Shadow detail on Epson 3800

I have been printing with Epson Premium Luster on an Epson 3800, and I'm

noticing a lot of loss of shadow detail. I'm printing from CS2, with the Epson

profile for my paper, relative colormetric, black point compensation turned

off. Overall the prints look great, but it just seems like anything RGB 30 or

lower is rendered completely black. If I check black point compensation, shadow

detail is retained and looks like what I see on the monitor but it results in a

weird color shift.

 

I printed a few B/W's today with no color management in CS2 and Advanced BW in

the printer profile, and the shadow detail was retained a lot better. How can I

do this for my color prints as well?

Try Absolute colormetric without and with black point compensation. I like Absolute better than relative.

Use perceptual intent. If you use colometric intents ALWAYS have BPC checked otherwise you'll be getting black mess. I think the color shifts you are experiencing using colometric due to bad printer profile.

I'm not sure it's a profile problem. As I said, I'm using the exact profile for my paper and the latest driver from Epson. Prints without black point compensation do not have any color shift. Is there anything else I need to look for?

 

But anyway, thanks for your answers, I'll try different rendering intents and try to figure out the color shift problem.

1_relative colorimetric WITH black comp ON

 

2_The epson 3800 add 8% to 10% density to the final print, so creating a curve that remove that amount will certainly help you + the number 1.

 

3_you dont ahve to try other rendering intent...just select relative and the rigth profil + #2 and youre set for sure.

But where would this "right profile" come from? I'm using the Pro 38 PLPP from Epson. Is there anything else that I need?

 

The color shift with black point compensation, compared to without, is a moderate magenta cast, desaturated colors and no blacks at all. It looks more like a watercolor than a photograph.

While I have learned and now make better prints with advice from another poster on this topic I do not believe his procedures are as absolute as his posts suggest.<br>

I now ask a series of questions to troubleshoot the problem, not as the answer:<br>

What monitor or display, LCD, CRT, FlatScreen CRT ?<br>

What OS?<br>

Is the monitor calibrated? <br>

What calibration software?<br>

What workspace is the OS default set to?<br>

What workspace is Photoshop set to?<br>

What type of room lighting are you evulating the results in?<br>

Do you have color management turned off in the print driver? (I assume yes)<br>

Do you have the Ink config settings in the print driver set to the default settings?<p>

I have CS2 and PS7. With the same settings for workspace, paper profile, and print with preview options set the same in both versions some prints print better in PS7 than they do in CS2, CS2 being darker or slight color shift in some colors, mostly blues and purples. I'm using a R2400 on XP sp2. Maybe we'll shake the culprit loose.

Charles, my process is actually as absolute as I have suggested. I edit on CS3 on XP sp1, migrate the files to school which has CS2 on OS X 10.4. Both monitors are LCDs, the one at home is a Dell 2407WFP, the one at school is an Apple Cinema 23", both calibrated with Spider2Pro. Whether or not they're completely accurate, I'm not sure, but images, to my eyes, look exactly the same.

 

Adobe RGB is used as the workspace is photoshop, color management is turned off in printer, everything else is on default settings (except for high speed off). I have evaluated prints in the lab, which has daylight balanced florescents, outdoors and at home. This is not a slight color shift I'm talking about (with black point compensation), it's a moderate to major shift - meaning anyone can tell the difference.

 

Patrick is probably right that the 3800 adds 8-10% density to the print, but I'm fine with that, but with relative and black point off, the difference is more like 20%. For a lot of prints this is fine, but I was printing portraits with dark backgrounds and on the print, these blended completely into black suits. On the monitor, there is clearly a difference. The background ranged from RGB 30-50, and the suits were RGB 0-20, yet everything ~30-40 was rendered completely black, even when the prints were viewed in a bright room.

At this point I will say that the problem is monitor calibration, even though the display image appears the same. The fact that you are working with 2 different editing programs, two different OS, and calibration by two different calibration systems of the same manifacture=room for varraitions. Unless both monitors were calibrated by the same person, with the same tools, I would be cautious of the exactness of the image displayed. Does a image edited on the school system from scratch exibit the same shifts? You may have to duplicate the image at school and adjust for the differences then print to get it the way you want.

Yes, the ones that I printed two days ago were scanned, edited and printed on the school machine. I would accept calibration or profile problems as possibilities otherwise. Neither hypothesis would explain the fact that without black point compensation checked, the prints look fine with no color shifting, except that shadows lose their detail far too quickly.

Things work according to specifications, theory, or logic only when functioning properly. Malfunctions can do anything. Bring the problem to the attention of the school person responsible for the equipement and see about recalibration. Take your colorimeter to school and use it to calibrate with and check the difference between it and the schools if recalibration with the schools does not correct the problem. (one advantage of having the same calibration system).