Graeme, Thanks for checking Andreas's profiles. The black patch readings are right about what I get when profiling matte papers. Something strange must be happening with Aperture as was noted yesterday in terms of it being able to print with a color managed workflow since other software works correctly. Alan -----Original Message----- From: argyllcms-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:argyllcms-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Graeme Gill Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 5:24 AM To: argyllcms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [argyllcms] Re: RGB Printer Profiling / Issues with Blacks and Shadows Andreas Hebeisen wrote: > 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. Hi, it doesn't look to me like a problem with the Argyll profile. The black patch (131) has a value: R G B X Y Z L a b 131 "Y15" 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 2.3593 2.4032 1.8365 17.475 0.86838 1.4520 icclu -ff -ia -pl 2011_V6-0_3800mk_Epson-EMP_EMP_1440_0_8bit.icc 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 [RGB] -> Lut -> 17.420737 1.009836 0.880059 [Lab] so the profile forward behahaviour is pretty close. At a guess there is something odd going on with the CMM. Perhaps the input profile black point is being treated oddly ? (Not unusual when it comes to RGB/matrix profiles, and the various changes in the ICC spec. in regards to this aspect). What happens if you use the sRGB profile from the Argyll distribution as the source colorspace ? Graeme Gill.