Very Computer

I just picked up an Epson 2200 for photo printing and am having
difficulty getting my head around some of the color management issues.
Perhaps someone here could help me out. I'm using Windows XP and
Photoshop 7. When I make prints, they come out significantly darker
than what I'm seeing on my screen, as well as having less contrast and
some solarization in darker areas.

First of all, I guess I need a critique of my process (which I'm sure
is wrong). I calibrated my monitor with Adobe Gamma, and saved the
profile as GoodSetting. Does this mean that I should use that setting
as the workspace for all my images in Photoshop?

When I go to print, I use Print with Preview. I set Source Space to
Document. I set Print Space to the Epson profile that matches the
paper I'm using. I set intent to Perceptual and make sure Use Black
Point Compensation is ticked.

Then I click on Print > Properties. And set the options for quality,
paper size, paper type, etc. Then I click on Advanced.

Under Color Management, I make sure ICM is selected, then under ICC
Profile, I select No Color Adjustment. Then I make the print which, as
I said, are coming out too dark.

I guess my main question is, short of buying an expensive piece of
software for creating a custom profile, how do I improve what's being
sent to the printer while wasting the minimum of paper and inks? How
can I tell what my printer receives from Photoshop and how can I
adjust it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Q

Quote:> I just picked up an Epson 2200 for photo printing and am having
> difficulty getting my head around some of the color management issues.
> Perhaps someone here could help me out. I'm using Windows XP and
> Photoshop 7. When I make prints, they come out significantly darker
> than what I'm seeing on my screen, as well as having less contrast and
> some solarization in darker areas.

> First of all, I guess I need a critique of my process (which I'm sure
> is wrong). I calibrated my monitor with Adobe Gamma, and saved the
> profile as GoodSetting. Does this mean that I should use that setting
> as the workspace for all my images in Photoshop?

> When I go to print, I use Print with Preview. I set Source Space to
> Document. I set Print Space to the Epson profile that matches the
> paper I'm using. I set intent to Perceptual and make sure Use Black
> Point Compensation is ticked.

> Then I click on Print > Properties. And set the options for quality,
> paper size, paper type, etc. Then I click on Advanced.

> Under Color Management, I make sure ICM is selected, then under ICC
> Profile, I select No Color Adjustment. Then I make the print which, as
> I said, are coming out too dark.

> I guess my main question is, short of buying an expensive piece of
> software for creating a custom profile, how do I improve what's being
> sent to the printer while wasting the minimum of paper and inks? How
> can I tell what my printer receives from Photoshop and how can I
> adjust it?

> Thanks in advance for any help.

> Q

Go here for the answer to problem!
http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

I'm using PS6 and the sRGB color space everywhere (go ahead
laugh, but I'm happy).  I made sure the profiles (dual monitor)
I'd created with Adobe Gamma are the defaults for each monitor
and I installed the Epson PIM plugin.  I print with the default
settings after making sure the defaults were Quality over Speed
and "best" color.

I'm extreamly happy when I hold up a print from my 2200 next to
the image displayed on the CRT monitor. I use only Epson ink and
paper with Premium Glossy my first choice.

--wally.

Using your monitor profile as a "work space" in Photoshop is not a
good idea at all.

 Check out this link:

 http://www.gballard.net/nca.html  

and follow the instructions to the letter.

 If you want the best performance, calibrate your monitor as
frequently as possible, I do it on a daily basis.  Also, while eyeball
calibration (Adobe Gamma) is certainly much better than nothing,
considering investing in a hardware calibrator puck such as the
Spyder.  It's well worth the price.

 I have the Epson 2200 and my output is dead on.

 The above link will clear everything up for you, and it contains a
bunch of other links you'll be studying, I'm sure.

Also, be advised that "Perceptual" rendering intent COMPRESSES the
colors.  Try Relative Colorimetric instead.

This is true but a bit misleading ... if you have out of gamut colors
perceptual will indeed compress the colors a bit since it tries to get all the
colors into gamut, whereas rel col will clip the out of gamut colors.  So you
often get a more pleasing image with perceptual than with rel col (depending on
what was clipped), especially when your file is a scan from a saturated film
like Velvia and you're working in a wide gamut space.

Bill

If you're getting solarization then you have some sort of setup issue beyond
basic color management.  You should be able to get a good monitor-print match
with that printer, I've found.

Quote:>First of all, I guess I need a critique of my process (which I'm sure
>is wrong). I calibrated my monitor with Adobe Gamma, and saved the
>profile as GoodSetting. Does this mean that I should use that setting
>as the workspace for all my images in Photoshop?

