dmitry_a

It definitely saved me ink, paper and time. I haven't invested a lot of effort into this yet but at least I could get something reasonably close matching right away.

 

To me right now it seems like there are two ways to go: either just stick to B&W or get the fully calibrated system, and printfix/spyder is actually pretty cheap for what they do. But of course it's still expensive for a hobby toy.

Spent some time today at Barnes&Noble and came away thoroughly disappointed.

 

99% of the material is irrelevant. What's needed is a guide to the actual printing wizardry given that all technical and hardware aspects are understood and set up correctly. Which, in all books that I've flipped through, occupies maybe a couple pages at best.

 

Of all things, Epson's guide to printing was the most helpful. I didn't buy it mostly because just reading the little useful material it had in the store was enough.

 

Looks like there's no going around spending some ink and paper here :) Now I need to go figure how to make it a more or less fun experience.

What are some good guides, books and other resources for a newbie printer? <br> <br>

 

I'm all decked out with good hardware (R1800, Spyder2 and PrintFix Pro, Moab

Estrada Natural), and have a bunch of somewhat worthy shots to print (<a

href="http://flickr.com/photos/dakh/sets"> <b> here </b></a>

 

<br><br>

 

Again, I'm a complete newb in printing but I'm quite technically savvy so I hope

to not waste too much ink and paper. I'm after wall-worthy quality.

Recommendations on a comprehensive source of information?

<br><br>

Thanks!<div></div>

Find a windows 2000 disk and install that.

 

TP 600 has the best keyboard in the business, but the screen is pretty much worthless for the purposes of viewing images. With 160MB RAM win2k will run Ok.

 

This computer is good for browsing the Net and e-mail. If you want more don't waste your time and get something a bit more modern. craigslist is your friend, for $300 you can do much better than 600.

Of course I might be forgetting something somewhere but really it's not all that complicated. I'm certain I turn ICC in the printer driver, and I've even tried multiple different applications to form an ICC-corrected image to send to the printer.

 

I'm sort of vindicated by the fact that it's a wide-spread known problem (search for r1800 dark prints and there are tons of hits).

 

I think from what you guys told me getting Monaco system and using my existing scanner just might work. Thanks!

Raymond, the issue with my printer is that canned factory profiles simply don't work at all.

 

So if you're saying that Monaco solution with scanner gives reasonable results that's WAY better than a waste of ink and paper that I'm getting now. I've gotten exactly one decent print since I got the printer, and it was a B/W one which took half a dozen crappy prints to get right.

 

Custom profile is not a workable solution really because I have no idea what papers I like - need some experimentation there. Since canned Epson profiles don't work I'd have to get at least half a dozen profiles for various types of paper.

I guess I should also mention that I really do have shots that are extremely sensitive to how the darkest and brightest spots are represented on paper, like these three for example:<p><p>

<a href="http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=60558115">Sunrise at Petrified Forest</a><p>

<a href="http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=58493458&context=set-1154900&size=l">Light Spill</a>

<p>

<a href=" Vague in Chop Suey</a>

Background: i'm one of those people with R1800 printer that prints "too dark",

even on Epson paper with Epson profiles. Tried every trick in a book but no

go. No previous experience with serious printing. Monitor was profiled with

EyeOne that I borrowed from a friend to experiment with.

 

Hardware: 22" LaCie Electron Blue monitor, Epson R1800, Epson Perfection 1260,

Epson and Moab Estrada papers, good Nicon glass and D70.

 

Goal: well, color-matched prints and reasonably close soft proofing in

photoshop (I'm still using PS6), without dropping $1000 on a pro package.

 

 

I can just get a Spyder2 Express ($70) for monitor profiling and printFIX

($170) for the printer. For $240 I'll get two dedicated hardware devices, but

looks like bundled software would be very basic. Also I see that printFIX has

been discontinued and only printFIX pro is avaliable for $550. There's a

disturbing note on printFIX product description that there's a list of

compatible printers, and of course I couldn't find any on colorvision.com.

 

 

Now for the monaco solution (optix xr + ezcolor), for $330 I'm getting a much

more advanced software, one hardware sensor and a color chart. Seems like the

weak link in this system would be the scanner. I do have an $70 piece of junk

Epson 1260 (claimed to be 48-bit), and it does work well for scanning

occasional document for achival purposes, but I've never used it for photos.

 

So, what's the advice here? Remember that "forget about printer profiling and

use Epson ink and paper with Epson profiles" didn't work.

 

I can try to return the printer and get something that will actually be useful

without custom profiles.

