Profiling Matte Papers

[KeithM]

I really enjoy the whole process of taking and working with photographs, and am constantly trying to improve my knowledge and skills at every step of the process. As part of this journey, I decided to venture into the world of creating printer profiles. Using a Colormunki and ArgyllCMS I have now generated my own profiles for 7 different papers on my Canon Pro-2000. Of these, 5 of them have bigger gamut volumes than the paper manufacturer's profiles, and produce excellent prints. However, the remaining 2, have gamut volumes that are about 60% of the size of the paper manufacturer's profiles, and the test prints using my profiles show a loss of details in the shadows. Is this just a limitation of my capability, or is there something I can do to improve the profiles I generate for matte papers?

Thanks!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

However, the remaining 2, have gamut volumes that are about 60% of the size of the paper manufacturer's profiles,

Are these 2 papers from another supplier than the other 5 papers ? - which could explain that profiles got created differently than the other profiles matching your profiles better.

Where are the gamut differences - at a particular color ?

 

[KeithM]

These both happen to be Red River papers - Premium Matte and Palo Duro Etching. I had no problem with my profile for their Big Bend Baryta.

Here is a comparison of my profile to the factory profile for RRPD Etching:

and for Premium Matte:

In both cases, the difference seems to be in dark colours.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

that's a pretty strong weakness for the darker colors indeed, I could imagine that the patch sheets have been printed with driver/option settings - paper selection - quality level - ICM off etc which are not optimal for these papers, or could it be that the patch sheet has been created with some wrong parameters in ArgyllCMS ?
That's def. not problems with the measurements of the patch sheets

 

[KeithM]

The targets were printed with Qimage and no color management in the app and the driver, using the paper setting recommended. However, I may try printing a new target with different paper settings to see what I get.

Thanks for your input!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm using a target with just 96 patches for a first line assessment of the gamut, that's enough and it's quick .

 

[Artur5]

@KeithM .. Have you tried to make these profiles with X-Rite's dedicated software (I1Studio) ?
It would be interesting to compare the gamuts of profiles made with ArgyllCMS vs i1Studio.

 

[KeithM]

@Artur5 I have not tried that. In order to get the CM to work with Argyll I had to uninstall the X-rite software. I could not get the Argyll driver to connect without doing so. I have produced some great profiles with Argyll so I have never considered going back to I1Studio. Maybe I will have another look.

I am convinced that my problem is that my paper choice in the driver does not produce enough ink density with this paper. I may play with smaller targets as @Ink stained Fingers suggested, with different paper selections and see what I get. I don't mind experimenting a bit in the interest of learning.

 

[KeithM]

Just to provide an update, I'm still trying to figure this out. The first thing I tried was creating a 21 step wedge from black to white, and printing it side by side on the same page using the manufacturer's profile in absolute colour space, but with different papers selected in the printer driver. Then I used my Colormunki to measure the darkest patches from each. The darkest was Highest Density Fine Art with an L of 17.86, and the lightest was Pro Platinum, with an L of 23.43. The HD Fine Art is what Red River recommends as the paper selection when using their PD Etching paper, so there was nothing helpful from this test.

Following @Artur5 recommendation, I installed i1Studio, and created another profile using it. The i1Studio profile and the Argyll profiles have very similar gamut volumes, but the i1Studio profile is weaker in the greens.

Bottom line, I still have not figured out why my profiles with matte papers are so poor with dark colors. Any additional insights would be welcomed.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Did you use different paper selections in the driver - I can report the same effect with the ET-8550 - that the gamut varies widely in the darker range on some matte papers depending if I select Normal/Copy Paper, Inkjet Paper, Matte Paper or Velvet Fine Art - give it a try. I'm getting the widest gamut with the Velvet selection.