Using ArgyllCMS + Colormunki to produce excellent printer profiles

[Roy Sletcher]

All your colour profiling is certainly fascinating but excuse my ignorance for a moment, if you intend changing over to 3rd party inks then why in heavens earth are you profiling OEM ink when you have no intention to continue using them.
Isn’t that a total waste of time, talent and effort not to mention good OEM inks..?

This comment makes perfect sense to me.

Also worth considering is that any paper brand of repute provides profiles of the OEM inks on their paper. Most times these profiles are made with industrial strength Spectrophotometers that are far more precise and accurate than the entry level products most of us are using.

Then again I may have missed the obvious.

RS

 

[nrdlnd]

This comment makes perfect sense to me.

Also worth considering is that any paper brand of repute provides profiles of the OEM inks on their paper. Most times these profiles are made with industrial strength Spectrophotometers that are far more precise and accurate than the entry level products most of us are using.

Then again I may have missed the obvious.

RS

The obvious is that I'm new to this and I want to learn what may be obvious for you "pro". I thought that maybe someone also new to printing and especially profiling could have some help and not do the same mistakes that I've done. I've also given some helpful links to other sites that's not covered in this thread. If I want to learn profiling I think it's a good way to start with OEM ink as then it's possible to compare with other profiles made for my printer and paper combination. Of course I have my calibrated monitor to compare with but it's not the same thing as a paper print. How can it be that some of my simple profiles seem to work as good as the mfgrs profiles? Another thing is that I'm testing a lot of papers to find out which I like best and which are possible to profile with a good result with my "simple" instrument and "simple" software. In my "silliness" I thought that the i1 Pro was a rather good instrument and that ArgyllCMS was a very advanced software!

I can agree with that it could seem to be

a total waste of time, talent and effort not to mention good OEM inks..?

Economically there may have been wiser continue using OEM ink and profiles (of course depending on how much you print) but a lot less fun!

I've learned a lot from this site and I've tried to give something back. Of course if nobody is interested I will stop here.

Per

 

[The Hat]

@nrdlnd I for one would never want you to stop, and besides you said it yourself you’re having good fun as you learn, so whatever you do please don’t think about stopping, my comments were not a discouragement but more a compliment.

This thread is full of some wonderful tricks and tips for the new learners and you have added to that greatly and I can only say well done, given time you’ll get used to my odd humour..

 

[nrdlnd]

OK I continue then

I now have a question to you pro printers and profilers! When I profiled a couple of satin/pearl papers of good quality (Canson Baryta Photographique, Canson Platine Fibre Rag and Museo Silver Rag) I liked my profiles better than the OEM profiles. Now I have profiled a couple of matte papers and I think the mfgrs profiles are better. This is despite the profile check for the matte papers are better. Can you explain this? How do you profile matte papers? They seem to be much less tolerant for profile errors. What matte papers have you profiled with success? My best result was with the Canson Rag Photographique.

Per

 

[Roy Sletcher]

OK I continue then

I now have a question to you pro printers and profilers! When I profiled a couple of satin/pearl papers of good quality (Canson Baryta Photographique, Canson Platine Fibre Rag and Museo Silver Rag) I liked my profiles better than the OEM profiles. Now I have profiled a couple of matte papers and I think the mfgrs profiles are better. This is despite the profile check for the matte papers are better. Can you explain this? How do you profile matte papers? They seem to be much less tolerant for profile errors. What matte papers have you profiled with success? My best result was with the Canson Rag Photographique.

Per

Well said, and very relevant comments.

Most of us on this site are anything but ``Pro printers``. I think most of us would more correctly claim to be serious amateurs and still learning. We endlessly discuss the many facets of printing and colour rendition, sometimes heatedly. Nothing wrong with that. Most of us have made mistakes more than once, and followed leads down rabbit holes that lead nowhere. All in the hope of better and more consistent prints. (Whatever that may be)

It is a difficult subject to discuss in a forum because most of us are trying to convey information or thoughts about colour rendition we cannot display or show on this site. Would be a heck of a lot easier if we were all sitting around the same monitor. Sometimes our comments may appear harsh or a ``put down`` of the other persons views. Please be assured this is not the case, but more often the result of trying to be precise in our comments and evaluations.

