Printing with an inkjet

[macandal]

I recently got an inkjet printer, an Epson P600. While its main use will be to make digital negatives (for platinum printing), I wanted a printer that could also make great inkjet prints, and so this printer was recommended. I know that inkjet or digital printing (not sure what the right name is) is a skill all its own, something that has to be learned to be done properly, it's not just click print and there you go, so, is there an article, a resource online or anywhere about making inkjet/digital prints, both color and B&W, that I can read? Thanks.

[Corran]

There's plenty of books on this topic now in the digital age.

The quick and dirty process:

Edit your photograph to what you want it to look like. Save that as your master file.
Resize your image to the proper print size at 360 DPI. You can futz with the resize algorithms and sharpening at this stage.
Print a small test print. Does it look right? If so, you're done - print it full size.
If not, edit your file appropriately. If the print is too dark, lighten up the file (non-destructively, with layers). At this point you'll see how far off your image is perceptually on the monitor vs. paper.
Print test prints until you are happy with the image, and then print a full-size one when you are ready.
Done.

There's plenty of nuance but that's 95% of the methodology. If you figure out exactly how your monitor differentiates from the print, you can even make an automatic action to "correct" your master file in one click to be ready to print, or close to it.

[macandal]

There's plenty of books on this topic now in the digital age.Can you recommend one/a few?

Thank you.

[Corran]

I've never read any. I just see them cluttering up the photography book section all the time :).

[andrewch59]

You can buy a Spyder 5 or similar, which calibrates your monitor, then gives you a profile which (with my epson p800 at least) will calibrate your printer to the same profile.

[sanking]

The Creative Digital Darkroom, by Katrin Eismannn and Sean Duggan, is a good book on digital work flow.

https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Digital-Darkroom-Katrin-Eismann/dp/0596100477

For digital negatives I recommend using QTR with the R600 rather than the Epson driver. QTR is a raster image processor and allows much more control over the process than is possible with the Epson driver. You can also use QTR for monochrome printing.

Sandy

[Jeff Donald]

The best I’ve ever read is The Digital Print by Jeff Schewe. He’s also a regular on the Luminous Landscape site.

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Print-Preparing-Lightroom-Photoshop/dp/0321908457/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536190748&sr=8-1&keywords=jeff+schewe+the+digital+print

[macandal]

Thanks all.

(Am I overthinking this?)

[Jim Michael]

No you are not overthinking it. If you keep your process in calibration you save paper, ink, and time.

[Christopher Barrett]

Here's a small thing that can make a big difference... Photoshop defaults to a grey background, but we don't print on grey paper, so your perception of image brightness and contrast are quite skewed. Take an image, add a curve layer, adjusting it to your liking with the default grey BG. Now set a custom background of white and your image will immediately look dark and muddy. Once I started working with a white Photoshop BG, my prints were much closer to the screen. I have calibrated my screens and printers for years using high end gear and nothing brought things into line like this simple change.

CB

[dpn]

For what it's worth, this $5.99 book is concise, well-written, and will definitely get you in the right direction.

Essential Colour Management: What every photographer needs to know (The Lightweight Photographer Books) by Robin Whalley. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HM81GOW/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

My $0.02: See if the $5.99 book, which details color management, how to correct out-of-gamut stuff, and the basics of printing nice inkjet prints on nice printers, gets you where you need to go. If you need a more expensive resource, you're only out $5.99. If it works for you (and it worked well for me), you've saved a ton of money and don't need to buy a more expensive reference.

[jim10219]

Here's what I do. Buy a printer profiler. If you don't want to spend a ton of money on one, get a used Xrite i1. If it doesn't come with any software, you can download something like Argyll and DisplayCAL. They're a lot more difficult to use, and there's some DOS level command prompts, but there are step by step instructions online.

The first step is to profile your monitor, so that you can have a reasonable level of trust in what you're seeing is what you will get. Next, you profile your printer. Now, what you want to do, is print from a program like Photoshop. In PS, there's an option under view called something like "proof setup". What that does is it adjusts what you see on your monitor to look more like what you'll see in your print. There will likely be several options to choose from, and sometimes the profile you used to make the print (especially coming from a program like Argyll) won't be the most accurate. It might be a good idea to print off a test chart and go through a bunch of proofing profiles to see which one looks the most accurate. Then use that.

So what I do is edit my pictures in PS to how I like. Then I activate the proof setup view. Now I adjust the colors more if necessary.

