Profiling for neutral BW prints

[Gabriele Campagnano]

Dear All,

after struggling with a defective i1pro I am now using a colormunki photo.

I was wondering if one could use a spectrophotometer not only to linearize Epson ABW or QTR but also
to make the grays as neutral as possibile.

While searching around the net I found this printing service,

http://www.gabrieledanesi.com/qualita-stampa-fine-art.html

It seems that they are able to first linearize the output and then to make a profile to obtain very neutral grays,
any ideas how one could do that? I only find information about linearization using for instance QTR software.

I am also puzzled by the fact that in the last plot they show a very neutral white, shouldn't be that given by the paper itself? How could one possibly fix that?

I am sorry that the web page is in italian, if google translate does not help I will be happy to provide a translation.

Thanks,
Gabriele

[Ken Lee]

With only 3 monochrome inks you may not get optimal results. Using only a 21-step calibration target, you may not get a linear profile.

Try www.piezography.com (www.piezography.com). They linearize at 256 steps. They sell a variety of tools which will let you do that too. They also have some targets you can print out, to see how linear your results really are. They also have very knowledgeable and fast customer support.

[Gabriele Campagnano]

Ken,

thank you for the reply. It was not clear from my post but for the moment I would like to stay with Ultrachrome K3 inks.
My question was if one can optimize for neutrality, linearity for me is a lesser issue ( for the moment).

Gabriele

[Doug Fisher]

Have you looked into Quadtone RIP?

http://www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRoverview.html

Doug

[Sasquatchian]

Before you go to all that trouble, first try sending sRGB files directly through ABW in the Epson driver and see how great they already look. You might not want to go any further than that.

[IanBarber]

The issue with the ABW is that it is a black box in the sense that although we no what we put in, we have have no real way of knowing what is going to come out because it is a non coloured workflow.

A few years ago, Eric Chan did create some icc profiles for the ABW driver but since then, Apple through reasons unknown to me decided to remove the pipeline for using icc profiles on their OSX platforms.

My understanding is that it does expect to receive a file in the Adobe RGB 1998 colour space and the different tone options will in effect move the Gamma. Dark is probably the most used option followed by Normal.

I have done lots of tests and compared the results against bott QTR and Colorbyte Image prints and although the ABW drive is not as linear but it's not that far off for my R3880.

There is a program called Epson Print Utility which interestingly does give a live preview when you change the options.

[sanking]

ABW is indeed something of a black box, but if you print with ABW-Warm on matte surface papers you will get a result very similar in terms of neutrality as you get with QTR when printing with the Warm option on matte papers. It appears that in both cases the printer uses only MK, LK and LLK and none of the color inks with these settings. I am actually very positive of that since I measured step wedge prints with both QTR-Warm and ABW-Warm and the LAB values were virtually identical.

QTR-Warm gives a slightly more linear result than ABW-Warm, though both are quite good.

In any event, if you really want a neutral tone carbon black ink the QTR-Warm and ABW-Warm are the only way to get there, other than printing with Black only with the Epson driver, and/or creating your own profiles for QTR.

Sandy

[IanBarber]

I do like the concept of QTR but the only issue I have are the limited number of supplied curves for different papers.

I do own an XRite Color Munki but was told its almost impossible to use it to create your own curve so. If I could get over this hurdle I think I would consider using it more than the ABW driver

[neil poulsen]

. . . seems that they are able to first linearize the output and then to make a profile to obtain very neutral grays, any ideas how one could do that? I only find information about linearization using for instance QTR software. . . .

This is pretty standard to calibrate for a RIP. (First linearize, and then profile.) In these cases, one prints the target supplied with the RIP, reads the patches, and then submits the readings to the RIP software.

I've done this for a ColorBurst RIP that I have. ColorBurst printed the target and also supplied the software that drives the spectrophotomete. The rest of the linearization process was pretty much automatic.

[IanBarber]

I've done this for a ColorBurst RIP that I have. ColorBurst printed the target and also supplied the software that drives the spectrophotomete. The rest of the linearization process was pretty much automatic.

Can this be done with a Color Munki or does it have to be an Eye-One

[sanking]

Can this be done with a Color Munki or does it have to be an Eye-One

I am not familiar with the Color Munki. However, with the iOne and iOne 2 you can do only linearization with the basic package, not profiling. To profile you must have an upgraded version of Profile Maker 5 or iProfiler, to create printer profiles.

If you own a Spyder 3 or 4 the basic software allows you to create RGB ICC printer profiles.

Sandy