alan_goldhammer

<p>This is a very interesting image and clearly points out that one cannot do everything in Lightroom. I spent a little time see what LR can do and the difficulties are in the colors of the houses as they are so close together; I don't think one can achieve what Tom did (and certainly prefer his image to mine) without going to PS. I was able to use the graduated filter tool on the sky and the grass which helps but I don't think that this image can be justice without layers in PS.</p><div></div>

<p>A number of vendors sell acid-free boxes in a variety of sizes along with acid-free paper. I get mine <a href="http://www.archivalmethods.com/"><strong>here</strong></a>. The important thing is to have interleaf sheet of paper between each print if you store in a box. If you look for an album, make sure the sleeves are of a non-reactive polymer material (NOT vinyl!). Keeping prints away from light, particularly direct sunlight is the best approach. One other point not mentioned by others is to print on papers that have very low levels (no level is best) of optical brightening agents (OBAs). These agents are fluorescent dyes that decay over time causing color shifts to the paper.</p>

<p>The other thing it could be is that carrier solvent evaporation is slowed by the humidity but from a chemical perspective your indoor humidity would have to be pretty high to affect this (and it doesn't explain why the colors look fine out of the printer and then get the cast). One other thing to try is put a sheet of white paper over the print when it comes out of the printer; this should absorb the solvent and may prevent what ever the humidity is causing to happen. Do you have any AC at all in your house? If so take the prints up to the room with the best AC and see what happens there.</p>

<p>Dan, the aspect ratio for digital is the same as for 35mm cameras (2:3). Some paper sizes naturally accommodate this within spec and others do not (but even this is region dependent). For example it is difficult to get 17 x25 cut sheet paper in the US which would be ideal for printing 16x24 (natural aspect ratio of a DSLR). Most common large size for cut sheet in the US is 17x22 which can nicely accommodate 16x20.</p>

<p>This printer uses dye-based inks which are not as permanent as pigment inks but it's difficult to figure out what is going on as there really should not be any chemical reaction in terms of increased humidity. Some things that would be useful to know: how old is the printer; how old are the existing inks that are in the printer; can you print out some simple color patches and see if they are all affected equally (the standard color checker patch set would be a good place to start); and what profiles are you using for printing? Some color change is expected on dry down but I've not seen the type of changes that you have shown.</p>

<p>Why wouldn't the <a href="http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1257"><strong>Colorchecker Passport</strong></a> by X-Rite not fulfill your needs? It is relatively inexpensive, works well in the field and does what you need it to do.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that the primary software for photo processing (Adobe PS and LR) run exactly the same under both the Mac and Win OS. What it ultimately comes down to is price and as you note you would rather spend the savings on a new lens. The other thing to remember is that Apple has rather a poor policy of dumping new OS updates on people that may lead to problems with certain software/drivers whereas Microsoft works hard to insure backwards compatibility. I have used both systems over the years and have never found a compelling reason to pay more for the Apple cachet.</p>

<p>The Luminous Landscape video tutorial<a href="http://store.luminous-landscape.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=244"><strong> here</strong></a> is also very good.</p>

<p>I would not recommend Epson Exhibition Fiber. It has very high amounts of Optical Brightening Agents (fluorescent dyes) that decay over time so that you lose the whiteness of the paper (same is true of their Luster paper). Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, Canson Plantine Fiber, and Museo Silver Rag are all good substitutes that will give you good deep blacks and smooth tonal range (the latter two do not have OBAs, the Ilford does but it is remarkably stable unlike the Epson paper). Use the ABW driver on your Epson printer for B&W and you will get a good tonal range. There are a number of good books out there on B&W digital imaging and printing. Leslie Alsheimer and Bryan O'Neil Hughes, "Black and White in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Lightroom" covers all aspects of black and white transformation and is a good first book to get.</p>

<p>See this<a href="http://www.bythom.com/printsizes.htm"><strong> link</strong></a>. Pretty concise and as other have said, unless you are really going larger than 11x14, you can do fine with what you have.</p>

<p>Unfortunately you are using programs that Adobe does not support any longer which is why there are no updates. "If" you have your original installation versions, you could try uninstalling Photoshop and reinstalling it.</p>

<p>The best source for permanency data on inkjet prints is <a href="http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/index.html"><strong>here</strong></a>. You don't have to pay to access the data but a contribution is recommended to continue this important work. Virtually any of the three big names in printers will give you good results. You can see the how each performs with different papers. The tradeoffs are basically a smaller color gamut with matte papers and the need to pay attention to which papers have optical brightening agents that can decay with time.</p>

