MG6220 and ink from Precision Colors... Black is too black?

[mikling]

Ok here's another thing to do. Download the image and put it into an editor. With my DELL 2410, anything beyond the B is all crushed on the screen. Then I open up the image in an editor and I play with the levels. The levels beyond the B looks to be the same as I adjust the curves and brightness. It seems like a solid block. I wonder if this is what is being seen, it appears to be in the image. I have used that print in verification of my profiles and it is in the storage now. I have about three feet high stack of targets and verification prints!!!!!

In my personal experience, when you want that kind of detail in the dark shadows, pigment has always been the choice for that kind of resolution. The Pro-100 which is sitting there until I get the time to play with it promises to be better able to delve into the shadows like pigment can with the two grays in dye ink. We shall see.

Now when it comes to crush, I once saw what can happen with printer drivers on a Pro4000. With the Epson driver, the crush was happening in the DRIVER. When a colorbyte RIP was used, the crush was gone. This sold me on the superiority of some RIPs. There are some things that drivers and ICCs just do not fix.

 

[Smile]

colorbyte is very nice, but expensive and unfortunately it doesn't work with Canon or any recent Epson printers like 1500W, 1900 etc.

 

[Smile]

Off topic a bit, but how do you like printfab? I'm using Turboprint on my linux installation.. Printfab is just Turboprint ported to Windows..

Well, I like that turboprint ink limit really works, you can increase or decrease it. It's free while in beta version so anybody should give it a try. From my certification it works a bit worse for grayscale, I was unable to achieve a neutral grayscale with PrintFab for windows. The Canon driver works better here but it is not the best either. My office Brother MFC-5895CW prints very good neutral grayscale like Canon Pro 9500 with single black, and CMY inks, certification proves this.

The rip beta stage is extended for 3rd time, so it's not very popular for windows, despite being the only RIP for small format printers like IP6700D etc. IF you know other RIP besides guttenprint, I would like to know too

 

[mikling]

colorbyte is very nice, but expensive and unfortunately it doesn't work with Canon or any recent Epson printers like 1500W, 1900 etc.

The level of the RIP is geared towards the wide format commercial guys doing serious color work. The cost of the RIP can easily exceed something like the 1900 etc.

 

[crenedecotret]

Off topic a bit, but how do you like printfab? I'm using Turboprint on my linux installation.. Printfab is just Turboprint ported to Windows..

Well, I like that turboprint ink limit really works, you can increase or decrease it. It's free while in beta version so anybody should give it a try. From my certification it works a bit worse for grayscale, I was unable to achieve a neutral grayscale with PrintFab for windows. The Canon driver works better here but it is not the best either. My office Brother MFC-5895CW prints very good neutral grayscale like Canon Pro 9500 with single black, and CMY inks, certification proves this.

The rip beta stage is extended for 3rd time, so it's not very popular for windows, despite being the only RIP for small format printers like IP6700D etc. IF you know other RIP besides guttenprint, I would like to know too

Turboprint for me has been a god send for me on Linux. Support for Canon printers is horrible on Guttenprint. My IP4500 would give me terrible colors unless I set Guttenprint to CMYK mode, and even then, it was not nearly as good as TP. The ink limit settings works very well too, I was able to get a very good profile on some HP paper that I was not able to profile using the Windows Canon driver or Guttenprint. The ink would smear on this particular paper. I was able to find a combo of media setting and ink limit that was good.

I'M not surprised it's not popular on Windows... not many people want to pay for what is basically "just a driver". I think it offers quite a bit more control than the manufacturer drivers for most printers.

 

[crenedecotret]

Mikling, i'm pretty sure what you describe about the "B" on the grayscale is exactly what is being seen on the test prints. I haven't seen the actual prints, just a scan of them. I also had a look at your profiles, they are for different papers that the one that I profiled but I pointed him to this thread. One test might be for him to buy a small quantity of the Staples paper and try it out.

 

[crenedecotret]

I just received a message from the end-user of the profile. The dry creek version of the PDI test image printed nicely!!! The black on the color chart looks good, all the patches are now visible in the Kodak grayscale. The end of the grayscale in the small IT8 has a small area crushed to black but it didn't look good on the monitor either, before or after soft proofing. Dry Creek included a gray scale ramp on the side of the PDI test image and he now tells me it took perfect.

So it seems this was a case of garbage in, garbage out.

Thanks everybody, I *really appreciate* the input that was given. I also learned something about something new to me (rgb certification).

 

[mikling]

Yup, the initial indicated test file is not very good. The areas beyond the B in the Kodak gray scale is crushed. This one appears to be good for the grays.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?kp6ueae9su84oyp
I suspect this is the one used for the final print It is from Dry Creek.. However, take a look at the blue tile and compare them????

 

[crenedecotret]

The one I sent him was directly from Dry Creek. Seems to have worked out nicely.
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/test_images/DCP-TestImage-Small.zip

 

[mikling]

The one I sent him was directly from Dry Creek. Seems to have worked out nicely.
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/test_images/DCP-TestImage-Small.zip

Take a look at the gretagmaceth color checker squares on the left. The blue is noticeably dull in the file shown. Now look at a whole bunch of others from other sources and you'll see that that square is supposed to take the blue into a vibrant royal blue.

I don't know why that is but it is what I see. Check it out.