Re: ProfilerPlus experiences

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--- "Paul D. DeRocco" <pderocco@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> My printer's an Epson 2000P, and my scanner's an Epson 1640. I was trying to
> calibrate the printer using Epson photo paper, which, though it's not listed
> as one of the standard media types in the 2000P driver, I've found produces
> reasonably good prints if I select Watercolor Paper.
> 
> The results were absolutely horrible. I followed the instructions very
> carefully, twice, once using Photoshop 6 and the second time using Photoshop
> 5 (under Win2K).

You made only two attempts, and expect a perfect profile? For that kind of
accuracy you need a spectrophotometer.

> 
> However, the method 1 print had a serious problem in that a gradient with a
> mild purple tint turned heavily saturated purple at the dark end, with a
> fairly sharp boundary between the dark, saturated purple and the more nearly
> correct purplish-gray around it. I suspect that somehow the profile has a
> discontinuity in it, but the ICCInspect utility that I use to look at
> profiles doesn't know how to display 3D curves graphically.

What image are you using to test? Profiles don't handle saturated color
gradients well. With "real-world" images this isn't a problem. Use the
PhotoDisc target inluded with ProfilerPlus to test your profiles. Compare the
PhotoDisc prints to your (newly calibrated) monitor.

> In my case,
> my Epson 1640 has always produced okay color, but not so good that I
> wouldn't feel the need to tweak it in Photoshop. Therefore, I'd expect to
> have to tweak colors in Photoshop roughly the same amount, prior to printing
> via a profile built with that scanner. But that doesn't leave me any better
> off than using the canned profile. And indeed, the ProfilerPlus generated
> profile is worse, due to the nasty purple discontinuity in it.

An output profile doesn't correct your input. If you felt you needed to
calibrate your scanner, you bought the wrong package.

> 
> Their profile builder includes sliders for tweaking the color, saturation
> and contrast of the profile, and they suggest making iterative test prints
> in order to get the profiles right. But that defeats the purpose of
> profiling.

No, it doesn't, because once you have a good profile you don't have to do the
iterative adjustments anymore, and you can use accurate soft-proofing to
correct for any deficiencies the profile might have with certain images
*before* printing. Using Epson's standard profile on Windows, you cannot
correct for deficiencies without making iterative prints for every image.

> I'd sooner start with the canned Epson printer profile, and tweak
> that using the same tools, and entirely skip the part about printing a
> target and running it through the scanner.

Then I have to wonder why you bought the package in the first place.

> 
> So, two questions. First, can anyone explain why turning on ICM in the 2000P
> driver and associating the profile with the printer in Win2K (method 1)
> produces such very different results from assigning the profile in Photoshop
> and turning off color control in the print driver (method 2)? 

Method 1 is a bad idea. Stick with Method 2.

> And second,
> can anyone give me any ideas on how I might coax some better profiles out of
> this thing?
> 

Use the PhotoDisc target to test your profiles. Follow the guide on Ian Lyon's
site for scanning ProfilerRGB/Plus targets with Epson scanners. Finally, call
ColorVision, tell them your problem and ask them for help.

Matt

=====
Bird Photograpy, Articles, New Jersey Site Guides
http://www.mhbirdphoto.com
mhagadorn@attglobal.net

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