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s.h.alexander
15-Apr-2015, 12:09
I am printing photographs on backlit film that are framed in front of a LED lightbosx. These are for in home use not advertising. The quality of color and the tone are important to get right. I am printing on a canon ipf8300 using Sihl media VivaLux 3179. I am having a very difficult time getting good color and density.

Some images are better then others. Skin tone is most challenging. Can't get enough density in light areas. I am using perecptual rendering and media selected to durable backlit media. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I did have a custom .icc profile done as a starting point.

Thanks,

andy
20-May-2015, 05:54
It sounds like this is something you should tackle in your editing rather than your printing. Your custom profile and rendering intents are just controlling for how the image will appear on the media, but not taking into account the loss of density when backlit, they're not designed for that. So, the way to work around it would be to make a proof, observe the areas where the quality of color/tone aren't how you'd like them, and then adjust your file accordingly, and run another proof.

koraks
21-May-2015, 00:39
With one exception/caveat: some printer drivers allow to increase the amount of ink deposited, which of course influences dmax. I don't know about the canon drivers, but changing the 'color density ' is common practice with people who print digital negatives on epson printers.

Tyler Boley
21-May-2015, 01:34
With some trepidation I'll bring up an issue that didn't result in clarity in a thread some time ago. VERY few people who make custom profiles have a transmissive spectro to make profiles for backlit materials. So looking into the profile creation and whether it was made with the capability required for your needs would be a good step. Then contact Chromix.com

s.h.alexander
27-May-2015, 07:49
I am printing photographs on backlit film that are framed in front of a LED lightbosx. These are for in home use not advertising. The quality of color and the tone are important to get right. I am printing on a canon ipf8300 using Sihl media VivaLux 3179. I am having a very difficult time getting good color and density.

Some images are better then others. Skin tone is most challenging. Can't get enough density in light areas. I am using perecptual rendering and media selected to durable backlit media. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I did have a custom .icc profile done as a starting point.

Thanks,

Thank you all for your suggestions. I have fooled around a lot with different drivers and arrived at what I feel is best. I came to the same conclusion that I need to deal with this in the editing process - my challenge is how. I am a pretty savy photoshop user with lots of experience color correcting. I have not been able to crack this obvious curves, levels correction. Tried fooling around with channel mixing, selective color to bring some more information into skin tones but not gotten good results. Relative to the color profile I looked into chromix doing a custom profile for me but opted to stick with what I had ( at least it's a baseline ).