Attaining neutral color on an Epson printer

[dzeanah]

I have a new Epson 1280 printer set up. I printed an image to it using

Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl paper and was wowed by the results. I

told Photoshop to use a profile downloaded from Ilford's site when I

did the whole "print with preview" thing.

 

Then I printed the same image using the Imageprint RIP and

Imageprint's profile for the same paper. It looked just as good.

 

Until I viewed the images next to each other. The Imageprint output

makes the other print look purple (when looking at blue skies) and too

warm (when looking at skin tones or at a B&W gradient). Now, my photo

budget is limited, so I'm probably looking at trying to fine-tune my

setup so it's comparable to Imageprint's default, and I don't know

where to start.

 

What's the best way to get from where I am (damn close to neutral

prints) to total neutrality? What's it likely to cost me, and what

can I do to minimize the pain if I switch over to Ultrachrome inks

(MIS's inkset -- I know Epson's answer is to use dyes or buy a newer

printer) later on?

[dzeanah]

More details:

 

The imageprint profile I chose was for tungsten balanced lighting, and I'm using incandescents now. I just moved over to view the images under a fluorescent light (one of those low-power incandescent replacements) and found the IP version too cool, and that the one printed using Ilford's profile looked better. I'm guessing come morning it'll look different again when viewed in sunlight.

 

Maybe it's just metamerism (sp?) that I'm experiencing here -- I'll check again in the morning with another follow-up.

 

Most of my experience is with black and white; this whole color thing still seems strange to me...

[link]

Derek,

 

I tried the pigment inks in my 1200 printer. I had a high quality custom profile made

by a professional color guru, and...color gamut was not good enough. Very poor dark

flesh tones and poor dark greens. The same may well be true for the 1280 with

pigments. And the metamersim was pretty ugly as well.

 

The 2200 is MUCH better with the pigment inks.

 

I think that the best you can do without spending $1500 on Eye One Photo, is to have

a professional profile made by one of the color profile services. Search google for it.

The price is generally about $50-$100 per profile.

[john_houghton]

Tweaking the overall colour balance of a print can be done using the curves tool. You need to lift/lower the midpoint of the r,g,b curves to correct the cast in a greyscale print. If there are different casts in the shadows and highlights, then the curves can be adjusted differently in those regions. Save the curves in a .acv file and apply as a temporary adjustment to an image before printing.

 

A more refined technique is to make an 8-step greyscale in an rgb image and then select individual patches with the rectangular marquee and alter the colour with image->adjust->color. (I found this easier than playing with curves). When all the patches print a neutral grey, measure the patches with the colour picker and use the values to construct the curves file. This worked quite well for eliminating minor casts, but is not a substitute for custom profiling.

[glenn_jobson]

Hi Derek

 

I do custom profiles for folks like you, mostly folk in the UK.

 

Myself I use a Epson Stylus Photo 1200 and a 1290s with Epson inks and other remanufactured inks. I get great colour from my printers with little effort one I profile the ink / paper / printer combi.

 

I have profiles literally hundreds of combinations for others and have had no complains, just good news... I will happily profile your paper for you, drop me an email, I will do it free of charge, if you like it, great, if not, nothing to loose.....

 

There is to much messing with this colour stuff, a good profile is all you need...

 

Glenn @ colourmad.co.uk

[imaginator]

Glenn, any hope for an Epson C82 with DuraBrite inks?