Can I extract a reference for the paper colour from icc profile?

[mango]

My dearly beloved Hahnemuhle fine art canvas has been discontinued for some time now, and I have finally gone though all of the stock I can get my hands on.
It was a lovely warm white,  which, when I used it for printing my digital paintings of the greek landscape gave a great sunlit warm glow to the highlights.

My customers prefer 100% cotton and it must be matt, so I have a roll of their Monet to try.

My theory goes, if I can find a reference for the colour of the old canvas, I could then apply a photo filter in PS, with 'preserve luminosity' unchecked, I can the use blending mode to apply it only to the highlights, and fade it out to replicate the ink covering the canvas.

Do you think that this would work?
Could anyone tell me how to get an rgb colour reference out of the icc profile?

Any advice would be very much appreciated, because at the moment my greek landcapes look cold and lifeless :-(

Thankyou, Anna

Edit: Printing on a 44" Z3100 and using PS CS4 on windows xp

[CliveFlint]

My dearly beloved Hahnemuhle fine art canvas has been discontinued for some time now, and I have finally gone though all of the stock I can get my hands on.
It was a lovely warm white,  which, when I used it for printing my digital paintings of the greek landscape gave a great sunlit warm glow to the highlights.

My customers prefer 100% cotton and it must be matt, so I have a roll of their Monet to try.

My theory goes, if I can find a reference for the colour of the old canvas, I could then apply a photo filter in PS, with 'preserve luminosity' unchecked, I can the use blending mode to apply it only to the highlights, and fade it out to replicate the ink covering the canvas.

Do you think that this would work?
Could anyone tell me how to get an rgb colour reference out of the icc profile?

Any advice would be very much appreciated, because at the moment my greek landcapes look cold and lifeless :-(

Hi Anna

Would it be easier to make a new ICC profile for your new canvas? Or pick up one from Hahnemuhle if they do one for your printer?

Clive

[mango]

Clive,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond...

I have profiled both canvases with APS on the Z3100.

The darker colours, where the ink covers the canvas, match - but the whites and lighter colours show the colour of canvas through the ink, and change the colours.

I have posted an example to show you what I mean www.spetsesphotography.com/testcanvas.html

I have just had an order for two large canvases, and one huge (2m long) one, so any advice very much appreciated.

Thanks Again, Anna

[Sven W]

I have printed a lot on Hahn before, but now I've just printed my first Canson Artist Matt Canvas, and was very pleased with its warm tone. Compared to other canvases.
And it's OBA-free!
Try it.

Otherwise I think you can get that "touch" in the highlights in PS. As you suggest.

/Sven

[neil snape]

I think you should make the profiles for the paper and modify the white of paper in an editor. Profile Maker Editor is a strange but powerful tool to do just that.

The older Z3100 APS profiles used Profile Maker libraries, so you needed only to drag and drop onto Profile maker to extract all spectral data to create a new profile with different parameters. The Z3200 uses Monaco though so recreating with PM isn't possible, but maybe with Monaco, I don't know.

You can also cross proof your matte warm papers onto photo paper, but it's not the same thing as an altered white point.

[crames]

Could anyone tell me how to get an rgb colour reference out of the icc profile?

I think you can get the color of the paper by using "Convert to Profile" with Absolute Colorimetric RI: convert an image with white in it (RGB 255,255,255) to the printer profile. The whites should now have the RGBs of the paper white.

Cliff

[mango]

I have printed a lot on Hahn before, but now I've just printed my first Canson Artist Matt Canvas, and was very pleased with its warm tone. Compared to other canvases.
And it's OBA-free!
Try it.

Otherwise I think you can get that "touch" in the highlights in PS. As you suggest.

/Sven

Will certainly be trying the Canson, thanks for the tip.
This is way to much colour theory for me, I just wanna print pretty pictures!
my customer can learn to live with poly-cotton.

Unfourtunately I have two rolls of Hahn to get through first, so on with the colour theory...

I think you should make the profiles for the paper and modify the white of paper in an editor. Profile Maker Editor is a strange but powerful tool to do just that.

The older Z3100 APS profiles used Profile Maker libraries, so you needed only to drag and drop onto Profile maker to extract all spectral data to create a new profile with different parameters. The Z3200 uses Monaco though so recreating with PM isn't possible, but maybe with Monaco, I don't know.

You can also cross proof your matte warm papers onto photo paper, but it's not the same thing as an altered white point.

Neil, honoured for the reply, you are the Colour Master!
Unfourtunately I don't think that I can register Profile Maker Editor with the HP (i1D2) APS kit, so unless I want to spent 1000 for the dongle, I am working in demo mode... means that I can't save profile conversions, but can get values...

If I go work on one profile and select 'profile info' I get 'Profile white point (XYZ)'
If I load an image and go to 'profile white point' I get 'Profile white point (LCh)'

So I then went about trying to convert these figures to something I could put into photoshop:
I found this page http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?Equations.html which nearly made me cry! (I qualified as an engineer,but was not ready for differential equations, on a sunday afternoon!)
I did then find the LCH(ab) to Lab conversion, which was maths that I could manage.

I also used this tool http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/ColorCalculator/ to convert the XYZ to RGB

The figures were the same calculating both ways, so I guess I did something right!

But then I was confused by the results. The Natural white 'artist' had a blue hue (RGB:247,246,254), and the Bright white 'monet' a mucky yellow hue (RGB: 247,247,248) ?

[attachment=22132:labcanvas.jpg]

Then Cliff posted...

I think you can get the color of the paper by using "Convert to Profile" with Absolute Colorimetric RI: convert an image with white in it (RGB 255,255,255) to the printer profile. The whites should now have the RGBs of the paper white.

Cliff

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. This made it so much easier!

I was not sure which way round to put the profiles:
Artist to Monet gave a blue hue (RGB:251,250,254)
Monet to Artist gave a yellow hue (RGB: 253,254,248)

[attachment=22133:labcanvasvalues.jpg]


I guess, if I am using a blended out photo filter, I just use the yellow one, as I am going from cool to warm.


Thank you all, for your help, Anna

Oh, Neil, I meant to ask, Is there a way to edit the white point of a profile in APS, so that I can do the job properly?
I can't see one, but thought it was worth double checking.
Ta, Anna

[neil snape]

Oh, Neil, I meant to ask, Is there a way to edit the white point of a profile in APS, so that I can do the job properly?
I can't see one, but thought it was worth double checking.
Ta, Anna

As Isaid if you proof workflow, it should be done using absolute which is going to apply the white of the source obnto the destination.

This is a strange way though to do things as it's messing with the profiles.

Yes you can changea white point easy enough in PE, just not recreate it in Profile Maker from the private tags data as now they are Monaco ( internal APS) rather than PM.

IF you send me a profile I can edit the white point very easily. How much to edit is another story but if you have the ideal profile for say Monet and the white  point is what you want then I would use that white point, and print in absolute rendering.