iMAC and epson 3880 print adjustment

[Jeff S]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Get the Kelby or Evening book and then take a walk in the park. If this basic concept confused you, you'll get many good tips on other topics and answers to other questions that you didn't know you had. Then you can move to the next level and begin to extract the best from your prints.

 

There are dozens of tweaks possible, even after you've mastered the basics. That's why I suggested minimizing variables and sticking with one paper to start. Given your current frustration and confusion, you'll be hard pressed to isolate and learn from actions and consequences when using multiple papers.

 

Jeff

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[IWC Doppel]

Jeff, thanks for the advice, sorry if I have shared my frustration.

 

The concepts I do at least in part understand, I have spent years setting up projectors and understand colour gamets and digital workflows, it's the application and software that has been my challenge.

 

I will hunt out some books and continue to learn. I am keeping notes with all of my prints so far.

 

In any event the weather is not so good for a walk in the park...

[Jeff S]

Jeff, thanks for the advice, sorry if I have shared my frustration.

 

Nothing to be sorry about; that's what the forum is for. We've all been there, and I can only share some advice after having navigated similar terrain.

 

Your situation now is much like a first time darkroom user. Initially you're just happy to understand how to work all the stuff...enlarger controls and such. Eventually you get through that and can focus on the harder part, which is all about aesthetic print judgments and decisions and how best to achieve them.

 

Good luck and keep asking. But get some primers, too. I'm still learning after 40+ years of print processing, film and digital.

 

Jeff

[IWC Doppel]

I am know making some progress and have a few nice prints

 

few questions :

 

1. Any ideas why I cannot find in my media type any options for cold press Natural, the manual states this paper should be printed using this media type (I can only find three options with Fine Art paper - Velvet, utlrasmooth and water-colour)

 

2. From what I have read you can there does seem to be a different view. I can only ise ABW mode when the color management, profile setting is 'managed by printer'. This seems in keeping with the manual. But as already noted Eric Chan instructe you to download the icc ABW driver and talks about setting the media type and tone, I can only adjust tone in ABW mode.

 

3. Any views on print sharpening or not, I have yet to do back to back, but wondered if most leave as standard with the correct paper setting ?

 

I am still reading

[IWC Doppel]

Another question

 

Recognising the pixel resolution of your image, say on a bordered A3+ image using an M9 file is 302 ppi should you leave the pixel Lightroom setting turned off, adjust the image to obtain say 300, I don't have photoshop so possibly just fractionally decrease the border or resize the image.

 

What happens if you select say 300 or 360 in lightroom will it interpolate the 302 down or up? I get the principle of pixel mapping but wondered what will happen and what is the best advised option?

 

PS sorry for the typos above.

[IWC Doppel]

I am know making some progress and have a few nice prints

 

few questions :

 

1. Any ideas why I cannot find in my media type any options for cold press Natural, the manual states this paper should be printed using this media type (I can only find three options with Fine Art paper - Velvet, utlrasmooth and water-colour)

 

2. From what I have read you can there does seem to be a different view. I can only ise ABW mode when the color management, profile setting is 'managed by printer'. This seems in keeping with the manual. But as already noted Eric Chan instructe you to download the icc ABW driver and talks about setting the media type and tone, I can only adjust tone in ABW mode.

 

3. Any views on print sharpening or not, I have yet to do back to back, but wondered if most leave as standard with the correct paper setting ?

 

I am still reading

 

For the benefit of others there is obviously and issue with the 3880 manual, I spoke to Epson and for Natural Cold Press paper the media type setting is Ultrasmooth fine art. The manual states to use natural cold press as the media type.

 

So it's only questions 2 and 3 !

[IWC Doppel]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

This thread does cover the issue with the Chan ABW and settings, seemingly a problem with mac OSX. A lot more information than I could wholeheartedly follow....

 

I will experiment with ABW and the correct icc and see how they look !

 

Use of Eric Chan's ABW profiiles for B&W printing

[IWC Doppel]

Another question

 

Recognising the pixel resolution of your image, say on a bordered A3+ image using an M9 file is 302 ppi should you leave the pixel Lightroom setting turned off, adjust the image to obtain say 300, I don't have photoshop so possibly just fractionally decrease the border or resize the image.

