Uhh.. well, thanks for your thoughts!
I don't use Epson papers or inks, hence the need to profile third party
products. I have done experiments on drying time with the papers and inks
that I use, and I can't measure any differences between a print allowed to
dry for an hour, and the same print 24 hours later - perhaps my
measurement instrument is insufficiently precise to reveal any differences,
but it is the only one I have available.
I don't consider myself an artist, nor do I aspire to be one - a competent
technician would be a good ambition, I think, but in fact, I just take and
print photos because I enjoy doing it. I like working with precision
instruments and tools, and for me, the process is more important, and more
enjoyable, than the end product.
So, I'm going to get on and have a look at the photos I took on a local
walk, yesterday, and maybe print up a few using the Argyll profiles, and
see how they work in practice.
Best wishes
Steve
On Sun, 27 Jun 2021 at 19:07, Wire ~ <wire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
//The profiles that I have produced with Argyll seem to be more consistent
across different papers than the ones produced by the Datacolor software//
You point above caught my attention.
Not withstanding the pleasure of learning, or esoteric application, the
profiles Epson provides for common media types are very good. There's no
reason to expect you will improve them except in marginal cases and maybe
never at all.
However, one thought for any application of printer profiles that took me
too long to learn: Don't overlook page dry-down. Depending on the tech,
heavily inked print dark tone response can change dramatically over of a
couple of days/weeks, so unless you have a means to accelerate curing, a
rush for results can build errors into your process that you would avoid
just using stock profiles. If your profiling capability is uncertain, you
become trapped by time.
As a tech you might jump for joy 'omg, I love the challenge of
constraints!'
If you are moved as an artist, don't let futzing with the tech distract
you from practing how to work through the medium. It's one thing to get a
feel for the medium, as it has a life of its own, but desire for accuracy
and creative expression are antagonistic. The artist prevails with the
limits of his tools. 'omg, I love the challenge of constraints!'
If you are fascinated by the tech, that's a life of its own. But also a
rathole of perseveration over "quality". I made the mistake of letting OCD
tech tendencies steal time from artistic exploration.
Yes, yes there is no clear distinction between these two realms, but the
work that tends to be produced across these realms differs wildly.
The pleasure of figuring out how things work is curiosity's perennial
reward. Thanks to dedicated and competent technicians there are tall
shoulders for artists to stand on.
Yet I see a surplus of technicians, while more artists are needed. So I
encourage the latter.
I am fascinated and troubled by this particular tech because its purpose
seems to be to manufacture infinitely abundant perfectly clear windows
across time and space, which consequences require a new kind of intuition
to explore. There's endless nattering over arcane details of the clarity of
the glass and about how to caulk the window sashes, but surprisingly not
much talking about what it means when you have access to time/space portals.
Garr blah blah... Anyways...
This is just 2cents, but you can easily do worse than standing on Epson
shoulders.
I guess I'm just giving advice to myself from a previous age.
Best to you in your explorations!
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 06:02 Steve Morton <steve.morton8650@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Good afternoon
I have just started using Argyll CMS to produce profiles for my Epson Pro
3880 printer, using a Datacolor SpyderPrint colorimeter. I have
successfully produced several profiles, but I don't understand the Peak,
Average and RMS errors that colprof displays when it completes the profile
generation. First, could you give me an idea of 'typical' values for these
errors? Second, because the SpyderPrint is only able to take a single
measurement at a time (using the 'Measure' window in the Datacolor
software), it is very easy to get the patch numbers and readings mixed up.
I'm sure this has happened, as I sometimes get peak errors reported that
are >50 or more. When I see that, I run profcheck, find the patch with the
maximum error, then re-read that patch and put in the new result, then
repeat as necessary. Presumably, if one patch reading is wrong, it will
affect the errors on adjacent patches as well, so is this a sensible
approach?
Also, are you aware of any third party software that can drive the
SpyderPrint colorimeter?
The profiles that I have produced with Argyll seem to be more consistent
across different papers than the ones produced by the Datacolor software,
but I haven't done too much printing with them yet - it has been an
interesting learning experience though!
Best wishes
--
Steve Morton
