Digital printing calibration/profiling Tips & Tools

[pauly92]

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[Correct Color]

Pauly,

Glad to hear you've gotten somewhere.

However, here's what I'd point out:

I am no pro at this, But i am now getting decent results. I have my own print shop, so learning all this myself is a huge bonus to me and the business.

You're in Australia, so that may be the case in your case, although even at that I'd argue. Look at all of the time you've invested in this, and keep in mind that as a business owner, your time is your single most important asset.

And every bit of time you've spent devoted to this is time you haven't devoted to something else.

I guarantee, reading what you've written -- and this is truly no knock on you because your dedication to all this is pretty remarkable -- but as you said, even where you are, you're still not a pro and you're getting "decent" results, but if you had flown me to Australia to work with you back before you bought your LFP, you'd have better results now, you would have been getting them for a long time, and you would have spent a lot less time and money on chasing color, and maybe more on running and growing your business.

As you have found out, if you're serious about real, accurate, correct color, the learning is a difficult and time-consuming road. People who tell you you can learn all about it in a webinar are lying.

I'd say that it makes just about as much sense to learn to be your own lawyer.




Mike Adams
Correct Color

 

[pauly92]

Hey Mike,

Always appreciate you posting.

For the record, yes if you where in this country, I would have called you in with out a doubt. Being out of the country makes things difficult, especially with my shop always getting work piled on.

For me though, Even though i did spend a lot of time learning, That's how i like to learn with my own trial and errors. Yes i did spend countless hours after work hours. with all my notes i've taken, it's something I cannot forget, and obviously it's not something i'll be posting on forums any time soon either.

With colour management, It just happened to be one of those things that more I learnt, the more I wanted to find out which kept pushing me to try more and try other things. More software, more tools i wanted to try to see what other results i can get.

As for the LFP, yep that's a hell of an investment, But it's something that has already paid itself off. The amount of times i've used it to colour match on glass for transparent prints. Amazing machine.

As for the end profile, All my fine art photographers are happy with the prints they're getting, So i'm quite happy about that.

But yes, for those that don't have as much time as I do after work, As i've said a few times in the post. Better off calling in someone like yourself to do it.

 

[Schnitzel]

pauly92, I admire your dedication. I've been in the exact same place as you about 6 years ago, where I had to learn it all by trial and error, because the practical knowledge was virtually non-existant. Yes, from a business point of view it could be considered a waste of time and money, but it was invaluable to me.

Keep on learning and good luck!

 

[pauly92]

Schnitzel Thanks mate, Its something that i first didn't know to much about, then when starting to learn about it, i wanted to know more and more about it. For me knowing all this means if there's an issue somewhere with colour for a client, they want something done and they're in a rush because their client is pushing them. I know i can resolve it quicker than having to call someone to come down the week after to solve it.
I've been in this situation many times.

Now i'm starting to work on a Excel base program to evaluate the profiles i've created. I.e Print a patch set, read with the SpectroPad, upload readings to excel to verify how close the profile is to what i want it at. It's not to difficult to do.
And also going to create something similar to the xrite colorchecker proof, but my own version, and as a strip, not a pallet.

 

[ColorOfMoney]

Lots of good stuff here, but i am continually running into the same problem regardless of wether using Onyx, Caldera or what I am currently using Aurelon (GMG) Print factory. When creating a profile You start with a linearization, read with a spectrophotometer, set ink restrictions and visually\physically evaluate, print a gamut chart and read with a spectrophotometer again.
I am at a loss as to why there is no (for lack of a better word) scientific method for determining ink restrictions other than a visual physical evaluation. Should there not be Density/Chroma reference for setting this? with the added physical/visual evaluation? Any body have any thoughts?

 

[arossetti]

Lots of good stuff here, but i am continually running into the same problem regardless of wether using Onyx, Caldera or what I am currently using Aurelon (GMG) Print factory. When creating a profile You start with a linearization, read with a spectrophotometer, set ink restrictions and visually\physically evaluate, print a gamut chart and read with a spectrophotometer again.
I am at a loss as to why there is no (for lack of a better word) scientific method for determining ink restrictions other than a visual physical evaluation. Should there not be Density/Chroma reference for setting this? with the added physical/visual evaluation? Any body have any thoughts?

I'd be interested in hearing what Mike has to say but I'm sure that is proprietary information. For individual ink channel restrictions I restrict them just enough to have room when recalibrating, 95% or so. I don't worry too much where my 100% cyan will end up and if it goes to a positive A* oh well. If my 100% magenta goes positive B* no worries. I then will do an overall ink limit for either drying or ink savings depending on the process any where from 270-350% (backlit I may go 400%) and then profile.

If you are using a profile the individual ink restrictions are useless in my opinion; I'd be interested if anyone has another opinion. Since the profile uses a LAB LUT and I don't preserve any channels a file asking for 100% cyan isn't going to be 100% cyan ink (which would print dark blue) so why do I care to limit it, just makes it harder for me to hit RGB and spot colors?


For the record this is for anything without a super large gamut like a proofer. This is what I do for production digital equipment: cut sheet, large and grand format.

 

[pauly92]

Only have experience with onyx, And onyx can go into great lengths into their ink restrictions.

If you go into the ink restrictions and press the arrow next to "read swatch" and press view readings. highlight all the data then press plot readings now you should have a plot chart with all the reads and curves. Set it to X-axis: C* Y-Axis: L* Chart Mode: Colormetric
Now you should see the maximum Chroma each colour channel can produce. On the yellow and black as they're both linear, When the plots start grouping up or going backwards, they're not producing any more colour, just going darker.
On the cyan, magenta ect, the peak of the curve is maximum chroma, anything after that is again just going darker and not producing any more colour.

