Software instead of ColorMunki Profiler

[mahfoudhhi]

I recently bought Epson R3000 photo printer and colorMunki profiler to enhance my pictures, I already have iMac 21.5 inch, but I am not very happy with the result of colorMunki, it gave me a subtle change in picture only. somebody told me there is a software for about $500-600 US dollar that can enhance the output of the printer greatly, but I could not get further information from him. anybody knows about this software??
Thank you in advance.
Hafedh

[Polar01]

Hafedh: which of the 3 colorMunki did you get, smile, display or photo? if you got the first two, they work on you display only, it it photo that does display and printer profile. Also which program handles colour management? Very often with the Epson printers if you their inks and papers, and select the ICC profile for the paper that Epson has preinstalled and let the printer handle colour you will get excellent results. Most often people prefer to let the colour management be handled by the software program that is used to work the image ie: Photoshop, Lightroom, etc,. As you are a newer member, I do not know the level of your knowledge in printing, to get what you see on the screen to what comes out of the printer is a whole new field and is not simply pushing a button or adding a software package. So if you can provide some informantion of your level of printing, and I believe that there are some tutorials here on CIC on printing.

Cheers:

Allan

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you very much dear Allan.
I have the photo one which calibrates both screen and printer, and I guess I did it right, since I read about it and had some ideas from Youtube. However I have no idea of advanced techniques of printing. I use Adobe Photoshop CS6 to print using software color management (and not let the printer decide..etc)!!
I use Epson products for both ink and Semi-glossy paper and I use the .icc profile to print, but the output has insignificant change from the ordinary way of printing it can be barely noticed when you concentrate on it.
could you please help me find the tutorial of printing (I need a hint of how to find it here please).
thank you again.
Hafedh

[Manfred M]

Can I ask what the underlying problem is? My guess is that your prints do not look the same as what you see on your profiled monitor, and if this is the case, you should understand that the two cannot ever look the same. All you can do with colour management is get them to be close:

1. Screen - Additive (RGB), transmitted light with a colour range that (in the case of a high quality, wide gamut monitor) exceeds the colour range that you eyes can see. I think it runs around 6 stops of dynamic range

2. Print - Subtractive (CMYK), reflected light that represents a few hundred thousand colours with a lower dynamic range than your screen (I seem to recall it is around 4 stops). The reflected light component means that the colours of your print will be dependent on light source you are evaluating it under.

I use a wide gamut monitor that has been profiled, and I print on an Epson 3880, using the ICC profiles for this printer. For colour prints, I use Photoshop to control the colours and for Black & White, I use the printer as I find that Photoshop introduces a slight colour cast.

[Polar01]

Hafedh: you say that you are using a semi-gloss paper, I believe that is has a brightness of 93. When you look at a printed image you are seeing reflected light, how the image looks or say jumps out at you depends on the stock that it is printed on. For me it is just ont the image but also the look that a certain stock will give the image. For me I use 3 stocks, Hahnemuhle 308gm. rag which is a 92 bright, I use if for a lot of my B&W images it gives a rich deep texture and feel to the image and is not very bright. Epson Hot Press Bright, it has a smooth matte finish and is a 96 bright and if I want the image to as I would say sing then Epson Exhibition Fibre which is 111 Bright. The frist 2 stocks are a Fine Arts Paper and the last one is a Photographic Paper. What you get finally off the printer depends a lot on the stock used, and it can take some time to find the paper(s) that give you the feel you want for that image. I would suggest that you get some sample packs of stock say from Hahnemuhle, their Matte Fine Art and their Glossy & Canvas Fins Arts, and then the Epson Signature Worthy sampler. Then find an image that you like and print it on each sample, then compare how they look to you, then do another one but a different image maybe the first was one with vivid colours, the second more muted colours and the final one a B&W. This can get costly here in Canada to buy the sampler pack with 2 sheets of stock of usually 8 different stocks, to do 3 runs would cost me around $180.00. Another way to find stocks would be to go to a web site of a photographer you like and usually they will state some where what they print with and print on. It is a whole art form of matching the paper to the image to get the feel and look that you want, you just can grab a box of paper and expect it to give you the prefect image that you want. Hope this is of help.
Also if you could go into your profile and add you name and where you are, as this is a great help if you are looking for something, as it you be no good for me to tell you to got to some supplier and you live half way around the world for there.

Cheers:

Allan

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you GrumpyDiver;
I guess you are correct in regard to different type of light, and I understand this, but I thought colorMunki would make a significant difference (not only 5-10%) as I have now. what do you think?
thanks again.

