Hi all,
Some weeks ago I decided to retire my old Epson
R200 printer which gave me many good prints for almost 3 years with the help of
software-profiling Profile Prism. New printer (Epson R270), new CIS and new
inks. So I decided to upgrade color profiling to something more professional,
purchased PFP and have been playing with it since 10 days ago. For a matte
paper I have been printing on for 2 years, it gave me almost perfect results
right after the first created profile. After some minor adjustments, PFP gave
incredible results. Unfortunately, I do not have the same luck with another
glossy paper, which I still have almost one thousand sheets in stock. I have
printed targets with many combinations of Media Type (from Epson Matte to Epson
Ultra Glossy), Print Quality (Photo and Photo RPM), Color Management (ICM on,
ICM off, Color Controls with different gamma, color mode and brightness
settings, etc) with no success. Every profile made from those printed targets
lacks a great deal of shadow details, causing color distortion, casting and
posterizing, only at shadow range. Some shadow patches suffer a great shift in
color and brightness, just 5 to 10 minutes after printing. It seems to
be an incompability between those glossy papers I have and the ink, not
some inherent limitation of one or both of them. In the past, paper supplier
gave me some beautifully printed samples with that same paper, although
they were printed with an Epson R800 and pigmented inks. In the other side, the
ink manufacturer have some profiles made for Epson R220 and their papers and,
submiting them to the Photoshop' softprofiling feature, it does not show any
significant gamut limitation for some difficult-color sample
images.
I do not know what to change first: the paper or
the ink. Maybe, considering the stock of glossy papers I still have, ink
changing would be economical. Someone has any experience with R260/R270 and know
if it work with pigmented inks? Pigmented inks are less suscetible to color
shifting right after printing? Maybe I would make a try to see if I get better
results.
Meanwhile, I have been playing with PFP profiling
settings trying to minimize those problems, but I achieved only subtle and
limited improvements. The best I could get was to modify the Photoshop default
output curve from (0,0,0)-(255,255,255) to (56,56,56)-(255,255,255) to a given
image. Although the deepest printed black became lighter than the one with matte
paper, it was a good compromise because I got corrected colors and no
posterizing or color casting in shadows, as all those erratic colors fall
in the range of (0,0,0)-(55,55,55). The less contrast is not a great factor if I
don't compare it to a normally printed sample side by side.
Then, another problem appeared. I tried
to build a new profile and import that Photoshop curve into the PFP
settings prior profile generation. Although the new curve seemed to have been
merged into the profile, it was done partially only, as the black point remained
the same. In fact, an inspection gave me the conclusion that the
profile does not operate on any pixel in range of (0,0,0)~(10,10,10).
Is there any solution to that? Any other profile editor would give what I
desire?
Hope my English is enough to be understood. If
someone could help me, I would be so grateful.
Regards,
Antonio