Color Management woes.

[jkwhitephoto]

OK...I will be the first to admit that color management has always been a bit of a quagmire for me.  But after research and lots of frustration I thought I had it pretty nailed.  Not so sure now.

I have been using a NEC Multisync PA 241 monitor and a G5 Mac running OS 10.5.8 and PS CS2.  Printing to a 7890 Epson.  Prints looked good WYSWYG   ( I know I am a bit behind the times but trying to make a living doing photography in Maine doesn't always leave a lot of room for upgrading.)

I recently had a great show and decided to "upgrade" to an Imac 27. OS 10.6.8   Now, what I do not get is why my prints from the same files (using the same workflow ...Adobe RGB 98...let photoshop determine colors...picking the appropriate color sync profile...no color management in the driver) that I have been printing on the 7890 are about .5 stops too dark when printing from the I Mac?  The Imac was recommended to me by a graphic artist and fellow photographer but it does not even have any monitor adjustments other than the Color sync visual calibration that I can find.

I know I can tweak my files but I hate to.  Almost 500 images in 4 sizes that  I print and sell makes this a daunting task, plus every tweak creates more potential banding and color info loss

[Paul2660]

I am by far no expert and won't claim it on color management, but from what you describe it sounds like you have your new iMac LCD too bright in Luminance.  This is one area that is also hard for me to get right, even with NEC Spectravision software.  I run both a 2690 and 3090 under win7 and had to read many posts on this forum and others to get my setup to where I like it and it seems to work "most" of the time.   The NEC monitors default to around 140 on the luminance settings and I have turned mine down to around 95.    There should be a setting in your monitor calibration software to adjust the luminance. 

This is a very hard setting to pin down and is very dependent on the ambient lighting in your studio. So it may take so trial and error to get it right.

Paul Caldwell
http://www.photosofarkansas.com

[digitaldog]

RGB values don’t change by themselves. So unless you tweaked them based on a new preview (display), that’s not the issue. So did you alter the documents? The profile used doesn’t change, that’s not the issue. It could be due to a change in the output device but again, the Epson should be very consistent but you should check all ink heads are firing. Where the problem lies I can’t say, certainly remotely but something changed, you need to put on your detective hat and figure out where.

[jkwhitephoto]

That is the thing.... I changed nothing except the computer.  The files were untouched as well as the printer.  Same color space, same profile, same paper, same printer, same control test print, etc.  The only difference is the computer and the monitor which is of course, is part of the Imac .  I checked all nozzles.  So just to make sure I put my old G5 back on line and made another test print again.  It came out true to my original test print. 

My understanding is that the color monitor profile should not affect the output or the resulting print, and as you said RGB values are RGB values... but the monitor is the only thing that was changed other than the computer itself.   I called my buddy that recommended the Imac.  He said he remembered having a similar issue and had to tweak all his files. 

I don't think my Luminance values are the culprit.   I adjusted the Imac monitor and it almost dead on to my control test print. 

I am truly baffled.

[smilem]

I just read here http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=48035.40
That MAC seems to have problems with color consistency when OS changes.

So you need to make sure that OS is the same on both computers, and same version EPSON drivers, same driver settings.

[jkwhitephoto]

Doing a Google search led me to others having the same issues all around Mac OS 10.6+ Snow Leopard.    My previous Mac was using OS 10.5.8 the Imac is using 10.6.8.  So I have identified the culprit...now just  to get their "improvements" taken care of so I can get my old prints to work.

Interesting read:  http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/05/returning-to-hell.html

[Wayne Fox]

Doing a Google search led me to others having the same issues all around Mac OS 10.6+ Snow Leopard.    My previous Mac was using OS 10.5.8 the Imac is using 10.6.8.  So I have identified the culprit...now just  to get their "improvements" taken care of so I can get my old prints to work.

Interesting read:  http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/05/returning-to-hell.html

Yes, there were issues two years ago when Snow Leopard was introduced.  You should search old threads about resolving this because that's when most figured it out.  Recent threads don't often tell you what they did to fix it. Another poster in the printer forum just went through the this same thing

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=59079.0