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you Allan.
I think you are right as well as GrumpyDiver. I could be too perfectionist!!
I expect to see a print like or around the screen. this could be impossible maybe!!
thank you all for your useful input.

[mahfoudhhi]

Hafedh: which of the 3 colorMunki did you get, smile, display or photo? if you got the first two, they work on you display only, it it photo that does display and printer profile. Also which program handles colour management? Very often with the Epson printers if you their inks and papers, and select the ICC profile for the paper that Epson has preinstalled and let the printer handle colour you will get excellent results. Most often people prefer to let the colour management be handled by the software program that is used to work the image ie: Photoshop, Lightroom, etc,. As you are a newer member, I do not know the level of your knowledge in printing, to get what you see on the screen to what comes out of the printer is a whole new field and is not simply pushing a button or adding a software package. So if you can provide some informantion of your level of printing, and I believe that there are some tutorials here on CIC on printing.

Cheers:

Allan

Dear Allan:
you mentioned earlier that printing is a new field and to be learned.
could you please give me a hint of how or where to start learning printing skills.
if any body else other than Allan has a clue to help with, I will appreciate it too.
thank you Allan in advance.

[Polar01]

Hafedh: I see that you have CS6, have you tried soft proofing an image. It is here that you can get an idea of how the image will look printed on a stock that you have the ICC profile for. I would suggest that you use the Epson stock ICC's as they were loaded in when you installed the printer to your computer. Search the net for CS6 soft proofing to get an idea of how it works and how to use it. As you cycle through the different stocks you will see some times large differences between what you see on the screen to what is would look like printed, other times there will only be a very slight or no difference between the two. It all comes down to a matter of personel taste and likes. Paper is a very personel taste, looking at a number of photographer web site, you will often see that they use only maybe 1 or 2 different stocks as these give the look and feel that they want, these stocks become part of the photographer's style. From post #5, I stated 3 stocks, these are the ones I use. If I have a B&W image that has a lot of constract, deep blacks, bright white with little inbetween, or an image with vivid colours than for me it would be the 111 bright stock. On the other hand a B&W with lots of tonal range or a image with soft rich colours than one or the other of the two rag stock, I lean towards the 308 rag, beautiful stock love it. To learn print skills it is like the camera, shoot, shoot, shoot and more shooting, except with printing is cost more, that is why soft proofing can help you see the difference look without the cost, short list some stocks maybe those that some pros who's images you like use than, purchase that stock in maybe 8.5" x 11" format. Taking the image is very important, post production is very important, but you can flush it all away with a poor printing job, I am going to assume that you want to do more high end or fine arts printing, for that you will need to practice learning what the printer and the paper can do. It will be a journey that at times will and can be very mind blotting thing, but once you find yourself it will a very interesting ride.
Hope this is of some help

Cheers:

Allan

[Macmahon]

Dear Allan:
you mentioned earlier that printing is a new field and to be learned.
could you please give me a hint of how or where to start learning printing skills.
if any body else other than Allan has a clue to help with, I will appreciate it too.
thank you Allan in advance.

Hello Hafedh

1 Colour management is a big field. But it is also a field of marginal improvements. 5-10% better than a "printer manages colors" workflow may be a very good improvement.

2 The Colormunki Photo is quite a good solution for correcting both monitor and print profiles. To get better in terms of hardware and software could cost very much more than $500-600 for only marginally better gains.

3 On the other hand there is an open source software program called 'Argyll' - which will work with the ColorMunki. Some people think it is better software than the Munki software and it may give more improvements. The good news is that it is free! The bad news is that it is quite hard to learn.

4 Even though you have used the Munki to profile both your monitor and your printer there are still a couple of things to be aware of when you are comparing screen and print.
First is the question of how bright your monitor is. iMac displays tend to be be too bright leading to two problems; (i) prints look too dark (by comparison) and (ii) the user making adjustments to shadow detail etc to darken them down, which in turns means that prints will definitely be too dark. There is a good article about that issue here. In summary, you should adjust the luminance of your display so that if you look at a blank white page on your monitor it should 'look the same brightness' as a sheet of printer paper in your usual viewing conditions. FWIW I needed to adjust my iMac to ~100 cd/m2
Second it is a bad idea to compare print output to your display by holding the print up next to the display. That accentuates the differences that Manfred has talked about. Best advice is to put the print under your 'normal' viewing light, and turn away from the screen when you are looking at the print. Your eyes will then compensate for the emissive/reflectance difference and you be able to concentrate on colour and tonal issues.

