Colour query

  • Thread starter Thread starter Trammell
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Trammell

Hi, could anyone offer some advice about the following?

I'm using an Epson R300 that has been set up with an srgb colour profile, as
has the monitor, adobe gamma has also been applied (not that there seems
much adjustment possible on my LCD screen)

When printing photo's via the windows fax & picture viewer software the
finished result is hopelessly dark. I've tried a combination of paper and
quality settings and, while there is some variation, the overall result is
still way too dark.

Dark results are also being produced when printing through PS - which has
also been set up with the srgb profile

But, when printing through Picasa 2, the finished result is (if anything)
slightly too light.

Any ideas why the different pieces of software are treating the same jpg so
differently? (no adjustments are being made prior to printing, apart from
the initial adjustments in PS))

Thanks for your thoughts
 
Trammell said:
Hi, could anyone offer some advice about the following?

I'm using an Epson R300 that has been set up with an srgb colour profile,
as has the monitor, adobe gamma has also been applied (not that there
seems much adjustment possible on my LCD screen)

When printing photo's via the windows fax & picture viewer software the
finished result is hopelessly dark. I've tried a combination of paper and
quality settings and, while there is some variation, the overall result is
still way too dark.
Click to expand...

There's a known problem with older drivers on Windows XP SP2 - have a looky
here
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/...&oid=26322&prodoid=37368458&category=Products
I needed to uninstall the older drivers before installing the new ones,
installing over the old ones didn't seem to work for me.

Dark results are also being produced when printing through PS - which has
also been set up with the srgb profile

But, when printing through Picasa 2, the finished result is (if anything)
slightly too light.

Any ideas why the different pieces of software are treating the same jpg
so differently? (no adjustments are being made prior to printing, apart
from the initial adjustments in PS))

Thanks for your thoughts
Click to expand...

I don't know what settings you have for Color management (on the Main -
Advanced screen of the Epson printer properties window), but I messed about
with my R200 and found that settings them on 'Colour Controls' with all the
sliders on zero and the colour mode on Epson Vivid produced the best
results - setting the colour mode to Epson Standard seems to produce
slightly too light and washed out prints; but it's a minor difference
between the two. Using the Photo Enhance and ICM modes for me produces
prints that plain wrong, even when using the ICC profiles for the paper(s).
 
Harvey said:
There's a known problem with older drivers on Windows XP SP2 - have a
looky here
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/...&oid=26322&prodoid=37368458&category=Products
I needed to uninstall the older drivers before installing the new ones,
installing over the old ones didn't seem to work for me.



I don't know what settings you have for Color management (on the Main -
Advanced screen of the Epson printer properties window), but I messed
about with my R200 and found that settings them on 'Colour Controls' with
all the sliders on zero and the colour mode on Epson Vivid produced the
best results - setting the colour mode to Epson Standard seems to produce
slightly too light and washed out prints; but it's a minor difference
between the two. Using the Photo Enhance and ICM modes for me produces
prints that plain wrong, even when using the ICC profiles for the
paper(s).
Click to expand...


Thanks very much,Harvey, the new drivers sorted the main problem - so much
for SP2

Just one snag, I've got two 300's, one using Epson ink and one using
compatible ink. I've noticed that the colour rendition of the two ink types
is pretty similar - except for subjects with darkish hair.

For some reason the compatible inks tend to render the brown as a
greyish-brown, which makes it unsuitable for turning out album photos. I
know that it's a consequence of using cheap ink, but in all other respects
the prints obtained from the compatibles are very good - it's just this
brown/grey hair issue.

Given the huge difference in price between the two inks I'd very much like
to try and resolve the matter - the effect occurs with at least three
different brands of compatibles, so I'm a bit stumped.

I'm also using non-Epson paper - but that doesn't seem to make a difference
to the Epson ink, which renders the hair perfectly, is it possible that
Epson add 'something' to their ink that helps with the brown rendering?

I've also tried various paper settings - but with no effect on the
grey/brown hair result - anyone else had this problem?, and more
importantly, anyone found an answer?
 
