Colour Printing

[mikemeister_admin]

Hi Mike,
  With all the work and discussions on this forum about achieving correct colours. It is how to print the photos to look like the monitor. Do you use any hardware ( Spyder etc) to calibrate your monitor and do you use  third party printing software at all? I have considered getting a monitor calibration unit, but always hesitate.
      Barry

[mikemeister_admin]

Mike,
  I did a search and found some discussion on calibration. Frits mentioned he knows what you think about calibration, but I could not find out what you think. care to elaborate.
              Barry

[-default]

Mike,
  I did a search and found some discussion on calibration. Frits mentioned he knows what you think about calibration, but I could not find out what you think. care to elaborate.
              Barry

Hi Barry,

Up front I want to say that calibration is important and necessary, and that it is not necessary to buy equipment to accomplish this. 

That said, many people will find that the quickest way to gain some confidence that their display is correctly set up is to spend some money on calibration equipment.  The Pantone Huey is 75 dollars, including shipping, on www.Pricegrabber.com .

Mike

[mikemeister_admin]

Thanks Mike, I'll probably still wait for a while.
          Barry

[-default]

Hi Barry,

I didn't directly address the issue of color printing in my response, and since it is the main subject of the thread, it's worth a few words.

There are two parts to adjusting your printer output, calibration and characterization. 

Calibration is adjusting the printer to change the appearance of the final output.  During calibration, the image color data is kept constant, and the printer or printer driver is adjusted to alter the amount of ink deposited on the page for each color.  For the Epson, and others, this is done by adjusting color sliders in the printer color settings.  The measurement can be done by eye - for example by removing a color cast from a gray step wedge - or by measurement with a device such as a colorimeter or spectrometer.

Characterization means quantitatively measuring the output of the printer, typically by printing a set of known color patches and measuring them with a device.  Almost always, characterization software creates a profile that will be used to modify images on their way to the printer.

In the bad old days, the distinction between calibration and characterization used to be relatively easy, since calibration involved turning knobs on the device, and characterization consisted of measuring the device's output and writing down numbers.  Nowadays the distinction is blurred, because both operations may be accomplished through software, but from a methodology standpount it is useful to distinguish the two operations.

Often is is sufficient to use the manufacturer's inks and papers, and print to the printer using a standard setting such as sRGB or PhotoEnhance.  If this is not practical, or if non-standard papers are used, the printer may be calibrated by printing a gray step pattern, and adjusting the color settings in the driver to get a good result.

For several years, software (MonacoColor and WIZYWYG) has been available that uses a scanner to measure printer output, producing a printer profile that characterizes your printer.  Unfortunately, the scanner light source is not very similar to normal room light, and the resulting profiles can be of very low quality.  Other solutions involve a measuring device that scans printed test patches - these produce accurate profiles but cost over 1000 dollars just to get started.  The results, IMHO may be no better than spending an hour carefully adjusting your printer's output manually.

I myself am fascinated by spectrophotometric measurement of colors.  I have recently acquired a new spectrophotometer that I plan to use in a variety of projects, including rescanning of all the pin values posted in the pins page.

Mike

[mikemeister_admin]

Barry, I am using Spyder 2 Pro and Printfix both by Colorvision (they now have a newer model). The Spyder portion was easy enough. However I did have problems setting a ICC profile for the Epson R800 and Kodak paper (cheap at Costco). I talked to the people at Colorvision. They requested I send them a copy of the Printfix scan. They came back and suggested that one (or two) of the ink cartridges was not functioning properly. I ran a cartridge test and it appeared that they were correct. The red was magenta and blue was purple. I contacted Epson and they sent me to a nearby repair station. When I showed them a copy of the printer cartridge test that I made, they agreed and suggested cleaning. When done they printed a their standard image and said everything OK.

I redid the Printfix scan with the same negative results. So I ran the printer cartridge test again and found it was no different than before cleaning. I called back the Epson repair station and they simply said "we ran our test image and it prints OK". I asked them to call Epson for help and they would not. I decided to talk to the people where I bought the printer and find one guy there to be very knowledgeable regarding printers.

He was familiar with the repair station I went to and said that they repair commercial printers and know little or nothing about technical details of printers for photography. He told me my printer has a cartridge that is called RED and another called BLUE but they print MAGENTA and PURPLE. Just like my cartridge test sample. He said that when red and blue is required the inks are mixed to get those colors! I talked to the Epson tech who cleaned my printer and he did not know that.

