bruce johnson Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 I've got a problem with an image I'm trying to print. It has a heavily shadowed area with important details. When I print the image, the shadowed areas come out looking all "blobby" and desaturated and I find the print to be quite horrific; whereas I find the image on screen to be quite pleasing. I am printing with an Epson 2200 printer using relative colorimetric with black point compensation as my rendering intent on Epson's ehnanced matte paper at 2880 dpi with the matte black ink cartridge. I'm allowing Photoshop CS2 to do the color management. My monitor is calibrated so that is not the problem. Soft proofing does show fairly well what the image looks like in print. To help you understand what I'm seeing I have included (assuming I can figure out how to attach images) a small copy of the image as well as what the image looks like with both relative colorimetric soft proofing and perceptual soft proofing. These images were captured using screen capture. Please help me rescue this print.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce johnson Posted August 3, 2005 Author Share Posted August 3, 2005 Here's the relative colorimetric soft proof with black point compensation.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce johnson Posted August 3, 2005 Author Share Posted August 3, 2005 And here it is with perceptual rendering.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce johnson Posted August 3, 2005 Author Share Posted August 3, 2005 Oh, and while I'm at it, here's a crop (at 50%) of the shadow areas.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce johnson Posted August 3, 2005 Author Share Posted August 3, 2005 And here's the same area with relative colorimetric soft proofing turned on. This is just what the print looks like as well.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_rosenbloom Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 did you try the shadow/highlight tool in CS2? Tried using a soft selection of the unex area in the backgroung and results were quite good. Just use sliders with moderation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minicucci Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Bruce: Two things. First, the 2200 will plug shadows, particularly using Epson's canned profiles, (although some more than others), so I am not surprised with your results here. Using a RIP (like ImagePrint) helps the printer be more linear/consistent but a well done custom profile for your particular printer can go a long way toward helping with shadow detail. You can certainly try a print adjustment layers) to recover some detail. Add a levels adjustment layer and change the Output levels slider from "0" on the black side of the scale to around 10 or so. Look at the impact while in soft print mode. It should help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrettPrucha Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 I used the level tools to adjust the black and white points for the shadows and highlights in the dark area using the eye droppers and then made small manually adjustments for color correction and adjusting the midtones over all the channels. I then merged an unedited version with the edited one to not blow out the foreground detail. The level settings were: R: 24,1,154 G: 15,1,139 B: 12,1,159 RBG: 2,1.58,251<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roger_smith4 Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Did you try playing with black point compensation (turning it off?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce johnson Posted August 3, 2005 Author Share Posted August 3, 2005 Thanks for the many good replies so far. My comments to your replies: Patricia: I agree, the 2200 really plugs up the shadows, this is the first where I've found it to be really unacceptable. I like the simplicity of printing with photoshop and don't want to add another step with a RIP, nor do I want to spend more money now, but if that's truly the answer, then maybe I'll try. As for recovering some detail with a print adjustment layer, whenever I do that to get acceptable results, the blacks become washed out and I'm not happy with the print. I should have said that I've tried that before. David: Again, when I try this the blacks seem washed out in the print if I recover enough shadow to not get the blotchy look in the print. Brett: Yours recovered maybe a little more shadows than I wanted on screen (I like the face peering out of the blackness) but may work in print as the blacks still look fairly black. I'll try when I return home tonight. Roger: black pt compensation turned off yielded even worse results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltz Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Here's a PS technique that I haven't tried, but it looks like it works...<br> <a href=http://www.pictureline.com/newsletter/article.php?id=81>http://www.pictureline.com/newsletter/article.php?id=81</a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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