You should use it only as the monitor profile, nothing else.  All it does is
tell the system how to translate the numbers in the image file to look "right"
on your monitor.  To check if it's loaded properly as your default monitor
setting right-click on the empty destop, click "properties", then Settings,
then Advanced, then Color Mangement.  "GoodSetting" should be the one
highlighted.  By the way, it's a good idea to attach a date to the name for
when you update this later, I've found.

Don't use the monitor profile as your working space.  I'd suggest using
AdobeRGB as a good basic all around space unless your input files come mostly
from a digital camera as jpegs, in which case sRGB is adequate, or unless
you're scanning saturated films, in which case something wider like Ektaspace
would be better.  You can pick the working space you want with Edit > Color
Settings and change the RGB space in "Working Spaces".

Quote:>When I go to print, I use Print with Preview. I set Source Space to
>Document. I set Print Space to the Epson profile that matches the
>paper I'm using. I set intent to Perceptual and make sure Use Black
>Point Compensation is ticked.

>Then I click on Print > Properties. And set the options for quality,
>paper size, paper type, etc. Then I click on Advanced.

>Under Color Management, I make sure ICM is selected, then under ICC
>Profile, I select No Color Adjustment. Then I make the print which, as
>I said, are coming out too dark.

This looks ok except for "I set Source Space to Document" because this is
picking up your monitor profile, probably.

Here's something I'm working up for a class which may be of help, basically a
flow similar to what you did except I used soft proofing to choose the profile
early in the flow and check for gamut problems, then printed profile-to-profile
... hope it helps.  You'll need access to the individual Epson paper profiles,
which you can load by running the PIM module off the 2200 installation disk.

Hope this helps.  If it doesn't then you either have a bad monitor profile or
your printer is out of tolerance with the Epson profiles.  Most likely it's the
monitor.

Bill (see below)

Printing in Photoshop 7 with the Epson 2200.

There are at least 6 different ways to get good prints and probably 600 ways to
get bad ones.  Here's ONE way that works for me, relying on "soft-proofing" to
get an idea ahead of time what the print should look like.

1) View > Proof setup > Custom and for "Profile" select the ICC file for the
paper you'll print on.  For this example we'll pick "Premium Luster" so select
"SP2200 Premium Luster_PK" if using the Epson provided profiles.   Make sure
"Preserve Color Numbers" is unchecked.  For "Intent", you might want to go to
the Photoshop Help files and look up "rendering Intents" to understand what's
going on here, but for photos you'll want either "Perceptual" or "Relative
Colormetric". Then for "Simulate" click "Paper White" (if this is greyed out
then you don't have a printer paper profile loaded).  This emulates the
brightness of the paper and since it's a lot less bright than your screen your
image will dim down a lot ("looks like it dies before your eyes", as one guru
put it :)

If you want to save this setting click the "save" button and give it a name and
next time you can just click on the name.  Click OK when you're done here.

You can toggle this on and off with View > Proof Colors.  You can also open a
duplicate copy and assign a different profile to it and toggle back and forth
to see the differerences between different profiles of the same paper or
profiles for different papers.  To do this, click Window > Documents > New
Window and repeat the step for assigning a profile.  To toggle back and forth
between windows type cntrl-Tab.  I sometimes do this when I want to see the
differences between, say, the George Lepp 2200 profile vs the Epson profile for
the same paper, or the difference between rel col and perceptual rendering for
the same profile.

2)  This is a good time to check for out of gamut warnings for this paper
profile, so click View > Gamut Warning.  Hopefully nothing is out of gamut, or
it's in darker shadow areas that aren't as important.

3)  Now that the soft proofing is set up (and you've resized the image to the
right size and done the required sharpening) you're ready to print.  Click File

Quote:> Print With Preview, then check the "Show More Options" box.  For "Source

Space" pick "Proof", which should say "Proof Setup: SP2200 Premium Luster_PK"
for our example paper.  For "Print Space" pick the same profile in the
"Profile" drop down menu (this is important) and for Intent select either
Perceptual or Relative Colormetric (I generally prefer saturated colors and am
happy with "Perceptual" but try both if you like, especially if all your colors
are in gamut).

This takes care of Photoshop's part of the printing process, now you need to
set up the Epson properly to let Photoshop do the printing.  

4)  In this "Print" dialog box click "Page Setup" to get to the Epson controls.
 In the next dialog box ("Page Setup") change the orientation and paper size,
if necessary, then click "Printer" to go to a new dialog box also called "Page
Setup", and click "Properties" to get to the "Epson Stylus Photo 2200
Properties" dialog box.  You can also change paper size and orientation in this
box.  

