Hi everyone,
quick background: I have a portrait studio where we do are printing on an epson 9600 using the epson driver through Qimage - we also do photo copy and restoration work. Have the eye1 for display calibration .. just got a new windows 7 machine and the windows 7 display would look un-profiled until re-profiling. So every time the machine is rebooted we get to reprofile. I put in a support ticket with x-rite, since the calibration works fine until windows 7 is restarted. Not trying to get into windows 7 issues and I see there are posts on this forum that deal with this. Point being that I waited a week and no response from x-rite, so I purchased the Spyder3 SR system (we have two CRT monitors that we don't want to replace - one of them on the windows 7 machine - so for that reason didn't look at the color munki).
We have been using the Lexjet eSatin paper with the profile from Lexjet and also Lexjet's Rag paper. Mostly the profiles are very good but with some images I do fight a couple of things so I figured I would give it a poke. The eSatin prints a little red which makes it difficult to print b&w warm tone in the olive color direction and some images with the matte Rag paper can look tea stained when printed with a warm tone. I recently had a couple of these orders in a row so it lit a fire under me.
I have wanted to get into profiling papers so that I could try out different papers and not feel like I was judging the papers based on the quality of the downloadable profiles, so getting the paper profiling capabilities was an added bonus that I couldn't turn down. Also, the 9600 sometimes needs lots of head cleaning but has eventually always come clean - so there is a question in my mind that it may print slightly different than the 9600 that built the manufacturer/vendors profile. I also purchased an epson r1900 for printing matte, for back up and as a way to help figure out when to upgrade the 9600. Most of the testing I am doing is on the 9600 and the eSatin paper. Now I am banging my head against a wall ... I don't know what areas of my testing are operator ignorance and what areas are the limitations of the 9600 or the spyder3 system or the paper. Any help on sorting this out would be appreciated
Specific profiling questions ...
b&w printing and toning is the most important to me. It also appears to be the easiest to judge a profile by printing a b&w as I can see the rbg numbers in the image are neutral. So I build a paper profile, dry overnight - 729 patches plus grey with two sheets under the test patches when reading. And the b&w prints made with the profile appear to have a subtle yellow cast. Now I am used to the subtle cooler/red cast of the lexjet profile. When I test the color of the b&w with the meter the a b numbers are both .24 to .6 something so it is pretty neutral, but maybe this is a reflection of the choices datacolor made with the spyder, the white balance of the unit or an optical illusion on my part seeing the image next to paper white?
I don't have a viewing booth, but I don't assume what I am seeing is 'real' because of that. Illumination in the studio is day light fluorescent bulbs. But we have window light and tungsten and open shade and the studio lighting, although I am not viewing to a standard when the effect is the same in all of my viewing choices I feel pretty comfortable with my assessments, is this wrong?
I noticed that each time I clicked on a patch I would get a slightly different reading, does this mean that I should read the patches (at least the grey sets) more than once and average/merge the data tables? I can read the patches, then duplicate the data table and re read the grey patches and then merge the two ...
Should I be reading patches in low light? I am wondering if I am getting a little ambient light in my reading, the spyder unit rides on a plastic track to make reading quicker. I realize this is something I can test for, just thought it might already be common knowledge?
The Spyder3 software has a point in the process, after reading the patches where you can adjust the profile before creating it. I was making a test print, then judging the results and tweaking then making another test print ... guess and checking ... I did this all day yesterday and I am thinking I misunderstood the work flow. The images that you view and print for tests within the spyder software have a check box for turning on and off soft proofing. I am now wondering if the best workflow is to study the test images with soft proofing on and off - making changes in the profile until there is the least amount of shift going between on and off? Then making a test print to catch issues that might have been overlooked?
All and any feedback appreciated!
Roger