Datacolor User to User Support Group.

I've successfully profiled a bunch of matte papers getting fairly good
profiles right from the start - just a little tweaking.

THEN I tried to profile CostCo Professional Glossy. Prints come out
about 3-4 stops too dark from what I see on the monitor. Is there a
button I missed somewhere?

Dave

>I've successfully profiled a bunch of matte papers getting fairly good
>profiles right from the start - just a little tweaking.
>
>THEN I tried to profile CostCo Professional Glossy. Prints come out
>about 3-4 stops too dark from what I see on the monitor. Is there a
>button I missed somewhere?

Sounds like you may have printed the target incorrectly.

If you don't have color management turned off when you print the target,
it will print already profiled (which also happens to be too "light",
vs. what the uncalibrated target print would be like).

If you then build a profile from measurements of this target, the profile
won't do much.

If you then use that almost-do-nothing profile and print through it
"correctly" in Photoshop (with color management now disabled in the
driver), the prints will be too dark.

Look at your target print on EPG vs. the matte papers. It should have the
same "look", dark, saturatd, etc. If it looks too "good", then that's another
sign that it's not printed correctly.

My guess is that you'll need to print this target over (and then throw out
your measurements and do them over again, too)...


-- 
David Miller
Senior Software Developer, Digital Color Solutions
ColorVision

In a message dated 2/7/07 9:21:34 PM, davedoughman@... writes:


> 
> THEN I tried to profile CostCo Professional Glossy. Prints come out
> about 3-4 stops too dark from what I see on the monitor. Is there a
> button I missed somewhere?
> 
Several possibilities. First is device calibration, be sure if you 
recalibrate and read a sample patch again (using the spot reading tool from the tools 
menu) that your new measurement is very close to your original measurement 
(which you can check by arrowing through the measured chart and reading values from 
the bottom of the page.   If they are not close, reread the target.

Next, the blacks on gloss papers are darker. This means everything else is 
darker. After all, to get a deeper black is part of the reason for using a gloss 
paper, and throwing that away to make it identical to a matte result would be 
a shame. So if your monitor (especially an LCD monitor) is starting at LCD 
black (which is weaker) and your print is starting at gloss print black (which 
is deeper), then you won't get an exact match, and you probably DON"T WANT and 
exact match, as that would mean throwing away black deepness for screen 
matching.

Next, the screen-to-print issue above can be made even worse if you have an 
ambient light (or proofing light) to screen luminance mismatch. Start with 
Spyder2PRO's ambient light feature to determine that your lighting is not too 
bright, and then calibrate your monitor to a level that matches. 

Another factor is whether you are matching your workingspace image to the 
print (not intended to match) or a Photoshop or PrintFIX PRO2 softproof image on 
screen to the print (which is designed, when possible, to match). Be sure to 
use a softproofing mode when comparing.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com

David - You're right I used mistakenly used a profile
when I printed the color chart. Now that I did it
right my new profile for CostCo glossy is remarkably
close.

Thanks

Dave

Hi,

   I think I am seeing the situation desribed below on the Glossy 
profile I did.  I measured the 729 target and the grey pattern and 
created a profile.

   The colors seems accurate, and the darkest parts of the image have a 
deep black.  But in comparison to the screen, the shadow areas and mid 
totones are a little darker.  It is enough that the overall perception 
of the image seems a little to dark.

   I tried recreating the profile a couple of times by adjusting a 
couple of the sliders (shadow detail, and brightness), but then the 
darkest parts of the image lightened up.

   Can you recommend a way for me to make an adjustment so that I keep 
the nice deep blacks, but make the shadow area and mid tones a bit 
lighter so they match the screen?

   Additional Info: My LCD is calibrated at 100 cdm2, and the profile I 
made for Hahn FineArt Pearl looks right on.

Thanks,
Darrell



> Next, the blacks on gloss papers are darker. This means everything 
else is 
> darker. After all, to get a deeper black is part of the reason for 
using a gloss 
> paper, and throwing that away to make it identical to a matte result 
would be 
> a shame. So if your monitor (especially an LCD monitor) is starting 
at LCD 
> black (which is weaker) and your print is starting at gloss print 
black (which 
> is deeper), then you won't get an exact match, and you probably DON"T 
WANT and 
> exact match, as that would mean throwing away black deepness for 
screen 
> matching.