Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I've ran a couple of searches before posting this, but it doesn't look like this has been discussed much. While I'm reasonably happy with the print quality I'm getting out of my Epson R1900 (yes, my display is calibrated) I'm considering getting a couple of customised profiles for my printer/paper combination. Since I'm not particularly keen on acquiring more hardware/software to do this myself, I'm researching services that will do that.

Have any of you used such services, if so, which ones and what was your experience like? Most importantly, are you happy with the results?

Here's a couple I've found that seemed reasonable:
http://www.greatprinterprofiles.com/
http://www.cathysprofiles.com/
http://www.inkjetart.com/custom_profiles/

Cathy has been doing this for years. The name is all over the printing forums concerning profiling. Eric Chan is great as well.

God, I'm such a nerd, I typo'ed the title of the thread - that should read "custom" not "customer".

sorry to rehash an older thread.
How did this work for you??? I just got a R1900 also and after a few days of messing around with calibration of my monitor i've got some decent results.
not perfect, but getting better.

Any profilers in the GTA? or store front type locations?

I was wondering what it is that is making you decide that you need to get custom profiles. Have you already done everything else ? THere are so many factors involved that I doubt that the average person wouldl benefit from custom profiles. Especially since the profiles already out there are very very good.

At this point, yes, I have done everything else. Monitor calibrated, fresh ink, ran all the various cleaning/alignment printer cycles, using manufacturer specific paper profiles. In general, as I mentioned in the original post I'm relatively happy with the results, but...

Despite the fact that my monitor is calibrated, etc, I find I'm not quite happy with the results I get in particular for images that are inherently darker with visible detail loss in the shadows. While I realize that the dynamic range on a print is significantly less than that on a monitor, I'm not totally happy with having to do a series of test prints (at a reduced size) where I incrementally bump up exposure. In doing that, I've found that the results I'm visually happy with are about 1/2 - 2/3 stops higher than what I've got on-screen. That ends up resulting in a print that is visually close to what I'll have on-screen.

While I can certainly work within those constraints using my existing process, I'm wondering whether getting an even more accurate profile would help account for that difference.

I have yet to pursue getting custom profiles as I was able to at least arrive at a process which would yield results I was happy with. I may still want to pursue a custom profile to see if it would streamline the process further, but have not done so yet.

thanks for the quick response.
I did take a look at those links you provided and it does sound quite interesting and simple. I to find I'm about 1/2 - 2/3 stops dark on print compared to screen. I have come to a work around, but like to be able to better visualize it without having to do a work around.

If you do decide to have custom profiles done I would love to learn the result of the process.

I am sure you know this but the light under which you view your prints is going to have a significant impact on how 'dark' they appear. If you are not viewing the prints under the right light, they can appear dark.

if you pulling your print right out of the machine and holding it up and looking at it under typical room lights and finding it looks too dark, then you are in the same boat as many people.

Bumping exposure is not what you want to do you will blow highlights. I also doubt a custom profile will be of much use as it is most likely a mismatch of your monitor and your printer/paper characteristics that is not correctable by profiling without the lose of visual details.

I talked to the person that does the printer profiles at TIW and he suggested a doing some test prints with some different offsets.

Do this in curves by setting your black point at some number above zero start with 15 (with a 0-255 scale and leave the white point at 255). This will offset the blacks a bit above and very slightly compress the rest of the curve.

Another way is to just print a grey scale chart and set the offset to the value by eye.

Printer profiles are so good from the manufacturers it doesn't make sense to just go ahead and make your own for colour. Now if you want a black and white ONLY profile, then that is another story altogether.

In general, yes, you are correct. The two prints I did in particular this wasn't much of an issue as the histogram was heavier on the left. Ie, it was an overall darker scene without a large dynamic range, so not a log of highlights there to be blown out. However, I totally understand your point and in other cases the highlights would be a concern.



That's another good tip, thanks. I'll have to try that with some prints as I haven't done that before.

Two exactly the same printers may start off the same but they will not produce the same results eventually in the long run. If it was handled roughly when being moved(office or home) will affect performance. That's why you need to do a cycle test again after doing so as they advise it.

The ICC profile is there to determine the printer's footprint with a particular paper. Needless if you are using an Epson paper with an Epson printer. However, when you go Moab, Canson rags etc., these manufacturers can only estimate what the printer model can do, but it wouldn't be accurate enough.

I think it is wise to ICC profile it. The cost of these papers alone is no joke. If you are serious enough to pay for $ 150.00 for 25 sheets of 17x22 then you are meticulous enough to consider profiling for the best results.

Don't get me wrong colour profiles are a good thing but they are rather complicated and don't work well in parts of the colour space when the translation is poor (screen to print). So if you have a grey scale contrast problem rather then a colour problem it is often better to adjust the over all grey-scale channel then focus on getting a better colour profile.

printers, such as the R2880 and 3880 and others for example, can be put back into their original factory calibration because it can drift over time.
You can download software and if you have the right spectrophotometer you can do it too.

After careful read, I see nowhere anyone mentioning the importance of the ICC profiling and soft-proofing...that's like navigating blind.

If you have a particular image and want it printed there are inherent questions to address before engaging in wasting your time, your media and inks...in other words your money.

- What are the qualities of your image? Read and translate the saturation levels, brightness and contrast of your image. Why in heavens you will try to reproduce a heavy contrast image into a matte media? at best you will end up with blobs of black ink patching up your shadow transitions; Look instead for coated media such as semi luster/gloss or if you like glossy or ultra glossy... there are many media to choose from, that will actually be able to reproduce those qualities right. There's no way that you can pull the black density in a make up shoot, onto a matte paper.

- what kind of output are you going for? dreamy, slick, textured, rugged.. find a media that helps you enhance those qualities. (rag, torchon, metal, gloss, sugar cane, luster) and also be aware of the "WB" of the paper, you cannoty achieve immaculate neutral BW prints onto a bamboo rag paper because its warm base to start with.

- have I softproofed? what are you waiting for? even the best of the profiles will fail to produce your expected outcome if you don't follow protocol . The disparity in contrast ratios from what you see on your monitor vs media is huge, that's why is so important to preview how your image renders on the selected media by way of softproofing, and THEN... ONLY THEN you can try to correct/improve the output to achieve whatever you are going for.

There are numeroustutorials online, video and great books (one of my all time favorites "Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop" by George DeWolfe's) which explains step by step the numerous things to consider in order to go from a blah-print to a wow-print!!

Another thing to consider is the bit depth of the images you are working on. When talking about shadows, If you are working on a JPEG, you will not be able to open up the shadows like you can with a 12 bit or 14 bit image depending on which camera you have.