Sadly, due in part to Window's poorly implemented color management (who
thought anyone using a Windows OS would be printing fine art or
photos... it was designed to make colored bar graphs and pie charts...)
every manufacturer of printers, scanners, monitors, software, inks,
papers, etc, etc, have had to incorporate some form of color management.

Unfortunately, some don't work at all, some work poorly, some conflict
with others, and soon you end up with a disaster on your hands.

The subject is so broad that literally books have been written about it.

Probably, the best thing you can do is go to Google and look up
something like:

"Color Management" +windows

and see if one of the many web site provides you with some insight into
both the problems and some of the solutions.

You may have Adobe Gamma set up improperly. Some suggest it shouldn't be
used as it messes up some basic concepts in color management. Also sRGB
is a video gamut and restricts the pallet quite a bit. Some suggest
using Adobe RGB (1998). Adobe's own website probably has discussions
about this, as well.

I'm guessing you have several different color management aware programs
each trying to do their own thing.

Art
 
You raised a good point, SP2 for XP broke part of Epson's color
management and they corrected it with a new driver, which is available
from their website. One common cause of this can be dark output from
their printers.

Art
 
Chances are you need to have the ink and paper profiled. Darker colors
and higher saturated areas always are more difficult to reproduce
correctly with inkjets. Epson obviously uses their own inks to write
the driver profiles, and they optimize the profiles to supply the best
results with their inks.

You can buy profiles for standard papers and inks, some ink
manufacturer's provide profiles for free or a small fee, and you can
have them made for you for a fee.

Art
 
Arthur Entlich said:
Chances are you need to have the ink and paper profiled. Darker colors
and higher saturated areas always are more difficult to reproduce
correctly with inkjets. Epson obviously uses their own inks to write the
driver profiles, and they optimize the profiles to supply the best results
with their inks.

You can buy profiles for standard papers and inks, some ink manufacturer's
provide profiles for free or a small fee, and you can have them made for
you for a fee.

Art
Click to expand...

He may also be getting 'bronzing' (where the black inks aren't actually
black but shine in various rainbow colours, also known as 'gloss
differential' or 'solarization' ) - that's normally an issue that is most
noticeable on large black areas, but (depending on 1001 factors) might be
part of the problem.

Have you tried using any other paper than this one? Papers very considerably
in their ability with different inks - I myself found that Ilford Galerie
Smooth Pearl gives a tendency towards green in the mid-brown / dark grey
areas with Epson inks (made worse when using the Ilford ICC profile than
without); whereas the super-cheap paper I got from a supermarket (costing
about 1/8th of the Ilford stuff) goes slightly towards yellow in face tones
and light greys.

Unfortunately, finding a 'correct' match for 3rd party inks is very hit and
miss. I'm still using the last few drops of the black from the original set
supplied with the printer, the other colours being already replaced with 3rd
party inks. So far, nothing much as changed from a colour balance
perspective, there's a slight reduction in saturation but nothing drastic.
That could all change when I get a 3rd party black ink in :|

[...]
 
He may also be getting 'bronzing' (where the black inks aren't actually
black but shine in various rainbow colours, also known as 'gloss
differential' or 'solarization' ) - that's normally an issue that is most
noticeable on large black areas, but (depending on 1001 factors) might be
part of the problem.
Click to expand...

This is normally associated with pigmented inks, not the dye based
ones, such as the R300 makes use of, no?
 
Ed Ruf said:
This is normally associated with pigmented inks, not the dye based
ones, such as the R300 makes use of, no?
Click to expand...

It's an issue you [can] get with all types of ink, pigment or dye's.
Technically, it may not actually be bronzing as such; but it's a similar
look, with the ink (mainly back) sometimes giving the effect of the ink
sitting 'on' the paper surface, or looking almost wet when viewed at a
certain angle.
 
Hi there

I suspect from reading the original posting that colour management is not
being applied in any realistic way. Printer & Monitor have both been set
up with sRGB Profiles. The Printer should have been set up to use the Epson
Printer Profiles, but I suspect that in "Custom" > "Advanced" the radio
button is against sRGB.

