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How to go about fixing muddy curve

How to go about fixing muddy curve

2014-05-21 by agavemail@...

Hey guys,

Very new to QTR and using Eboni-6 inks (new to those as well) in a 1430 and I have a general question or 2. Feel free to dumb down your responses!!! I have a curve I put together for Epson Hot press Natural. I went thru all steps including linearization (using my v750 scanner).

My question is if you had an area of the print that (for lack of a better term on my part) was muddy, how would you go about solving the problem? I can see how I could go thru a lot of paper trying to get things right. If I am not using the right term, muddy to me means that wher I expect subtle tone changes, I don't see them. It's the same tone. How do you break down the problem into steps to solve the problem?

Just looking for some direction. I have read the QTR docs and what I could find but I can't find anything on how to identify and solve issues with your curves.

Thanks!

Ron

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] How to go about fixing muddy curve

2014-05-21 by Paul Roark

I think one of the most important steps we all take is making sure that our monitor gives a fairly accurate view of what the print is going to look like. On these printing forums we talk mostly about profiling the printing end. The monitor also needs to be calibrated, which almost always involves lowering the brightness.

Once what you see on the monitor matches the print, then turn to the Photoshop tools to pull contrast out of flat shadows or otherwise get the image where you want it. Here, there are almost always lots of ways to do the same thing. My usual approach is to make a duplicate layer and adjust the lower one with curves or the Highlight/shadow tool in PS until the specific area of interest looks how I want it, ignoring the rest of the image. Then I go to the top layer and use the eraser to "paint in" slowly and with a feathered brush the effect I've applied on the lower layer. When it looks right, I flatten the image and save it with a working draft number in the name.

In short, once your monitor and print are profiled such that the monitor gives you an accurate representation of how the print will look, making a good print is mostly about your image editing skills. Using these tools is where the real work is done and the magic lies. The technical issues we discuss on these forums is just a necessary prerequisite to all the rest.

Paul
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On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 6:41 AM, agavemail@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Hey guys,

Very new to QTR and using Eboni-6 inks (new to those as well) in a 1430 and I have a general question or 2. Feel free to dumb down your responses!!! I have a curve I put together for Epson Hot press Natural. I went thru all steps including linearization (using my v750 scanner).

My question is if you had an area of the print that (for lack of a better term on my part) was muddy, how would you go about solving the problem? I can see how I could go thru a lot of paper trying to get things right. If I am not using the right term, muddy to me means that wher I expect subtle tone changes, I don't see them. It's the same tone. How do you break down the problem into steps to solve the problem?

Just looking for some direction. I have read the QTR docs and what I could find but I can't find anything on how to identify and solve issues with your curves.

Thanks!

Ron


Re: [QuadtoneRIP] How to go about fixing muddy curve

2014-05-21 by agavemail@...


Paul,

Thanks for the response. My cg211 monitor is profiled using my eye-one. Coming from the 3880 using K3 inks and ABW. With that setup, I always used the paper company profiles which met my needs.

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