Bad Harmon Gloss FB Profiles

[woof75]

I love the feel of Harmon Gloss FB paper, it has a great surface, great depth, it's sharp but the profiles I downloaded from there website are not good, colour accuracy isn't anywhere near as good as the Epson canned profiles. Does anyone know where I can get a decent profile for this paper, I'm printing on an Epson 9800 and I know all my driver settings are correct. I don't see the need for custom profiles for this printer, if epson can get there profiles so good then everyone else should be able to too, it's a great paper but I find it unusable because of the colour accuracy.

[thompsonkirk]

Generally speaking you need a custom profile when using a 3d party paper.  Custom profiles are usually more accurate than the Epson ones, even for Epson papers.  For the least expensive generic & custom profiles, google Booksmart Studios.  For some of the best, google Andrew Rodney.

[Pete Berry]

I love the feel of Harmon Gloss FB paper, it has a great surface, great depth, it's sharp but the profiles I downloaded from there website are not good, colour accuracy isn't anywhere near as good as the Epson canned profiles. Does anyone know where I can get a decent profile for this paper, I'm printing on an Epson 9800 and I know all my driver settings are correct. I don't see the need for custom profiles for this printer, if epson can get there profiles so good then everyone else should be able to too, it's a great paper but I find it unusable because of the colour accuracy.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=180679\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

In a recent test of six glossy family papers (RR UltraPro Satin 2.0, Ilford Smooth Pearl, Harmon Gloss Fb, Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Hahne. PR Pearl and PR Satin, there was extraordinarily little difference in five of these in color response, contrast and sat. when printed with the identical driver settings in my iPF5000.

There were minor tonal variations that correlated with the base paper color/warmth, and slight variations in brightness, with the Harmon being very slightly darker. Viewed from a couple of feet away, very difficult to tell apart - they all looked great, with the Ilford Pearl slightly more subdued. I used "Special #5" as paper type, which gives the highest ink laydown with photo black.

The one "outlier" was the Photo Rag Satin, which was dull and lifeless with the standard settings.
 
The upshot of this was that I have been able to use an excellent custom profile from Andrew Rodney for the RR UP Satin with the rest, with essentially identical results factoring in the paper warmth/coolness look - great colors, etc, blacks, and highlight range.

So you might give one of your good profiles for a glossy/pearl/satin paper a try - particularly if you have one for one of the above papers. I'd be very interested to see if your results confirm mine.

Pete

[woof75]

In a recent test of six glossy family papers (RR UltraPro Satin 2.0, Ilford Smooth Pearl, Harmon Gloss Fb, Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Hahne. PR Pearl and PR Satin, there was extraordinarily little difference in five of these in color response, contrast and sat. when printed with the identical driver settings in my iPF5000.

There were minor tonal variations that correlated with the base paper color/warmth, and slight variations in brightness, with the Harmon being very slightly darker. Viewed from a couple of feet away, very difficult to tell apart - they all looked great, with the Ilford Pearl slightly more subdued. I used "Special #5" as paper type, which gives the highest ink laydown with photo black.

The one "outlier" was the Photo Rag Satin, which was dull and lifeless with the standard settings.
 
The upshot of this was that I have been able to use an excellent custom profile from Andrew Rodney for the RR UP Satin with the rest, with essentially identical results factoring in the paper warmth/coolness look - great colors, etc, blacks, and highlight range.

So you might give one of your good profiles for a glossy/pearl/satin paper a try - particularly if you have one for one of the above papers. I'd be very interested to see if your results confirm mine.

Pete
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=180903\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I just tried it and it didn't work, the Harmon profile isn't horrible but with things like neutral greys it's clearly an inferior profile compared to the epson canned profiles and paper. If your going to spend so much money and time developing a paper you'd think a decent profile would be a good idea to invest a little in.

[Christerart]

I just tried it and it didn't work, the Harmon profile isn't horrible but with things like neutral greys it's clearly an inferior profile compared to the epson canned profiles and paper. If your going to spend so much money and time developing a paper you'd think a decent profile would be a good idea to invest a little in.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=180911\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That's an interesting comment as you were the one complaining that you didn't get a good one free - and your comment could as well be directed to yourself as you have a lot invested in your printer and I presume your time is also valuable...=*^)

My experience is that although many printers are quite similar - if you want to get the absolute best out of *your* printer and the paper you wish to use you are well advised to spend the comparatively small amount a custom profile will cost.