Havejust reread the para above and it sounds somewhat gibberish, but hopefully you get the gist of my comments.

Please continue to post your experiences and comments about printing. Hopefully some of our more experienced members can answer some of your points.

RS

 

[nrdlnd]

Thank You Roy and The Hat! English isn't my native language so I don't always see and understand the nuances. But I try to learn!

No one have answered my question about matte papers. I'll try to answer it myself and it doesn't seem to have to do with how the profile is made!

I think I've found out something that I've missed and that's what's possible to change in the profile settings. You have to set the "rendering intent". This is not in the printer settings (where you have to set the paper type, printing quality and without colour managment as this is done with your printing application).

In the profile settings I have used "Perceptual" as that's what's usually recommended. There's also another setting "Black Point Compensation". I think (but I'm not quite sure) that this is automatically done when you choose "Perceptual". There are 3 other settings to choose from in the "rendering intent". By searching the net it's the setting "Relative Colorimetric" that's interesting and an alternative to "Perceptual".

In short: "Perceptual" compresses the colour space of the image to fit into the colourspace of the printer. This is supposed to change the intensity of the colours but they will be rendered correctly. I think that's the reason "Black Point Compensation" may not have much effect in this setting. The "Relative Colorometric" rendering intent tries to replace the colours that's outside of the printers colourspace with the colours that's most near and in the printers colourspace. This may change the colour in the printed picture some but not the intensity (saturation?) of the colour. In this case does "Black Point Compensation" seem to have some effect and especially when you print on papers with lower D-max or a lower dynamic range. The curve in the shadows of the image changes so there will be a more gradual rendition of the intensity of the blacks. This is especially a problem with the matte papers as some I've tested tends to make everything black in the shadows.

It's a pity that my papers from the test pack are already used but I printed two other papers. One is a satin paper for PK ink and the other a matte paper for matte ink. I used the same driver (my own) and the rendering intent "Relative Colorimetric" and with "Black Point Compensation". I can't see any banding that sometimes is said to be a problem with the "Relative Colorimetric" setting. What I didn't expect was that also the colour rendition of the face (it's a portrait) in my test picture was subjectively much better!

So for now Relative Colorimetric rendering intent with Black Point Compensation will be my start point. If I'm not satisfied I will try the other setting.

I will also make a check list so I don't forget anything in the settings as this has happened and has ruined prints. Important to document anything you do!

What's your experience of the settings in the profile?

Per

 

[RogerB]

Thank You Roy and The Hat! English isn't my native language so I don't always see and understand the nuances. But I try to learn!

No one have answered my question about matte papers. I'll try to answer it myself and it doesn't seem to have to do with how the profile is made!

I think I've found out something that I've missed and that's what's possible to change in the profile settings. You have to set the "rendering intent". This is not in the printer settings (where you have to set the paper type, printing quality and without colour managment as this is done with your printing application).

In the profile settings I have used "Perceptual" as that's what's usually recommended. There's also another setting "Black Point Compensation". I think (but I'm not quite sure) that this is automatically done when you choose "Perceptual". There are 3 other settings to choose from in the "rendering intent". By searching the net it's the setting "Relative Colorimetric" that's interesting and an alternative to "Perceptual".

In short: "Perceptual" compresses the colour space of the image to fit into the colourspace of the printer. This is supposed to change the intensity of the colours but they will be rendered correctly. I think that's the reason "Black Point Compensation" may not have much effect in this setting. The "Relative Colorometric" rendering intent tries to replace the colours that's outside of the printers colourspace with the colours that's most near and in the printers colourspace. This may change the colour in the printed picture some but not the intensity (saturation?) of the colour. In this case does "Black Point Compensation" seem to have some effect and especially when you print on papers with lower D-max or a lower dynamic range. The curve in the shadows of the image changes so there will be a more gradual rendition of the intensity of the blacks. This is especially a problem with the matte papers as some I've tested tends to make everything black in the shadows.

It's a pity that my papers from the test pack are already used but I printed two other papers. One is a satin paper for PK ink and the other a matte paper for matte ink. I used the same driver (my own) and the rendering intent "Relative Colorimetric" and with "Black Point Compensation". I can't see any banding that sometimes is said to be a problem with the "Relative Colorimetric" setting. What I didn't expect was that also the colour rendition of the face (it's a portrait) in my test picture was subjectively much better!

