Stupid question about color/printer profiling

divamum

So my monitor is calibrated, and the profile listed when I went to print was the one for Huey.

Should I download one for my printer and use THAT, or do I just use the one for the calibration software?

The BW prints I just made were ok, but a bit contrastier than onscreen and whereas onscreen had a very slight cool bias (pure bw, not toned), the prints had a slightly warmer balance (again, not toned, just warm vs cool).

Thanks in advance for clearing this up for me! (And renewed thanks for the all the WB and Lightroom setup info - fabulous stuff! Still working through it, but finding it extremely helpful)

pathfinder

The profile you create for your display monitor, and the profile for a specific type of paper on a specific printer are two entirely separate animals.

The profile your create with your Huey to calibrate your monitor, is what determines how your monitor displays your images on your unique monitor.

The printer profile is what is loaded into your printer by your printer driver software or Lightroom in its printing dialogue boxes on the right panel to define how each color of ink is sprayed onto the paper.

You usually get the printer profile for a specific paper from the manufacturer of the paper, or have a custom profile make by one of the services on the web. Andrew Rodney - aka www.digitaldog.net does this here - http://digitaldog.net/services.html

There are software packages that allow one to make their own printer profiles, but good ones are rather expensive ( > $1K ), and cheap ones ( ~ $ 0.5 K ) are not worth the time and effort involved in my very limited experience trying to create custom printing profiles.

Papers frequently will look slightly warmer than a monitor - that is the point of proofing. Making your monitor look awful to match what paper will look like.

rutt

It sounds like you may be splitting hairs and expecting to much from the calibrations. Here is a little test. Take your print and look at it:

1. Outdoors under sunlight
2. Under an incandescent lamb
3. Under a fluorescent lamp
4. Under a halogen lamp (if you have one)

How different does it look? Which looks closest to what you saw on the screen and/or what you want it to look like?

In my experience, color prints never look the exactly same as the images look on even a very expensive calibrated monitor. So you have to learn to adjust your expectations and learn to make corrections that work within the error inherent in how you measure. Using just your eyes on a color monitor is more error prone than measuring with the eyedropper in PS.

pathfinder

Rutt is correct that the light the photo evaluated under is CRITCAL

This point does not get the attention it requires. Pros use special print examining light booths to evaluate their prints. ONE just cannot look at a print under a dim tungsten table lamp or worse, one of the new Compact Fluorescent Lamps that are replacing tungsten lights, and hope have a prayer of how your photo looks.

Sunlight is great - it has not changed color temperature OR intensity in thousands of years. Use it. You will be amazed what you can see in your prints.

Or build a print examining station. I use a large Ott table lamp - not as good as the PROFESSIONAL light booths recommended by Andrew Rodney, but recommended by Michael Reichman a few years ago. I find it quite helpful, but I examine the print directly under the light at a distance of less than 15 inches.

Like rutt said, you then begin to get an eye for what your print will look like under different lighting and how close it will match your much brighter and higher contrast monitor.

arodney

The initial goal is usually that of producing a screen to print match. That means you need controlled viewing conditions for the print viewing. Controlled means a specific luminance and white point (color temp of you must). This must also correlate to how you calibrate and profile the display. The values may be quite different to produce a visual match, that is a "D50" viewing booth might require the display be calibrated to D55 or D56 etc. The right values are those that result in a match.

Next, nearly all output profiles assume D50 viewing conditions as specified in the profile when created. There is at least one high end package that allows one to measure an illuminant and place that specific value into the profile package when making the printer profile. Advanced, super geeky stuff but useful.

Once you view a print by the display and result in match, what about all other viewing conditions? Well the first item to recognize is that the display is out of the picture. Its simply silly to consider viewing a print in your living room or anywhere else, then running into your studio to view the display to evaluate a match. However, while the illuminant and color temp of other areas may be very different, your eye will adapt to those conditions. Viewing a print that matched your display under "D50" then taking it under a totally different condition should not result in a print you don't like or recognize. If the print looks too warm or too dark in the editing environment, it will likely look that way elsewhere. So the argument that you're viewing the prints in differing environments, thus using proper color management and controlled ambient condition by the display isn't viable is not a sound argument.

As said, it is useful in some situations to be able to target your output based on the final viewing conditions. So one could have a gallery show, go on site with an EyeOne Pro, measure the lighting and build an output profile for that specific need. I've done this and the differences are hardly night and day but they do help. In such conditions, every little bit you can do helps of course but like most things, there's a point of diminishing return. If you're the person selling prints in a gallery for big bucks, its useful.