5 There are good resources to learn about the practice of colour management on this site. If you would like to learn a bit more about what colour management is about, and why it is a big field, you might like to look at fromcameratoprint.com.

Welcome to this minefield! and good luck!

Tim

[mahfoudhhi]

Hafedh: I see that you have CS6, have you tried soft proofing an image. It is here that you can get an idea of how the image will look printed on a stock that you have the ICC profile for. I would suggest that you use the Epson stock ICC's as they were loaded in when you installed the printer to your computer. Search the net for CS6 soft proofing to get an idea of how it works and how to use it. As you cycle through the different stocks you will see some times large differences between what you see on the screen to what is would look like printed, other times there will only be a very slight or no difference between the two. It all comes down to a matter of personel taste and likes. Paper is a very personel taste, looking at a number of photographer web site, you will often see that they use only maybe 1 or 2 different stocks as these give the look and feel that they want, these stocks become part of the photographer's style. From post #5, I stated 3 stocks, these are the ones I use. If I have a B&W image that has a lot of constract, deep blacks, bright white with little inbetween, or an image with vivid colours than for me it would be the 111 bright stock. On the other hand a B&W with lots of tonal range or a image with soft rich colours than one or the other of the two rag stock, I lean towards the 308 rag, beautiful stock love it. To learn print skills it is like the camera, shoot, shoot, shoot and more shooting, except with printing is cost more, that is why soft proofing can help you see the difference look without the cost, short list some stocks maybe those that some pros who's images you like use than, purchase that stock in maybe 8.5" x 11" format. Taking the image is very important, post production is very important, but you can flush it all away with a poor printing job, I am going to assume that you want to do more high end or fine arts printing, for that you will need to practice learning what the printer and the paper can do. It will be a journey that at times will and can be very mind blotting thing, but once you find yourself it will a very interesting ride.
Hope this is of some help

Cheers:

Allan

I can not thank you enough for your kindness and for taking the time to write to me.
Thank you very much indeed Allan.

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you so much Tim for your help and recommendation. I highly value it.

[Markvetnz]

I have a Spyder 3 elite and a Colormunki. I compared the calibration of both and there is a noticeable difference. The CM image is slightly less saturated. I have changed to the CM because I am using custom camera profiles generated with the XRite color passport and I also need to generate custom printer profiles for the epson R3000 because I have started using Lyson inks. The resluts of the first print were perfect right out the gate. I would suggest that if you are using Epson inks then just use the paper manufacturer's profiles. I've been using them for over a year with the R3000 and they are great, especially if you use Canson paper.

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you Mark.
I usually use Epson semi glossy paper and Epson ink, and with ColorMunki pictures have better colours, but as I mentioned earlier I might be too perfectionist.
thanks any way for passing by.

[Colin Southern]

Thank you Mark.
I usually use Epson semi glossy paper and Epson ink, and with ColorMunki pictures have better colours, but as I mentioned earlier I might be too perfectionist.
thanks any way for passing by.

Hi Hafedh,

Screens use active (additive) colourants and have about a 6 stop dynamic range whereas prints use subtractive colourants with about a 4 stop dynamic range -- so they're about as different as chalk and cheese, as we say.

What print profiles give you though is CONSISTENCY so that you're not "shooting at a moving target" all the time. Keep in mind though that any printer profile is only accurate for a given printer / ink / paper / media settings combination; change any one of those 4 things and the profile is "null and void". Keep in mind too that you'll eventually need to learn about soft-proofing and gamut checks to be sure that you're not trying to print colours that the printer or monitor is incapable of reproducing.

[Colin Southern]

I have changed to the CM because I am using custom camera profiles generated with the XRite color passport and I also need to generate custom printer profiles for the epson R3000 because I have started using Lyson inks. The resluts of the first print were perfect right out the gate. I would suggest that if you are using Epson inks then just use the paper manufacturer's profiles. I've been using them for over a year with the R3000 and they are great, especially if you use Canson paper.

Hi Mark,

I think I worked out that if I was to get 2 complete sets of carts for the 7800, if I use Lyson ink from the UK I could fly there - pick them up personally - and fly home again and still have some $$$ left over, when compared to Epson inks. And the real kicker is Lyson appear to have a slightly better gamut and slightly less head clogging. Go figure.

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you all for your kind help.