 

Or I can stick with what I have and profile it well.

Hmm.. Maybe I'm not getting it, but does the method with "print with preview" allow to see how your picture gets converted and allows to make adjustments?

 

The whole point of the method I was trying to use is that it gives the ability to more or less see what the picture looks like in printer gamut (or at least it looks like that on the screen).

 

Looks like I'm double-converting the color profile somewhere, just don't know where. I'll try the simple method with direct printing tomorrow and report back how it worked.

 

Thanks!

Newbie here, trying to print for the first time.<br><br>

 

So I got my <a

href="http://www.warehouseexpress.com/news/digpop/588.html">

Electron Blue 3 color-calibrated with EyeOne. <a

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dakh/">My images </a>are mostly

from my Nikon D70 that is set to Adobe RGB. My default color space

in PS is Adobe RGB and I'm pretty sure I see my images correctly on

my monitor in photoshop. <br><br>

 

Now this is what I've done to print:<br><br>

 

1. View->Proof Setup->Custom, select correct paper, play with

settings until I'm satisfied.<br>

2. Image->Mode->Convert to Profile, choose my printer/paper

profile<br>

3. Play with colors a bit more to get them just right<br>

4. Play with File->Print Options dialog to get the borders right<br>

5. File->Print->Setup->Properties, go to advanced settings page,

select Color Management->ICM and choose "Off" profile.<br>

 

<br><br>

 

Now if I try to print this, first off on the "print preview" window

colors look absolutely horrible and screwed up, and I'm not happy

with prints either. White point is way off, one has greenish tint

and the other one (<a

href=" ) has

horrible banding around lights, seems like it was converted to 16

colors and then printed.

<br><br>

Where did I go wrong?<br><br>

 

Thanks!

William, yes you're pointing at various places where things can get screwed up.

 

But: say I walk into the store and there's a laptop there on the shelf. I pick it up, open it and it powers up. There's an OS pre-installed and there are no controls except for brightness on a laptop screen.

 

Why the heck do I need to calibrate it? It's a well-known setup that just came from the factory, and if it works nobody's going to tinker with any of the settings you mention. I should be able to just install Photoshop, download printer profiles and start printing. Everything should "just work" in this case.

Reading up on color management leaves an impression that people are

just dragging their old habits into the new brave world of digital.

 

1. Why calibrate the monitor? An LCD panel of a known manufacturer

that is being fed digital signal from the computer should have a well

known profile available from the manufacturer. Is there much

physical variation between two panels of the same model coming from

the same assembly line?

 

2. Isn't it what people a paying good money to Epson for - their inks

and papers being as consistent as possible, and therefore color

profiles being well known?

 

How is it done in the Apple world? If I buy an iBook, will it come

with a color profile for the LCD panel that is very accurate?

 

What I'm going for here is - yes it's cool to do your own

calibration, but the whole business seems very strange in the age of

digital. The only analog things that are in the pipeline have very

consistent and well-known characteristics, so any calibration should

be done by professionals with professional gear once and for all.

 

Are there technical reasons this is not happening?

You'll probably be better off spending your energy taking pictures and maybe choosing lenses. No, seriously.

 

Those two cameras probably have slightly different default settings, so the images you saw were different. I'm pretty sure tha they both can be set to produce nearly identical results. So, don't fret this. Image quality is just not different enough to be a primary concern between choosing one camera or the other.

what's your budget?

 

also, if you're going to buy used, try your local craigslist.org first.

Oh, and if you really want to learn stuff, I'd highly recommend to pick up some real SLR gear. A used dSLR body and a quality autofocus prime lens is what you're after. An older Digital Rebel would probably work well for you, or better yet a Nikon D50. Just don't buy the kit lens.

 

If that is out of your price range, pick up a Canon G3 or G5 (around $300), they have all the right controls in the right places.

Levander,

 

I've got some other considerations that are outside of what I was talking about here.

 

I go into all sorts of extreme sports, and that little Casio is truly little and has a very useful movie mode so that's what is winning me over. You have to see it to appreciate how tiny it is. 2.5 hours of continuous movie recording in such a small package for this money is something I can pay for even if it wasn't able to take still shots at all.

 

With past experience with digicams I made a conclusion that manual mode that lets you tightly control exposure actually takes a lot of frustration out of the shooting process. You know the camera is not capable of much, but at least you also know where it _is_ capable of getting a decent snap. So you just keep it in that range using manual controls. It sort of expands the range because you don't let the camera to choose out of range settings and increases your confidence at the same time.