I will note all the max points on paper. To do that to know exact numbers. put the plot chart next to the readings table, like that you can click each reading individually to plot only that reading on the chart. Change the patch info type to ink volume on the drop down box and now you know how much % to restrict your ink to at max chroma.

then go back to the ink restrictions page and press the arrow to expand the black triangle box "as necessary, make any adjustments to the ink restrictions"
Here you'll see your ink restrictions curves.
Change the "max" until you hit the % you're after

 

[David Milisock]

With about 45 years of experience and experience with wide and grand format work since it began most of this talk is a waste of time. We use many media, we use basically 4 on a regular basis, each media requires a specific profile for each print speed and output resolution. Each profile costs us hundreds of dollars in lost production and materials to create it and is rendered next to useless when the media manufacturer modifies the product without notice, usually within a few months.

We try a media and print a test pattern checking grey balance under 5,000 kelvin, if we can't get a manufacturers profile with a good grey balance then we create one but other wise no. The colors of ink jet printed media varies so much under different real word real use lighting conditions satisfying the client is about grey balance under controlled conditions and modifying color after communication with the client in their viewing environment.

We have a shop to run and payroll to make.

 

[pauly92]

With about 45 years of experience and experience with wide and grand format work since it began most of this talk is a waste of time. We use many media, we use basically 4 on a regular basis, each media requires a specific profile for each print speed and output resolution. Each profile costs us hundreds of dollars in lost production and materials to create it and is rendered next to useless when the media manufacturer modifies the product without notice, usually within a few months.

We try a media and print a test pattern checking grey balance under 5,000 kelvin, if we can't get a manufacturers profile with a good grey balance then we create one but other wise no. The colors of ink jet printed media varies so much under different real word real use lighting conditions satisfying the client is about grey balance under controlled conditions and modifying color after communication with the client in their viewing environment.

We have a shop to run and payroll to make.

Different print shops have different requirements.
Mine, because we specialise in glass, and a lot of ridged substrates, There's no manufacture profiles.
And when you do a lot of printing for "Artists" and "fine art photographers" on unique substrates like glass, or acrylics ect. some things need to be dead on and for us, the key is a perfect profile.

 

[David Milisock]

pauly92 your glass substrate is very stable when compared to vinyl which can and does change from roll to roll let alone lot to lot. Our artistic media is better as far as stability goes and we have a great grey balance profile for that. We do a few archival prints a few thousand a year. As far as printing on glass what device are you using? I'm assuming a flatbed UV is that correct?

>some things need to be dead on and for us, the key is a perfect profile.

Just exactly what is that? Isn't converting an Adobe 1998 RGB or Prophoto RGB to a print device profile a matter of taste? There certainly is no one correct way.

 

[pauly92]

pauly92 your glass substrate is very stable when compared to vinyl which can and does change from roll to roll let alone lot to lot. Our artistic media is better as far as stability goes and we have a great grey balance profile for that. We do a few archival prints a few thousand a year. As far as printing on glass what device are you using? I'm assuming a flatbed UV is that correct?

>some things need to be dead on and for us, the key is a perfect profile.

Just exactly what is that? Isn't converting an Adobe 1998 RGB or Prophoto RGB to a print device profile a matter of taste? There certainly is no one correct way.

Yes and no. We use low iron glass (clear glass, as normal glass comes green), but in saying that some suppliers have more of a blue tint than clear. and it can affect the outcome. But then you've also got our own adhesion promoter to allow the ink to stick to glass. We also don't use the printers white ink we use our own white paint. The details of that we don't share as we've done a lot of R&D on those. But some things to change from time to time.

Correct we've got an Oce Arizona UV Flatbed.

In saying that, our "perfect profiles" are more tailored to our major clients. all profiles match the screens, but some are after more colour separations and some require more vivid prints.
proofing on glass it not that simple as we cant do it on the spot. So the profiles need to be what the client requires with out making changes.

 

[David Milisock]

pualy92 I do quite a few donor walls we use starfire (iron free glass) all the time if you'd like an opportunity to look at a future project that may come up email me at davidmilisockgraphictechnology.com all this work is architectural in nature and many times takes a year or more in the design process.

 

[arossetti]

With about 45 years of experience and experience with wide and grand format work since it began most of this talk is a waste of time. We use many media, we use basically 4 on a regular basis, each media requires a specific profile for each print speed and output resolution. Each profile costs us hundreds of dollars in lost production and materials to create it and is rendered next to useless when the media manufacturer modifies the product without notice, usually within a few months.

We try a media and print a test pattern checking grey balance under 5,000 kelvin, if we can't get a manufacturers profile with a good grey balance then we create one but other wise no. The colors of ink jet printed media varies so much under different real word real use lighting conditions satisfying the client is about grey balance under controlled conditions and modifying color after communication with the client in their viewing environment.

We have a shop to run and payroll to make.

And we run POP/In Store Marking - Pleasing color is not in the vocabulary of our clients. Exact spot colors with accurate lifestyle images. We are judged on how well we can match the certified GRACoL proofs we are given which is near impossible with a production grand format device on a -12 B* media but those are the expectations.

 

[pauly92]

pualy92 I do quite a few donor walls we use starfire (iron free glass) all the time if you'd like an opportunity to look at a future project that may come up email me at davidmilisockgraphictechnology.com all this work is architectural in nature and many times takes a year or more in the design process.

Email sent.

 

[Printrunner]

Thanks for the tips. This is exactly the kind of stuff I joined for. Thanks again.

 

[Printrunner]

No problem, glad we could help.