So for now Relative Colorimetric rendering intent with Black Point Compensation will be my start point. If I'm not satisfied I will try the other setting.

I will also make a check list so I don't forget anything in the settings as this has happened and has ruined prints. Important to document anything you do!

What's your experience of the settings in the profile?

Per

As you have found, the rendering intent can make a big difference to the appearance of the print, especially on matte papers. Personally I hardly ever use Perceptual rendering. You rightly say that Perceptual "compresses" the colours to fit the gamut of the printer colour space. What you have to remember is that there is no "correct" Perceptual rendering - every profiling engine will have its own version of correct rendering. I find that the Perceptual rendering in Argyll is much less pleasing than that produced by some other profiling engines. The one thing that you can rely on is that the black point will be re-mapped to the printer's maximum black. So, as you observe, Black Point Compensation is not relevant.

The point that you may not fully appreciate is that Colorimetric rendering aims to render all in-gamut colours accurately. Only out-of-gamut colours are changed. Your 3880 will have a very wide colour gamut on gloss/satin papers and in a typical image few if any colours will be out-of-gamut. Hence Colorimetric rendering will usually give better results since all colours wil be accurately reproduced.

With matte papers the colour gamut is much smaller and more colours may be out-of-gamut, especially in the darker tones. Then the choice of rendering intent becomes more important. If you use Photoshop or the later versions of Lightroom you can use the soft-proof function to visualise the effect of the different rendering intents, including BPC. My own experience is that on many images the shadows are still in-gamut on matte paper, and best results are achieved with BPC turned off. Both Perceptual and Colorimetric with BPC will change the tones throughout the image, even the lighter tones, reducing overall contrast. So, if the shadows are beyond the capability of the printer then it is often better to edit the image selectively to lighten the shadows leaving the other tones unaltered. This way you preserve the mid-tone contrast which is usually more important than absolute black level.

It is true that making good prints on matte papers is more difficult than on glossy media. Soft-proofing helps, and when you have a bit more experience with a particular paper, deciding on the best rendering intent becomes a lot easier.

 

[nrdlnd]

The point that you may not fully appreciate is that Colorimetric rendering aims to render all in-gamut colours accurately. Only out-of-gamut colours are changed. Your 3880 will have a very wide colour gamut on gloss/satin papers and in a typical image few if any colours will be out-of-gamut. Hence Colorimetric rendering will usually give better results since all colours wil be accurately reproduced.
With matte papers the colour gamut is much smaller and more colours may be out-of-gamut, especially in the darker tones. Then the choice of rendering intent becomes more important.

Thank you very much for a thorough explanation of what "The Rendering Intent" does! I was a bit puzzled that so much was changed (even midtones) when changing the rendering intent. Not so much happened with semi glossy papers but a lot with matte papers. I will try your tip "to edit the image selectively to lighten the shadows leaving the other tones unaltered" and then turn off BPC. I will see if that gives a better result.

 

[RogerB]

Thank you very much for a thorough explanation of what "The Rendering Intent" does! I was a bit puzzled that so much was changed (even midtones) when changing the rendering intent. Not so much happened with semi glossy papers but a lot with matte papers. I will try your tip "to edit the image selectively to lighten the shadows leaving the other tones unaltered" and then turn off BPC. I will see if that gives a better result.

These screen shots may clarify it a bit more (if you are graphic oriented). This is strictly for B&W, but the same happens in colour. You can see how the slope of the line (contrast) changes when BPC is applied.

 

[nrdlnd]

My own experience is that on many images the shadows are still in-gamut on matte paper, and best results are achieved with BPC turned off. Both Perceptual and Colorimetric with BPC will change the tones throughout the image, even the lighter tones, reducing overall contrast. So, if the shadows are beyond the capability of the printer then it is often better to edit the image selectively to lighten the shadows leaving the other tones unaltered. This way you preserve the mid-tone contrast which is usually more important than absolute black level.

When I look at the image above I do very much prefer the curve with BPC on. Doesn't that contradict what you say in the quote?