Ultimately we want a condition whereby we know that what we see is what we get which means controlling the ambient lighting in the editing environment, how we view prints and how the display is setup so we get a match (as closely as we can using current technology and recognizing that an emissive display and a reflective print can never perfectly match. There's a huge difference in the reference media of the two).

rutt

Reply to Pathfinder: I have a problem with too much emphasis on controlled lighting for evaluating prints (though I do control the lighting when I look at my prints.) In fact, prints are normally viewed under completely uncontrolled conditions. Magazine covers are viewed in racks in drug stores, airplane terminals, at home under all sorts of light. Even museums use pretty warm light (just look at the color balance of shots you take in museums.)

My point isn't that it's important to view your prints under controlled light, but that one should lower one's expectations for color matching between prints and monitors. There is a margin of error and it's best just to live with it and not produce prints which don't work well if things aren't just right.

divamum

Thanks for the (as usual) helpful replies. I guess I can eyeball it when I know I have to print, so just knowing that this is a normal phenom is useful info (also, a correction to my initial post caused by a typo - it should read "a very SLIGHT cool bias" - we're not talking huge differences here!). The print was definitely stronger contrast, however; ultimately I reverted to an earlier version of the shot which I had felt was a touch too "flat" onscreen:



This once printed was close to ideal contrast/lightness, including the lips which bothered me onscreen as being far too light - they were dead on in the final print.

I only have a low-end Canon pixma printer but the prints are actually pretty good - better than drugstore/walmart ones, and definitely cheaper for odd crops/sizes or when I need more control over the output. As an aside: for a $29 investment (seriously, that's what it cost in a sale last summer)and very moderately priced replacement cartridges, this thing was WELL worth what I paid for it... and then some!!

Anyway, to clarify:

- I get a profile for the PAPER I use (not the actual printer itself), and then load that into whatever software/editing package I'm using to print? I usually print through CS3 or Picasa - is it just a case of going to the paper mfrs websites and digging around for the profile, which will run in any editing software?

Tangential question: when I start using SM printing, I understand that I do a "softproof" process which will (theoretically) show me on MY monitor what the print will look like. Does that bypass calibration software, or ...? Sorry, just not quite clear on how that works.


Like I said, stupid questions. Only just now getting into printing, so trying to figure this out. Thanks, as always!

pathfinder

rutt wrote:

Reply to Pathfinder: I have a problem with too much emphasis on controlled lighting for evaluating prints (though I do control the lighting when I look at my prints.) In fact, prints are normally viewed under completely uncontrolled conditions. Magazine covers are viewed in racks in drug stores, airplane terminals, at home under all sorts of light. Even museums use pretty warm light (just look at the color balance of shots you take in museums.)

My point isn't that it's important to view your prints under controlled light, but that one should lower one's expectations for color matching between prints and monitors. There is a margin of error and it's best just to live with it and not produce prints which don't work well if things aren't just right.

John, I agree that prints are going to be seen in many different areas where the artist has no say in the lighting - it is out of your hands. That is even true with prints of mine hung in my own home - I do not always have special lighting for them, and they are seen under daylight sometimes, and tungsten sometimes, and a mixture sometimes.

Nonetheless, my point was that one wants to have a reasonable expectation of what they see on their monitor, and what it looks like on paper. Some of this just comes from doing a fair bit or printing and looking at the prints and the monitor and comparing them.

Different folks do it differently. I just have had a number of folks who complain here that their images are much darker than their monitor, but that is true of any print that is not examined under a good quality light fairly directly. Until light is brought to a print, general room light won't work for print evaluation was all I was trying to say I guess.

My workstation is in a fairly dim room, and prints look very dark in the shadows until I hold them under an Ott light, and voila, they look a lot better. The colors become more vibrant, just as when you turn your studio lights on you can now see colors you did not see when the room was much darker.

pathfinder

divamum wrote:

Anyway, to clarify:

- I get a profile for the PAPER I use (not the actual printer itself), and then load that into whatever software/editing package I'm using to print? I usually print through CS3 or Picasa - is it just a case of going to the paper mfrs websites and digging around for the profile, which will run in any editing software?

Tangential question: when I start using SM printing, I understand that I do a "softproof" process which will (theoretically) show me on MY monitor what the print will look like. Does that bypass calibration software, or ...? Sorry, just not quite clear on how that works.


Like I said, stupid questions. Only just now getting into printing, so trying to figure this out. Thanks, as always!