 

What happens if you select say 300 or 360 in lightroom will it interpolate the 302 down or up? I get the principle of pixel mapping but wondered what will happen and what is the best advised option?

 

PS sorry for the typos above.

 

I have answered my question here with more reading and understand the desirability of printing at 360 ppi (for matt papers) and the benefit of setting this before printing (hence using better compression software than in the printer). I am trying to find an easy LR4 solution and don't want to include photoshop in the chain. Ditto for expansion when as noted above the ppi is less than 360 ppi. At least this is a world I understand more about with my projector and scaling knowledge !

 

Any ideas/suggestions appreciated.

[IWC Doppel]

Useful information from Luminous Landscapes

 

"

ABW is not a natively colour (grey) managed process. It's a proprietary printer driver path that is supposed to be optimised for printing b&w. It's designed to work as a black box. You take what it gives you and aren't supposed to do anything else with it. Given that ABW was designed as a black box it was not designed to be used with ICC profiles. Big downside is you couldn't soft proof with it.

 

Prior to, about, a year ago you were able to effectively override the black box and kludge it to allow the use of specially made profiles both in the Mac and Windows operating systems. Eric Chan (of Adobe) created a number of profiles for the 3800 and 3880 printers and before he shut down his custom profiling service would create profiles for other Epson printers to be used with ABW. As these were true ICC profiles, you could soft proof and still print having the benefits of ABW (more black/less colour ink used, deeper DMax). Using these profiles produces lovely prints that are far and away better than what ABW produces without profiles.

 

Roughly a year ago, I believe, Apple changed the way colour management works in the Mac OS. It stopped allowing you to override so ICC profiles can no longer be used with ABW on a Mac running OS and driver versions of about a year ago. You can still print with ABW, just not with profiles. ABW is, for all intents and purposes, a specially built 'printer manages colour' option. Apple has stopped allowing you to select a printer managed pipeline when selecting application (Photoshop or LR) managed colour (grey). What they've done is eliminated the possibility of double colour management in printing if you forget to turn off printer colour management (as with most things Apple, they've dumbed it down). The downside is it eliminates the ability to use profiles with ABW. The Windows OS, as of current Windows 7 and Epson driver version 6.5 (on the 3800, can't speak for what the current version on other printers is) does still allow you to override the ABW black box and use profiles to print with the ABW pipeline (less colour ink, better DMax)."

[IWC Doppel]

I found this Using our Density Charts to identify the optimum printer driver settings which I am going to experiment with to look at the choice of media type and differences between the 3880 settings for some of the cheaper paper I am experimenting with whilst learning and see how adding density affects the balance between blacks/saturation and issues with too much ink being laid down.

 

I thought others might find this interesting as I have struggled to find much about media type adjustments and what is happening with these settings.

 

I will stick with known media types in the long run for obvious reasons and don't want to stray, but if I add say 10% density it would be good to see where compromises might be (Eric Chan talks about adding more ink for better blacks)

 

Sorry if I am going a little off track

[IWC Doppel]

I have read a lot regarding ppi and dpi settings and have settled on using LR and setting the resolution at 360 ppi if the resolution is 360 or below and 720 if over 360.

 

I am still learning about sharpening, I am settling on std. Any advice here ?

[IWC Doppel]

An update for those interested in my short experiences so far.

 

I am now looking at a colorMunki Display calibrated screen

 

Regading ppi and settings on the 3880 I found some very informative threads on Luminous Landscape and with a lot of input and people doing the experiment the best workflow solution seems to be :

 

Lightroom with no scaling or image size adjustment, no advantage of photshop or other scaling and the best solution for any image below 360 ppi before printing is to set the Lightroom print menu to 360 ppi and 720 ppi if above 360 ppi. Using 1440 dpi and 2880 dpi respectively

 

I have settled for B&W using Colourbyte Fine art soft textured 310gsm paper on the following setting (relatively cheap paper, not as nice as as Cold press Natural but less than 1/2 the price). I am not recommending the paper as I have little comparison, but would be interested if my final settings sound sensible for a more traditional paper ;

 

Advanced B&W, so colour profile 'managed by printer'

Fine adjustment 'dark'

Media type -Velvet Fine Art (preferred to Ultrasmooth)

Density = 8%

Paper 5, platen- wide

1440 dpi, 360 ppi

Print sharpening std

16 bit

I am adding 25% brightness and 30% contrast within lightroom print output, even using softproofing velvet fine art paper. I am still experimenting a little here.