 

Usually small digicams have terrible access to manual settings (if any at all), Ricoh GR being just about the only exception that I know of.

 

I've actually went ahead and ordered that Casio. Worst case - it'll be used as a video camera in the mountains. I'll report back here when I get some experience using it.

And yes, that pool shot from Fuji 810 doesn't look nearly as bad as I'm used to. I could probably live with that, but to really make that conclusion I'd have to see a 8x10 print and a desaturated (better yet, B&W setting in the camera) version of the same shot.

Tim,

The majority of the editing that I was doing is _drastic_ work with curves and color balance. Then size it down to 640x480 and sharpen the heck out of it. I find that that's the only way that a P&S image looks good to my eye, but then again I don't have any experience with the current 8MP stuff and Fuji SuperCCD. For concrete examples I'd have to dig out my archives on CD's..

 

 

Re: the comment about fundamentals of photography - sure, you still need to think about where to point your camera and when to hit that shutter button.

 

But this is a conversation about enjoyment and commitment. I want enjoyment with not much commitment (typical male, yes), and having some understanding of P&S limitations I came to a conclusion that I'd rather not shoot at all. Will test it again based on comments here.

<p><i>Earlier you said "Pixel peeping and all sorts of measurbation are not among my interests" but your responses made since then seem to indicate otherwise. How can you tell if a camera is giving you "DSLR quality" without doing both? </i></p> <p>

 

This is truly amusing. How can you tell if you like stuff coming out one camera and don't like stuff coming from anouther? <b>By looking at the results</b>! In my experience, all digicams limit the range of conditions where you can get a quality shot so much that I hit the same problem as with a big DSLR: I'm not getting enough shots.

<p>

But, I have to say thank you to all the people here who questioned me on why exactly I hate small-sensor cameras. It was useful and I understood some things.

<p>

Then answer to this queston again lies in the "get good quality in broad range of conditions". I realized that going for B&W will probably expand the range of a typical digicam quite a bit, even though the noise pattern will probably be nowhere near as pleasant and film-like as on a D70. And also after taking another look at the current offerings I realized that there are some digicams that might actually have useful manual modes.

<p>

So, maybe you guys are on to something. There's yet another camera that looks pretty appealing - <a href="http://kenrockwell.com/casio/exz750.htm">Casio EX-Z750</a>. The big thing is that it has almost all manual controls that you might want, and it also looks like they're even convinient! All that and a 2.5" LCD and useable movie mode for $350, in the size of Altoids tin weighting 130g.

I've looked at that site and I just don't get it. Who would bother setting up an accound and uploading anything there? I gather $1/image is what is being paid for it, and photographer is getting 20%. How much images will it take to justify even half hour spent on uploading stuff there?

I don't know what exactly is wrong with the small-sensor quality. At least one thing I know for sure is that you can't get it in even slightly difficult light situations, which kills the deal right there.

 

It might be entirely possible that I'm subconsciously trying to distance myself from the happy-snap crowd by not liking the P&S images.

 

 

Actually, this is a great idea. I could just do a double-blind test and see if I can really tell the difference. Or take two cameras (DSLR and P&S) and try to shoot stuff in the same conditions.

 

Nah, that sounds too time-consuming. I'll just trust my feelings and go with what works for me.

Tim,

That's the thing - I'm not expecting full-on DSLR functionality, I just want close to DSLR quality. The SLR part for example - I don't give a damn if I'm composing the frame looking through the lens or a small plastic eyepiece with parallax. That I can compensate for with my brain and skill. But I can't compensate for ugly image that's coming from the camera. Well, it's possible to compensate to a certain extent with PS, but if the initial quality is not there options are very limited.

 

But as noted before, looks like I'm out of luck with what I want. Either lug around something big and heavy, or deal with poor quality. Sigh.

Curves tool is one of the most important. I've seen an article somewhere that showed how to get the curves window up in PS Elements 3 (via custom action), but I don't have the link here.

 

Or you can get a third-party curves plugin.

Tim, also check out <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=45284769&context=set-960774&size=l">this shot</a>. I've tried a big zoom Panasonic camera (FZ-something) on a concert like that, and the results were similar, except that they didn't look good in more than 640x480 resolutions, if that. This one prints very well on 8x12, and I expect it will look good on an even larger print.

As to Panasonic and Fuji suggetsions, I've read reviews and checked out the images and haven't found a single shot that looks appealing to me (i.e. that I'd want to print and hang on the wall). I'm planning to just get one and try it out.