[argyllcms] Re: RGB Printer Profiling / Issues with Blacks and Shadows
- From: "Alan Goldhammer" <agoldhammer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <argyllcms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:15:10 -0400
This is a tough one. I know the Enhanced Matte Paper is loaded with Optical
Brightening Agents, but I'm not sure that would explain why the washed out
blacks. I have also never seen bad shadows as you show in the test strips.
I am not familiar with Aperture so I cannot judge whether there is some
difficulty in printing out targets in the same way there is with Photoshop
CS5 (you cannot turn off color management in CS5 and must use the Adobe
Color Print Utility to print out targets). I've profiled four matte papers
that I commonly use and the profiles have turned out fine. I've double
checked by printing out the same test image that you are using. For matte
papers I can detect a difference in the 6 & 8 but not below 6 (which is
probably to be expected because of the smaller gamut for matte papers). I
generally get a Dmax of 1.6 for matte papers with no OBAs and a touch higher
for Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth which does have some.
It might be useful for you to post the exact settings that you used in the
Argyll workflow to make sure that there was not an inadvertent error (which
believe me is pretty easy to have happen).
Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: argyllcms-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:argyllcms-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Hebeisen
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2011 7:29 AM
To: argyllcms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [argyllcms] RGB Printer Profiling / Issues with Blacks and Shadows
Hello there.
On my quest to find a affordable solution which lets me use my
1ipro-Instrument also with OS X Lion, i've stumbled upon ArgyllCms.
Which will hopefully also be supported on OS X Lion some time in the future;
something Xrite obviously isn't willing/able to do for my existing software
Eye-One Match 3. At least not for an reasonable amount of money.
Ironically, I'm facing the same problems which I already had to deal with
when I started working with Eye-One Match 3 some years back.
Luckily, i found this article
http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/i1GamutMapping/index.html
which unveiled a hidden feature within the software allowing me to get the
results I intended.
First some details about my working environment:
OS: Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.8)
Instrument: Gretag/Xrite eye-one-Pro, Rev. D
Printer: Epson Stylus Pro 3800
Paper/Media type: Epson Enhanced Matte Paper Color Matching Settings in
printer driver while printing test charts: Epson Color controls Color
Settings in Epson printer driver while printing test charts: Off (No Color
Adjustment)
ArgyllCMS: latest version, 1.3.3
For all my testing I use the A4 printer evaluation image from Uwe
Steinmüllers site.
It can be downloaded here (scroll down to the bottom of the page):
http://www.outbackprint.com/printinginsights/pi048/essay.html
My version is converted to my working color space, which is ProPhotoRGB, but
besides that, i didn't change anything in the file. I'm doing all the soft
proofing and printing from Apple Aperture, using the profiles generated with
Eye-One Match and ArgyllCms. Aperture offers the render intents Perceptual
and Relative Colorimetric, with and without Black Point Compensation.
For creating my very first ArgyllCms profiles, I used the steps described in
this post:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=53408.msg436392#msg4
36392
Except that I went with the ProPhotoRGB source profile instead of AdobeRGB.
Since the author of this post created a profile for the Hahnemuehle Bamboo
paper, which I also use from time to time, I figured this would be a good
starting point.
Except that I'm using Epson Enhanced Matte paper at the moment. Mainly for
going easy on the budget while tampering with a new software and cranking
out tons of test prints. ;)
And finally the problem:
When I print the evaluation image mentioned above, I don't get the blacks
and shadow details I'm looking for on this matte paper. The problem already
shows up in the softproof view of Aperture and remains when the (matte
black) ink hits the paper.
In the attached image, I've tried to visualize the problem. It contains a
crop from the bottom left corner of the evaluation image with different
profiles and render intent settings.
Image explanations and comments from top to bottom:
1) Profile created with Eye-One Match 3, set to "NewGamutMapping L0.3" using
the trick in the article I've mentioned at the beginning.
The render intent was set to "Perceptual" which always seemed to give me the
results I've wanted in the past years using profiles created this way.
Blacks: With this profile/setting combination the maximum possible Dmax with
the used ink/paper combination can be reached.
A crucial criteria, as everyone printing on matte Fine Art Papers probably
figured out.
Shadow separation: pretty good; on a printed sample, I'am able to
distinguish between patch no. 10 from the surrounding black with ease.
2) Profile created with ArgyllCMS. Render intent: Perceptual.
Blacks: lousy, as one can see in the image, the black is more of a very dark
grey, than really black.
I didn't bother measuring the Dmax since this is obviously pretty far away
from what this print/ink/paper combination is able to deliver.
Shadow separation: slightly better than with 1) but with black being dark
grey not really a surprise.
3) Profile created with ArgyllCMS. Render intent: Relative Colorimetric,
Black Point Compensation ON
Blacks: as lousy as with 2), on paper even worse I didn't bother measuring
the Dmax since this is obviously pretty far away from what this
print/ink/paper combination is usually able to deliver.
Shadow separation: slightly worse than with 2)
4) Profile created with ArgyllCMS. Render intent: Relative Colorimetric,
Black Point Compensation OFF
Blacks: great, that's the way I like it. But only on paper, in the soft
proof view, I see little difference while turning BPC on and off.
Shadow separation: not really existent, on paper, even patch no. 24 isn't
really separated from the surrounding black!
Besides those findings, I have to mention, that everything else is as
expected.
Good color match to (eye-One Match calibrated) screens, nice saturation etc.
For my eyes, the color looks best with Relative Colorimetric and BPC turned
off.
But this has also to do with the darker blacks and therefore more contrast
in the print.
A little side note: When I use Apples Color Sync Utility to compare the two
profiles mentioned here, the ArgyllCMS profile never reaches the bottom of
the given space, as the eye-One profile does. Seems there is a connection
between what i'm struggling with and what ColorSync shows. Or ist this just
coincidence? Am I confusing two different things here?
Whatever.
At the moment i'm _really_ looking for deep, really dark blacks the way I
get them with sample 4) but with the shadow details on a level close (or
even better) to the ones in 1).
I've played around for hours with different settings, searching the
internet, performing all kinds of CMS voodoo rituals I'm aware of; but non
luck.
Still stuck to "not-really-black" blacks and lousy shadow separation.
Any help out there?
Someone else must have seen this before or am I going mad?
Thanks for _any_ help in advance!
Cheers
Andreas Hebeisen
P.S. For those who want to analyze my issue, you can download the ti3-File
and the created ICC-Profile from this URL:
http://home.ggaweb.ch/files/mail/2011/2011-08-01_profiles.zip
I've also included the mentioned ICC-Profile I created with Eye-One Match 3
for the same printer/paper/ink combination.
The attached images are also downloadable from there in the original
resolution:
http://home.ggaweb.ch/files/mail/2011/Profile-Comparisons-by-Print+Softproof
-Preview-in-Aperture.jpg
http://home.ggaweb.ch/files/mail/2011/ColorSync_Profile_Comparison.jpg
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