Christer

[neil snape]

If you are testing a lot of papers I sure see a reason to have an onboard spectro....

The inksets on all the new pigment printers are a lot more stable on a lot more media types than ever before. There also is no need to profile different res settings like before.

About Andrew's profiles: he is one of the only ones I know of to do or go beyond the Tc9.18 charts. You'd be hard pressed to better. If you have a 24" or bigger, and need to out-service profiles for your favourite third party paper , that is an ideal place to start for the ultimate profile.

I do see a lot of so so profiles from certain paper resellers sites. Sometimes downright bad. It doesn't surprise me that this is the case with this profile either.

[woof75]

If you are testing a lot of papers I sure see a reason to have an onboard spectro....

The inksets on all the new pigment printers are a lot more stable on a lot more media types than ever before. There also is no need to profile different res settings like before.

About Andrew's profiles: he is one of the only ones I know of to do or go beyond the Tc9.18 charts. You'd be hard pressed to better. If you have a 24" or bigger, and need to out-service profiles for your favourite third party paper , that is an ideal place to start for the ultimate profile.

I do see a lot of so so profiles from certain paper resellers sites. Sometimes downright bad. It doesn't surprise me that this is the case with this profile either.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=181054\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I haven't bought my own spectro as I hear the ones available for a reasonable price aren't anywhere near as good as the top end ones someone like Andrew has access too so I'd just be building second rate profiles. If I was printing a show on this paper or my portfolio I'd get a profile made but I'm really just using it for my own titilation and don't really want to throw 100 bucks on a profile. I just don't understand, if Epson can make good canned profiles, why can't everyone else?

[neil snape]

They probably should or could. It comes down to site licensing software I suppose.
It isn't difficult to make profiles these days though, but the equipment remains high enough , even much higher for the automated devices like an IsIs.

[sojournerphoto]

In a recent test of six glossy family papers (RR UltraPro Satin 2.0, Ilford Smooth Pearl, Harmon Gloss Fb, Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Hahne. PR Pearl and PR Satin, there was extraordinarily little difference in five of these in color response, contrast and sat. when printed with the identical driver settings in my iPF5000.

There were minor tonal variations that correlated with the base paper color/warmth, and slight variations in brightness, with the Harmon being very slightly darker. Viewed from a couple of feet away, very difficult to tell apart - they all looked great, with the Ilford Pearl slightly more subdued. I used "Special #5" as paper type, which gives the highest ink laydown with photo black.

The one "outlier" was the Photo Rag Satin, which was dull and lifeless with the standard settings.
 
The upshot of this was that I have been able to use an excellent custom profile from Andrew Rodney for the RR UP Satin with the rest, with essentially identical results factoring in the paper warmth/coolness look - great colors, etc, blacks, and highlight range.

So you might give one of your good profiles for a glossy/pearl/satin paper a try - particularly if you have one for one of the above papers. I'd be very interested to see if your results confirm mine.

Pete
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=180903\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Pete, HPR Satin works much better with matte black ink.

Mike

[Pete Berry]

Pete, HPR Satin works much better with matte black ink.

Mike
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=181102\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That could sure explain the results! I forgot that I had tested Hahne. FA Pearl as well, which printed very nicely with the standard settings and profile (which improved color accuracy a bit and extended highlight detail significantly).

Pete

[tomm101]

I haven't bought my own spectro as I hear the ones available for a reasonable price aren't anywhere near as good as the top end ones someone like Andrew has access too so I'd just be building second rate profiles. If I was printing a show on this paper or my portfolio I'd get a profile made but I'm really just using it for my own titilation and don't really want to throw 100 bucks on a profile. I just don't understand, if Epson can make good canned profiles, why can't everyone else?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=181063\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I found the profile from www.booksmartstudio.com worked very well with my iPF5000, you may want to look for an Epson profile there. They used Photo Paper Plus Semi gloss from the Canon papers. I also agree with a couple of other comments here.
This paper deserves a custom profile.
The result does look remarkably like Ilford Smooth Gloss.
I also find this is a little glossier than my b&w ilford gloss chemical prints that were air dried. A nice surface nonethe less.

Tom