That won't get you 100% there. Test prints are still a good idea. But if you set up your printer like that, it'll make the test and reprint go a lot quicker, and in many cases, allow you to avoid that step completely. I don't do test prints anymore for anything smaller than around 11x14. With that workflow, the colors come out right 90-95% of the time, and I'd actually be wasting ink and paper making test prints, since I'm only reprinting a job about 1 in 20 attempts. For large prints, however, You can waste a lot of ink and paper just reprinting something once, so small test prints still make sense.

One thing to be aware of is to always print from an RGB colorspace with a quality inkjet printer. If you're printing on a commercial press, convert the file to CMYK. Most inkjet photo printers of any quality will have a larger color gamut than CMYK, so they can take some advantage of the extended range of RGB (though usually not full). Most commercial presses run on CMYK, so if you send them an RGB file, you may not like the results, depending on what profiles they use to convert the RGB into a CMYK.

[macandal]

You can buy a Spyder 5 or similar, which calibrates your monitor, then gives you a profile which (with my epson p800 at least) will calibrate your printer to the same profile.
Here's what I do. Buy a printer profiler. If you don't want to spend a ton of money on one, get a used Xrite i1.
So, yesterday I went to Samy's here in San Francisco and one of the salesman said to get the i1 Studio (https://www.amazon.com/X-Rite-i1Studio-Monitor-Calibration-EOSTUDIO/dp/B076PN4PMG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540482527&sr=8-1&keywords=i1+studio). He didn't know much about the Spyder equivalent but he said to check that one out and see which one I liked best. Anyone knows what the Spyder equivalent would be? If you do, which one would you recommend? Thanks.

[bob carnie]

I would add to above that getting a good profile for your specific printer and for the paper you are using is critical, I use Hahnemuhle papers and they do provide excellent starting points.

For inkjet printing a good starting point is critical, making a test print and adjusting the colour , density , contrast overtime will become second nature. The goal is to get a decent print first time that represents what you are seeing on your monitor. Some people take this too far and get caught in techno babble that is not what I suggest.

Making a test is the best method and if you are really far off then something is wrong with your application and there are many techno nerds out there that can help you with this aspect, just remember if it looks like a good print, it probably is.

[faberryman]

You might want to start off just printing and see if you are happy with the results before you think about investing in the time, effort, and expense of jumping through the the calibration hoops. The biggest hurdle to overcome is becoming familiar with print down, where the image looks brighter on screen than in the print (hint: prints aren't backlit). I initially just adjusted brightness to match and thereafter got good results. Later, I then went through the calibration routine and honestly don't think it got me very much. I still had to dial down brightness manually. It's a real rabbit hole. Before you know it, you'll be thinking that you need a $5000 EIZO monitor to be a real photographer.

[bob carnie]

You might want to start off just printing and see if you are happy with the results before you think about investing in the time, effort, and expense of jumping through the the calibration hoops. The biggest hurdle to overcome is becoming familiar with print down, where the image looks brighter on screen than in the print (hint: prints aren't backlit). I initially just adjusted brightness to match and thereafter got good results. Later, I then went through the calibration routine and honestly don't think it got me very much. I still had to dial down brightness manually. It's a real rabbit hole. Before you know it, you'll be thinking that you need a $5000 EIZO monitor to be a real photographer.

plus one.. a good understanding of the info palette and how the numbers will relate to the final print . I use LAB numbers to make sure my shadows and highlights fall where they should on PAPER, and curves to apply the look of a print

[andrewch59]

There are no calibration hoops. I simply set up the spyder on my monitor, it saves a profile which it then uses to change the tones on my monitor. After that I just tell my printer to use the same profile. Once a month I get a reminder to re-calibrate my monitor.

[Chester McCheeserton]

You might want to start off just printing and see if you are happy with the results before you think about investing in the time, effort, and expense of jumping through the the calibration hoops. The biggest hurdle to overcome is becoming familiar with print down, where the image looks brighter on screen than in the print (hint: prints aren't backlit). I initially just adjusted brightness to match and thereafter got good results. Later, I then went through the calibration routine and honestly don't think it got me very much. I still had to dial down brightness manually. It's a real rabbit hole. Before you know it, you'll be thinking that you need a $5000 EIZO monitor to be a real photographer.

Plus 2.
and what Corran said.

I'd skip any books written on digital printing and spending any time messing with spyder calibration. Just leave your monitor at the factory settings. Spend the money on ink and paper and show your prints to someone who is a good print maker who can give you feedback.

[Peter De Smidt]

A monitor profile and printer profile are two different things. I wouldn't print to a monitor profile!

