Epson R2400 First Experience

[Irwin_Poche]

Oops, forgot to include the Color Management settings...

Print: Document (Profile: Adobe RGB (1998))

Color Handling: Let PS determine colors
Printer Profile: SPR2400 PremGlsy Photo.icc
Rendering Intent: Relative Colorimetric with Black Point Compensation turned On

[DonLashier]

> my Spyder2 has no Tools menu.

I've got the original spyder but I believe only the "pro" version has the colorimeter feature and perhaps the info window. The pro version is also the only one that has luminance targeting. Perhaps you don't have the pro version?

Your PS output settings look correct but you might verify that you've got color management properly turned off in the epson driver.

> the issue may lie in the color space (?) I used some time ago when converting from RAW.

I seriously doubt that this is the issue. Much more likely is that an overly bright monitor led you to darken the image either at raw conversion stage or in PS. Some LCD's (I assume you're using an LCD monitor) are difficult or impossible to get to a reasonable brightness range. If this is the case you may just need to apply a compensating curve (determined through experimentation) prior to printing. If your monitor is overly bright this would lead you to create web images that look dark to most others also, and other's galleries would like overly light to you, although the discrepancy is much more noticible in print as the high contrast (dynamic range) of the monitor adapts the eye to midtones. How do my galleries look on your monitor, in particular a "normal" gallery like this, which should have realistic midtones throughout? Come to thing about it, those are perhaps not the best test as the large white (cloud) areas will help adapt the eye.

- DL

[drew]

Something else to consider when doing quick and dirty troubleshooting is trying an alternate product.

For instance, you might want to download qimage for free and plug your profiles into this program and see if you get the same results.

[Irwin_Poche]

> Perhaps you don't have the pro version?

I do not.

> Your PS output settings look correct but you might verify that you've got color management properly turned off in the epson driver.

The image's profile, btw, is "ProPhoto RGB" chosen, probably, for no particular reason other than that it sounds good.

Color Management: Off (No Color Adjustment)
Print: Document (Profile: Adobe RGB (1998))
Color Handling: Let PS determine colors
Printer Profile: SPR2400 PremGlsy Photo.icc
Rendering Intent: Relative Colorimetric with Black Point Compensation turned On

> How do my galleries look on your monitor

They look awfully good. Nothing in the clouds appears blown out. Looking for dark areas I find...

Deep Art : The left hand side, about one fifth of the image, is almost completely black except for what appears to be writing on a museum card roughly equal to the child's head.
060506-036011 : Wheel well of the fire truck completly black. Palm of the rider's glove has some detail visible.
14034 Walking the Pony : Some detail visible in skirt. Some at the top, more along the shins.
030404-12443 : Hand rail over floor mat just barely visible.

-----

A few additional thoughts...

Don't know if there's anything to be learned from it but I could upload the Spyder2's profile.

The original image itself may be a problem. It's of a bald eagle on a cloudless day exposed so that its white head feathers weren't blown out. The dark body feathers are dark to begin with. I don't remember what I did on the raw conversion and subsequent editing but lightening the dark feathers seems familiar.

My original idea, that a PS setting related to printing was wrong does not appear to be the case. I think I should go back to the original image, convert from raw on my (now) calibrated screen and go through the printing again.

Don, your continued assistance is greatly appreciated,

-Irwin

[Irwin_Poche]

>you might want to download qimage for free and plug your profiles into this program

That's a good idea but Qimage is Windows only. Do you know of any comparable Mac program ?

[DonLashier]

[ QUOTE ]
The image's profile, btw, is "ProPhoto RGB" chosen, probably, for no particular reason other than that it sounds good.

Color Management: Off (No Color Adjustment)
Print: Document (Profile: Adobe RGB (1998))


[/ QUOTE ]
Now I'm confused, because if the image profile is prophoto then the "Print: Document" in printer setup should show the same. Where did prophoto come in, and I assume at some time it was -converted-to (not assigned) Adobe RGB.

> They look awfully good. Nothing in the clouds appears blown out. Looking for dark areas I find...

I wouldn't be so concerned about the shadows re this issue although they may point out other issues. But fwiw the black detail you pointed out is either very low or sacrificed as unimportant in trade for overall image contrast as I don't usually go to the trouble of masking for publishing web galleries.

The more important thing here is midtones - ie do the images overall look lighter than they should?

> The original image itself may be a problem. It's of a bald eagle on a cloudless day exposed so that its white head feathers weren't blown out. The dark body feathers are dark to begin with.

If this (printing dark) issue is based on just a single image, then it may well be specific image related, or at least aggravated by the specific image. It might be helpful if you could post the image. Also, you might try printing a grey scale or electronic macbeth and see how that compares with your monitor. But in any case, an overly bright monitor is sure to result in dark prints, you just need to figure out if this is the case for you.

- DL

[Irwin_Poche]

Sorry for the delay Don, had some other things to take care of.

> Now I'm confused, because if the image profile is prophoto then the "Print: Document" in printer setup should show the same. Where did prophoto come in, and I assume at some time it was -converted-to (not assigned) Adobe RGB.

They are the same now, I think the information I posted was incorrect. ProPhoto is the space I choose when converting from raw; otherwise, there's been no profile conversion or assignment. I have, btw, trashed the image and reconverted it from raw with no change in the end result, trying all the available color spaces, with and without black point compensation, and now with premium luster photo paper. Important to note is that I did no adjustments to the image at all.

>The more important thing here is midtones - ie do the images overall look lighter than they should?

I would say no.

> If this (printing dark) issue is based on just a single image, then it may well be specific image related, or at least aggravated by the specific image. It might be helpful if you could post the image. Also, you might try printing a grey scale or electronic macbeth and see how that compares with your monitor. But in any case, an overly bright monitor is sure to result in dark prints, you just need to figure out if this is the case for you.

The eagles feathers are definitely dark so I went looking for something hi-res which I hadn't shot. The few times I've taken the 5D out was on very bright cloudless days resulting in mostly high contrast shots. I found and downloaded this (882K) image and printed it. It looks good on paper but still the shadows (which aren't very dark) are darker on paper.

I made 11, 13, and 15 step grey scales (posterized gradient) in CS2 and every block is discernible on the screen - blocks 14 and 15 on the 15 step scale, just barely. When printed, the two darkest blocks on each of the three strips are not discernible. On each strip there appears to be quite a jump between the lightest two blocks.

My raw image can he downloaded from here. I'll soon have screen shots of settings there as well.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk to Epson and ColorVision to see if they have anything to add.

-Irwin