Paper profiles come in different manners. Some may be just for the paper, but most are quite specific for the inks and printer used. Here is a link to the paper profiles supplied by Red River. As you can see there are profiles available for a number of Canon and Epson printers, including the Epson 3800 which is the printer I use.

When I click on the Epson 3800 link, I am then taken to a page listing all of the paper that Red River thinks is appropriate for that particular printer. There separate profiles for Black and White as well at the bottom of the page for the Epson 3800. I must load into the printer driver or Photoshop or LR, at the time of printing, the specific paper/printer profile combination I am going to be using. B&W printing gets a different profile than color.

If you cannot find an appropriate profile for your specific printer then you can have a custom one made, or try one from another printer that uses the same inksets. No guarantees then.

Here is the link to a calibration print for help with proofing with smugmug, -- http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1123524

arodney

pathfinder wrote:

My workstation is in a fairly dim room, and prints look very dark in the shadows until I hold them under an Ott light, and voila, they look a lot better. The colors become more vibrant, just as when you turn your studio lights on you can now see colors you did not see when the room was much darker.

And imagine if you used a really good illuminant <g> Sorry.

These are not expensive.

https://www.solux.net/cgi-bin/tlistore/tasklamps.html

The differences in quality as well being more spectrally ideal for proofing compared to the Fluorescent OTT, is stunning.

pathfinder

Ok,
Andrew, you have convinced me! They are not THAT expensive - you are correct. I do agree that GOOD quality lighting is fundamental!

I hope you get a commission!

Now I am going to ask for specific recommendations. Table lamp style is fine for me.

Is 4700K the right one, or is the 5K one better? This is where your link takes me

arodney

4700K is ideal for proofing. 3500K is great for overall viewing (a tad warmer) so in a gallery, living room or for overall nicest appearance with 4700 again being best for proofing (and that D50 profile assumption).

pathfinder

Thanks again

I will order the 4700K one

arodney

I'll be curious of your impressions when you view the same prints under both.

Solux lighting is addicting once you see the quality of the light. When I built my home office addition, I had everything lit with recessed Solux along with track lighting (http://www.digitaldog.net/NewOffice/index.html).

This is great for bedtime reading:https://www.solux.net/cgi-bin/tlistore/singlehead.html

No commission, and man, I've spent a lot of dough on these products. As I said, very addicting.

divamum

Getting there... slowly!

I've found the profiles in LR, but I can't tell which is for which paper - it's all acronyms and abreviations, and there are no corresponding acronyms and abbreviations on the paper package, so as yet I haven't figured out what corresponds to waht Does anybody know where there's a comprehensive list for canon printers/papers/ICC stuff? I found a few by googling, but none of them answer the questions I have remaining, alas. For instance, what's "GL"? (Glossy? Glossy Light? Grand Limitations?

That said, by rendering the shots rather overbright and low-contrast, I got pretty nice prints.

Now, if I can just find readily available, cost-effective 8x10 paper (instead of 8.5x11, which I have to trim by hand and is a PAIN!) and hopefully get a little quicker at this, I'll have it made!! :giggle Can't wait to start using SM and leaving some of the hard work to somebody else....

On a more general note, I have to say that I'm tempted to adopt the same philosophy I use when editing and mixing sound files - I have to make them sound good on the WORST speakers, not the best. While of course a print will look different in different light, these are not gallery or art prints but performer headshots and are going to be viewed under SO many different conditions that all I can do is try to optimize for my own taste, and let the cards fall where they may. Once they've been submitted for bulk repro - which these days is often litho - there will be more subtle changes, so I feel like I can only do just so much.

pathfinder

The abbreviations are cryptic.

I googled "Epson profile abbreviations" and got this page which has a number of links that help

This one seems to help the most - http://photographytechnologies.blogspot.com/2008/09/epson-paper-acronyms.html

Red River seems to offer 8 x 10 in paper in several different types. I have used [url=""]Red River[/url] for some time, and find on line ordering reliable, and quick to deliver. Epson offers online ordering as well, but costs a bit more than RR for ink.

divamum

Thanks for the links, but my printer is a Canon and a similar google search doesn't bring up a page as useful as that!! (in fact searching "Canon Paper Acroynms" brought up your Epson page. Ah well....)

I'll keep looking, and if I actually find what I need will post back here so somebody else can avoid a frustrating search. It must be out there somewhere, I just have to find the right search string.......

pathfinder

I forgot you're using a Canon printer. Maybe Sam or one of the other Canon printers know this information.