For photos select either "Photo" or "Best Photo" in the "Quality Type" box.
For this example I choose "Best Photo".  In the "Paper Options" section for
"Type" select "Premium Luster Photo Paper".  Now click the "Advanced" option
and under the "Main" tab in "Color Management" select "ICM".  When  you do this
you'll see an "ICC Profile" section and in this select "No Color Adjustment".
This lets Photoshop do the mapping into the ICC profile instead of letting the
Epson printer software do it.  If you let both try to color manage the print
the result usually has a strong magenta cast, so it's crucial to set this
correctly.  I usually turn off "High Speed" under "Print Options" but it
doesn't seem to make much difference.  You can also change the printer dpi
setting here in the "Paper & Quality Options" section.  For Luster the default
for "Best Photo" is 2880 but you can go to 1440 and it will print faster with
little difference in quality.

OK, accept all these settings by clicking OK as you back out of the dialog
boxes, and you're ready to print.  If your profiles for your monitor and your
printer are both good then you should get a good match between screen and
print.

5)  If you change paper types or profiles you'll need to carefully repeat these
steps.  It's not uncommon to switch to a different paper and forget to change
the Epson driver setting or the Print Space Profile, I've found.

Thanks for posting, Bill.

 I cannot speak for oversaturated images.  One of the reasons I'm
still making photographs after all this time despite my evident lack
of special talent is that there are certain things others
photographers do that I simply cannot stand.  Oversaturated images on
films like Fuji Velvia is one of them; another one is long exposure
photographs of brooks, streams, rivers and breaking waves where the
water looks like cotton candy or milk; etc.

 To each his or her own.

 That said, two of the finest photographers I know have advised me to
use Relative Colorimetric.  After printing several comparison tests on
my Epson 2200, I'm sticking with it.

 I'd advise anyone to try both and decide.

 Frank.

Excellent point. It is amazing how all the PS books never bother to
mention this.

Quote:> If it doesn't then you either have a bad monitor profile or
> your printer is out of tolerance with the Epson profiles.  Most likely it's the
> monitor.

The frustrating part about setting up a monitor profile is the lack of
an easy and inexpensive way to verify that the profile is set up
correctly. Using PS Gamma or a lower cost product like PhotoCal, it is
easy to generate a bad profile. They all depend on you to either adjust
the monitor settings (b/w points) and/or the profile generation by
eyeball. Many lower cost monitors also do not have separate rgb channel
adjustments, which makes it impossible to rid a monitor cast.

Someone suggested that only very expensive color management products
will offer a way to verify that a monitor profile is correct. It
involves printing a target file, scanning it on a flatbed, and matching
the color numbers, etc. Yuck!

Quote:> Printing in Photoshop 7 with the Epson 2200.

> There are at least 6 different ways to get good prints and probably 600 ways to
> get bad ones.  Here's ONE way that works for me, relying on "soft-proofing" to
> get an idea ahead of time what the print should look like.

Another very excellent statement!! My following questions are not
challenging your ONE way, but just comparing it against my ONE way.

I convert an image to a media profile in a separate window. If
necessary, I add an adjustment layer (or two) to make the profiled image
match the original. When the converted file is send to the Epson driver,
I choose the media to be the same as the profile, and use
Custom/Advanced to pick the same profile. The last step is to choose No
Color Management.

This way, I do not make any adjustments in the driver. Instead, all the
adjustments are kept in the image file's layers. And as you cautioned
about double conversions, this is another way to prevent it.

I am now debating why do I start out editing in the Adobe RGB working
space, and end up fine tuning the final image in the converted profile
space. Why shouldn't I begin and end in the converted profile space? The
assumption, of course, is that I only use one printer and one media.

Quote:> Then for "Simulate" click "Paper White" (if this is greyed out
> then you don't have a printer paper profile loaded).  This emulates the
> brightness of the paper and since it's a lot less bright than your screen your
> image will dim down a lot ("looks like it dies before your eyes", as one guru
> put it :)

All the literature mention this, but never quite explain the advantage
of checking "Paper White". Once I do that, I have a really hard time
evaluating the dim image. After many attempts, I now uncheck "Paper
White" saving a profile, and for soft proofing.

Quote:> 2)  This is a good time to check for out of gamut warnings for this paper
> profile, so click View > Gamut Warning.  Hopefully nothing is out of gamut, or
> it's in darker shadow areas that aren't as important.

The Gamut Warning is more accurate in a soft proof than the Info
Palette's cmyk warning (! mark). The Epson ink with added colors has a
wider gamut than the "generic" cmyk gamut.

One potentially important piece of information in PS7 soft proofing is
the Converted Colors option in the Info Palette (italic rgb). However, I
have yet to figure out how to make use of it.

For yet another way to do this see the workflow tip on
my web site. Basically I suggest doing as little profile
changing as possible and targeting the actual image for
the output medium directly. You see what you are doing
by viewing in the proof setup mode.
The down side is you have to adjust the colors again
if you want to also send the image to another target.

--
Robert D Feinman

Landscapes, Cityscapes, Panoramas and Photoshop Tips
http://robertdfeinman.com