<p>Lightroom changes are non-destructive and depending how you have it configured either incorporated into a DNG file or as a sidecar XMP file. The changes are always there until you make a new change. It even records every time you print an image as a "change" even though the underlying image has not been changed at all. If you are in the Develop module you can see the record of every single change you have made to the image (this only applies to Lightroom edits; if you export an image to Photoshop for pixel editing, it will return an edited file to Lightroom but won't tell you what was done to it). You want to put the image up on a website as a JPG? There are two ways to do this (either from the Print module using the 'print to file' command or through Library module via the 'export' command). Both do essentially the same thing and what you see in Lightroom should be what you get in your JPG. Remember to scroll down the 'export dialogue box' and make the appropriate selections. It's really not all that difficult.</p>

<p>There is no on-line manual for this printer so it is difficult for me to offer anything other than a conjecture. It appears that they do not have a specific driver setting for this paper so you would have to do a bit of experimentation to find the best setting and then either make a profile yourself (if you have the necessary equipment) or have one made. It cannot be due to the thickness of the paper or the surface as the printer supports a variety of papers that are as thick and/or have similar surfaces. My suggestion is to save a lot of work and try one of the other papers (Ultra Premium Luster should give you really nice results). Remember this printer is designed to perform best with glossy papers as opposed to matte so I would not waste any time with fine art matte papers.</p>

<p>You could also see if Ilford supports this printer for their Gold Fiber Silk paper which IMO is a much better choice than Exhibition Fiber as it has much lower amounts of Optical Brightening Agents (OBAs).</p>

 

<p>Just follow the directions; it's pretty simple. The SpectraView software installs just like any Win/Mac program and once everything is installed and plugged in you are ready to calibrate.</p>

<p>I don't know why others are having problems reading all the metadata in Windows Photo Viewer (Win7). If I open the photo and go to File -> Properties and the Details tab it is all right there. As I noted, the profile is correct and I also see all the camera information as well.</p>

<p>I am on windows and this is indeed encoded as sRGB. It's also a very nice image! :-)</p>

<p>Mounting techniques are <a href="http://www.framedestination.com/picture_frame_mounting.html"><strong>here</strong></a>. They also have a good supply of mounting materials and frames at a reasonable price.</p>

<p>@Patrick, according to the specifications it is 115 lbs!</p>

<p>http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40196241 works for a 3880 and I would double check the dimensions. The drawers are big enough to hold 13x19 sheet paper.</p>

<p>I would follow Andrew's advice and also, William Turner always needs to be loaded through the rear feeder for this printer because of its thickness. You should always brush the paper with a horsehair drafting brush prior to loading it as it is a very dusty paper and dust can accumulate on the print rollers causing slippage. See if you can print a nozzle check which does not print through your application.</p>

<p>I just looked at the same image (which is what I linked to in my post) in LR3 and saw no banding in either the B&W gradient or any of the color gradients.</p>

<p>I have the same monitor and I suspect the links you post are not a good test of the monitor. I have a number of test prints that show no such banding but they are high resolution TIFFs. See <a href="http://www.outbackprint.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html"><strong>Jack Flesher's</strong></a> test print for an example. When I open this in either Photshop or Lightroom the gradients are perfectly smooth.</p>

<p>In addition to the DeWolfe book which is good, this book, Leslie Alsheimer and Bryan O'Neil Hughes, "Black and White in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Lightroom" is excellent as it goes over ALL the different ways of doing a conversion. As Patrick notes, the desaturation technique is no longer recommended as the new BW conversion tool is wonderful. I think your first job is to upgrade to either PS CS5 of LR3 to be able to take advantage of the newer approach. Silver Efex Pro has a new upgrade as well but I don't know if it is compatible with your older version of PS. In any event you will save yourself a lot of aggravation in the long run.</p>

<p>Osamu - see Eric Chan's <a href="http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/index.html">website</a> on the 3800 printer and his workflow there will help you achieve better results. He also has a lot of profiles specifically for the Epson ABW print driver. To get really good B&W results you need to use this feature. It uses very little color ink during the printing process. You might also want to get a good book on how to process your images so that they are in the best shape prior to printing. I have found that Leslie Alsheimer and Bryan O'Neil Hughes, "Black and White in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Lightroom" covering all aspects of black and white transformation using the two key Adobe software products is particularly good in this regard.</p>