tonality shifts are seen and this is reflected in the "proof image" on the "print" screen. Since Photoshop is handling the colour management, the print driver preview is, as expected, off-colour and intensity.
I don't know if it is significant - screen profiles are loaded by the Windows ICC Colour Loader. No other loaders are used.
I also examined images from a friend that looks excellent on her apple computer and looks "virtually identical" on my microsoft system. This indicates that my screen calibration should be quite good (or hers are equally as bad as mine :-)
I am using four test images: my personally prepared "velvia like" colour image with many colours, two grey scales and a colour rainbow. The second and third images are of ladies with different skin tones. The fourth image is the Canon-provied 1Ds-III portrait sample (young lady with pearls and a white dress).
I hope these full sized and large (4mb or larger) files are appropriate. The can be retrieved here if you wish to look and certainly comments about the image choice would be appreciated:
http://tphoto.myphotos.cc/noise/ctest01.jpg http://tphoto.myphotos.cc/noise/ctest02.jpg http://tphoto.myphotos.cc/noise/ctest03.jpg http://tphoto.myphotos.cc/noise/ctest04.jpg This is getting frustrating...
any additional ideas.??