If you are using a fairly inexpensive LCD Panel, then you are probably never
going to get it Calibrated using Adobe Gamma. If you are starting Adobe
Gamma by selecting sRGB as the Monitor Profile, then the situation is
probably being made worse. I am pretty sure that Windows do not include any
"Generic" Monitor Profiles for LCDs, which could have been a better starting
point. You could try the Monitor manufacturers site to see if they have an
ICC profile for it, and then try applying Adobe Gamma to that, but ensure
you keep a copy of the original monitor profile somewhere, just in case
Adobe Gamma messes it up.

This sort of misuse of Colour Management is very common, and that can be
understood because at first it does all seem to be overcomplicated. Once
people get their heads round the basic principles it all becomes very easy,
but it is not easy to get to that situation.

sRGB and Adobe RGB are both Working Space Profiles, and should be used by
PS or Elements, but not be used as Input or Output Device Profiles.

The Program will store the image, and manipulate the image using its Working
Space Profile.
It will display the image on screen by converting that "Space" profile
through your Calibrated Monitor Profile to give you accurate Colours.
It will Print the image by converting that "Space" profile through your
Printer ( & Paper) Profile so that the colours on the Print are accurate.

OR Your Printer will convert from that "Space" profile through its Printer
( & Paper) profile to give accurate colours.

You must set things up so that only the Program or the Printer do this
Printing Colour Management, NOT BOTH. The most common way of ensuring this
is to use the Adobe "Print with Preview" command, and select your Printer
Profile in the Output Space. On the printer Drivers "Custom" > "Advanced"
screen select "No Colour Management"

Of course with Non Epson Ink and Non Epson Paper, the provided Epson ICC
Profiles will not be a lot of use. In that case you should select No Colour
Management in the Adobe "Print with Preview" Dialogue and make trial prints
using the colour sliders in the Printers Dialogue Box. Or pay someone to
make a Printer Profile for you which will allow you to use that kind of ink
on that kind of paper, but it would probably be cheaper to use Epson Ink and
Epson Paper.

Hope this helps a bit.

Roy
 
Bronzing is more likely with dye inks than pigments. It has a great
deal to do with the paper as to how obvious it is.

Art
 
Arthur said:
Bronzing is more likely with dye inks than pigments. It has a great
deal to do with the paper as to how obvious it is.

Art
Click to expand...

Nonsense. The first and most obvious printer to exhibit bronzing was/is
the Epson 2200. Subsequently they brought out modified inks to
ameliorate the problem - probably more dye and less pigment.

Colin
 
We'll agree to disagree then. I have worked with Epson printers for at
least 8 years now, (I owned the original Epson Color Stylus). I used to
do paper reviews for several years of dozens of papers. Bronzing was,
and still is, a common problem with dye inks and certain paper surfaces.
I wrote about it in my reviews well before the existance of pigment
inks for inkjet printers.

As I stated, some pigment inks (although mainly hybrids containing dyes)
may exhibit bronzing as well.

You may wish to read the following patent paper on it:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...14".PGNR.&OS=DN/20050025914&RS=DN/20050025914

or at:

http://www.freshpatents.com/Additiv...of-ink-jet-inks-dt20050203ptan20050025915.php

It's a US patent from HP.

Here's one small excerpt:

[0002] Bronzing is a lustrous sheen of a printed sample in reflected
light which can be associated with only certain dyes. Specifically,
bronzing refers to a reddish-brown color of the ink upon drying. It is
particularly an undesirable property of black inks because of lowered
optical densities produced. However, it also can affect other colors,
cyan producing a reddish tone, for example. Bronzing is an undesirable
print quality issue for the customer and prevents color attributes from
being measured.

The patent is a bit detailed, but if you have the time, you'll learn a
thing or two.

In fact, the only place the word pigment shows up in teh full patent
application is here:

[0033] In addition to the dependency of ink-jet ink components, there
also may be a dependency of ink bronzing on the nature of the print
media. For example, many dyes that do not evidence bronzing on plain
paper are found to evidence bronzing on other types of print media, such
as photopaper that includes a photobase substrate, a quick-drying
ink-receiving layer coated thereon comprising an inorganic pigment
(e.g., silica or alumina) and binder, and an optional topcoat. Thus, ink
systems can be prepared while considering the types of media that these
ink systems will be used with.


Art
 
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