No word from Colorvision yet so I redid the Printfix scan a few times and finally it came out correct. That being said you must go thru minute detail setting up the image from whatever program you use to print from then being sure that all the parameters for the printer are set up each time you print. Its been 6 or so months since I printed anything and my last effort a few days ago was not OK. Need to find out why. Just got back from vacation with 500+ images and working on them. That's my priority right now.

Was it worth it? For me now I say yes to the monitor calibration and no to the printer. These are the reasons:
1. I turn all my images into slide shows (with music) for viewing on a upscale TV monitor. The people I may give a slide show to prefer to view them on a TV also.
2. I only have so many walls to hang prints on. When I make a occasional prints for the neighbors or friends they could care less whether it meets any ICC profile. In most cases if they can tell who the subject is that's good enough.
3. I can pay a bit extra for Epson paper and use the Epson profile that came with the printer.

So I find that my photography is to please me and have little need to print like I thought I would. For all my other printing I use a Epson 880. I can buy both ink cartridges (third party) for $15.
Joe S

[mikemeister_admin]

Mike and Joe, Thank you for your response to my question.  My monitor calibration has always been using the adobe gamma that comes with Photoshop. For the printing, I have  Qimage (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/) software. I have been reasonably happy with it, but never know if I am getting the best out of my work. Qimage offers profiles for a few different papers working with different printers, mine is a Canon i950 and I use Canon Photo pro paper. They also offer "Profile Prizm" software that one can use to determine their own profiles. The Canon printer does offer adjustments for custom and manual settings, but I have tended to stay away from them. I guess I am looking for an easy way out.
Thank you again for your thoughts. I am still trying to decide what to do.
  Sorry for the rambling.
          Barry

[Bulldoggie]

Barry,

Regarding Monitor calibration, I had the Spyder version 1 and replaced it with the Monaco Optix Pro. Both were good, but the Monaco produces visibly better results (more detail in blacks and better highlight detail). The Spyder II has received good reviews so it may be just as good. Remember to recalibrate every month or two, before every "critical" editing session, and everytime you update the video drivers.

I had a Printfix (version 1), but found it to be more hassle than it was worth. I bought it from a high end printer store here in Dallas. They told me that the improvement probably wouldn't be that large if I could get profiles from the manufacturer. If you have an Epson printer, profiles abound. If you have a Canon, i9900 in my case, the situation sucks. So I bought the Printfix to build profiles for other papers. I believe the latest version of Printfix is substantially improved, but I still wouldn't recommend it. Instead, buy an Epson printer, use pretty much any paper you want with the manufacturer's profiles and then decide if you need special calibration.

If you do need a specially calibrated profile or two, I still wouldn't buy the Printfix. Go to inkjetart.com (I have no affiliation with them) - they build profiles for $25 each. If you want to use tons of different types of papers and non-standard inks, then a printer calibration tool is a good idea.

The other reason to get an Epson is print longevity. Our Canons use ink that is inherently very susceptible to fading. It's cheaper than Epson's ink, though, and allows us to print substantially faster. For anything approaching archival quality on the Canons, the options discussed most frequently are Ilford's Smooth Gallerie, Kodak Ultima Picture Paper, and Kodak Professional Inkjet Paper. These papers "swell" after the ink hits them locking out air. (Canon's own papers do not do this.) Printer settings and profiles are available for these assuming you use Canon branded ink.

My Canon recently started having problems with flesh tones and greens. Cleaning hasn't helped. I'm hoping Santa will bring the new Epson 3800. One of its big attractions for me is printing on canvas and fine art papers with archival permanence - and never wondering if there will be a profile for my printer

[mikemeister_admin]

Bulldoggie,
  Thank you for your comments, greatly appreciated. Many times I wish I had an Epson instead of Canon.Well, may be some day.  There are many papers out there I would like to try.  I found the inkjetart site well worth looking at.
            Barry

[mikemeister_admin]

Colour printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color (as opposed to simpler black and white or monochrome printing). Any natural scene or color photograph can be optically and physiologically dissected into three Primary Colors, red, green and blue, roughly equal amounts of which give rise to the perception of white, and different proportions of which give rise to the visual sensations of all other colors. The additive combination of any two primary colors in roughly equal proportion gives rise to the perception of a Secondary Color. For example, red and green yields yellow, red and blue yields magenta (a purple hue), and green and blue yield cyan (a turquoise hue). Only yellow is counter-intuitive. Yellow, cyan and magenta are merely the "basic" secondary colors: unequal mixtures of the primaries give rise to perception of many other colors all of which may be considered "tertiary."




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