When starting, I'd pick a paper surface first. Red River has a bunch of well-priced papers, and they have good profiles. The profiles are made by a company that specializes in color, and so they likely have way better equipment than you can buy for home use. Plus, they're affordable...and they come in regular photo sizes like 11x14 and 16x20. Download their profile for your printer and your paper. Now place your test print in the same type of lighting that it'll be displayed in. How does it look? It just might be good enough, or fairly easy to make good enough with a simple curve. Now make some prints! Make sure to look at them a day later, as the images change as the ink dries. You can use a hair dryer to speed that up. After you get experience, evaluate. Where are you having difficulties? Perhaps a better monitor (NEC with Spectraview!) would help.....But know that a good printer can print with any monitor, if they learn the numbers.

[Chester McCheeserton]

[QUOTE=Peter De Smidt;1466454]A monitor profile and printer profile are two different things. I wouldn't print to a monitor profile!

Indeed they are. I print straight to srgb all the time, not always though. But I've made some very decent prints that way, at least to my eye. But I know that's not the "correct" way.

My point was that it's not always necessary to create a custom monitor profile.

I do agree about Red River, I use their matte paper for quick contact prints and book dummies, always happy with them.

Understanding the difference between assigning and converting to profiles and setting up a good viewing light (ideally one of those GTI units if you can afford it) are other tips I'd throw out there.

[andrewch59]

Apologies, what I meant was my printer program qimage then uses the same profile as my monitor. I do use paper profiles as supplied by the paper manufacturer.

[SergeyT]

>> I'd skip any books written on digital printing and spending any time messing with spyder calibration. Just leave your monitor at the factory settings.

That's probably because many such books have been read already and some knowledge gained...
Things that a spectrophotometer and profiling software can tell is how crappy and unreliable the monitor might be, how wrong the printer settings might be for the given paper, etc. And with that comes prevention of wasting of time, paper, ink (frustration).
All links in the chain should be balanced and work as a system aimed to produce the anticipated results in an optimal way. Why bother with a lightmeter if one can always bracket exposures?

[Joshua Dunn]

Mario,

Sorry for chiming in so late, I have been crazy busy and not checking the forum much as of late. If you want to get serious about printing without spending thousands to learn things the hard way (like myself) then I would return the X-Rite1.

Keep this simple. How much effort do you want to put into learning to digital print. If you are serious about putting money in the right places and spending some time with this then you can start producing some really good prints.

The first question is do you have a wide gamut monitor. If you don’t you can print without one however it does make life more difficult. BenQ makes a really good 27” wide gamut monitor for about $600.

Secondly understand what you are really trying to do with all this calibrating and custom profiles. You are trying to get your monitor and printer as close to the ICC profile as you can. Think of this as the same reason people wear glasses, they are trying to get as close to the 20/20 standard as they can. So you need a means to get your monitor calibrated and a custom profile made for each paper you want to use with your printer.

I would highly recommend attending one of Eric Joseph’s inkjet printing lectures. He works at Freestyle Photo (https://www.freestylephoto.biz) in LA. They have a calander of when and where he lectures on their website. Before you spend a ton of money on paper go to one of his lectures and he will have a hundred or so that he talks about. The world of inkjet paper is now heavily influenced by manufacturers of art papers such as Canson, Hahnemuhle, Awagami etc. Their are innumerable options in inkjet paper choices that were never available to the darkroom printer. The easiest way to wade into this without drowning is attending one of his lectures.

To calibrate your monitor (and the reason I think you should return the X-Rite1) use the basICColor Squid 3 (https://www.freestylephoto.biz/24334-basICColor-SQUID-3-Monitor-Calibration-Bundle). This will only be good for calibrating your monitor (not papers) but it is the best tool/software combination on the market. The software that comes with it is like reading German stereo instructions however if you buy it from Freestyle I beieve they will walk you through using it step by step.

Once you have narrowed down your paper choices pay Freestyle to make you custom profiles for your printer. They are $100 a piece however with the money you will save in paper and ink they will quickly pay for themselves. A correctly calibrated monitor and custom profiles on some good paper will have you producing good prints in relatively short order.

I know this is a lot to digest, however I have made almost every mistake you can with inkjet printing. What I have outlined will be the best way forward. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more.

-Joshua
www.joshuadunnphotography.com
@joshuadunnphoto



So, yesterday I went to Samy's here in San Francisco and one of the salesman said to get the i1 Studio (https://www.amazon.com/X-Rite-i1Studio-Monitor-Calibration-EOSTUDIO/dp/B076PN4PMG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540482527&sr=8-1&keywords=i1+studio). He didn't know much about the Spyder equivalent but he said to check that one out and see which one I liked best. Anyone knows what the Spyder equivalent would be? If you do, which one would you recommend? Thanks.