 

I have found on this paper the ABW is giving better results than icc's (velvet fine art, ultra smooth, natural cold press etc from epson) and different mediatype settings. The ABW mode seems to give more graduation in the darker tones and possibly a little more contrast

[Jeff S]

Everyone's system, and judgment, is different. I find that custom profiles (i.e., based on one's own system) are far better than others...night and day in some cases. I generally get much better results than using ABW.

 

Papers can also make a huge difference, along with dozens of other tweaks, including toning (and split-toning), local adjustments, etc. for each and every print. Even matting, framing and lighting can alter the look and feel of each print.

 

In darkroom days, how someone else set their enlarger dials would be irrelevant to me. There are too may other more relevant variables, many of which are subtle and unique to each print. Digital is no different; only the tools vary, and even then it's up to the user to determine how to use them and to what effect.

 

Jeff

[IWC Doppel]

I am taking a day off on Wednesday the 5th November to spend a day on an epson course called the perfect black and white print. It's run by Paul Gallagher and is £85 for the day including coffee and lunch !

 

aspect2i - photography workshop - The Perfect Black & White Print

 

 

It would be great to see a few others there, thought some might benefit too

 

Rgds

[algrove]

I read this thread. It confused me. However, I have a couple of comments.

 

I NEVER let the printer control anything. It should just take instructions from your software since it is a simple output device. I use Pro Photo (the largest color space), 16 bit, 360 ppi routinely and 2880 dpi.

 

Do you soft proof?

 

Get the LuLa LR4 tutorials. They have very good advice for USD60. with many hours of very good instruction.

 

I have not had good luck creating my own profiles and as one pro advised me that these papers manufacturers have many experts creating their profiles who know their own paper better than we do, so why try and reinvent the wheel again versus just downloading their profiles. Then soft proof. Your screen is back lit, but prints are front lit, therefore the need for soft proofing.

 

Just keep in mind that the ink the printer is laying down with matte paper is considerably more than with glossy paper so match that up no matter what paper you are using and you will not get ink dripping off the edges of your prints from selecting a matte paper while putting in glossy paper.

[IWC Doppel]

Algrove, thanks

 

I intend to use profiles from the manufacturer where possible for all the right reasons, but with some cheaper papers the profiles are not available. But in principle I agree, why reinvent what has already been done on better equipment, by more knowledgeable people. however there are lots of fans of bespoke profiles, so I remain open minded.

 

Regarding the printer control, I know understand that with LR4, iMac 10.6> and using ABW there is unfortunately no option I will see what the epson guys do for B&W prints regarding icc profiles or ABW mode.

 

Interesting your point about printer control, I have found threads where people have experimented and found LR4 choosing the ppi at 360 or 720 producing better results than moving via photoshop or other programs to 360 ppi. I have not tried but find the results very good with this method.

 

I will have a look for the LR4 tutorials by Lula, thanks. Yes I do soft proof with a calibrated screen.

[Jeff S]

papers manufacturers have many experts creating their profiles who know their own paper better than we do, so why try and reinvent the wheel again versus just downloading their profiles. Then soft proof. Your screen is back lit, but prints are front lit, therefore the need for soft proofing.

 

Not true. Paper manufacturers have no access to your equipment, and that's why the the word custom is relevant; they can't account for variations in print gear. And you have the same access to their paper after you buy it as they do; in fact only you can account for batch variations if you want to really go crazy.

 

Of course the old theory of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) applies. There are outstanding custom profiles and not-so-great custom profiles. Only the best profiling gear, software and technique will reveal the benefits. But, if so, the results can be noticeably better. My prints are all the proof I need. I have prints that have incrementally improved even after making a custom profile by running a new and better profile using updated profiling software and more patches.

 

Second, soft-proofing won't do anything to improve an inadequate profile (GIGO). It will get your print closer to the screen version (but even then, a screen display is never exactly the same as a print IMO), but every link in the chain, including the profile, has impact.

 

Granted, some people either don't care about these fine distinctions or don't have the equipment or technique to do it better themselves (or with the help of an outside service). But for those who do, the improvements are clear.

 

Jeff

[archi4]

Jeff,

I agree entirely as this has been my experience as well.

The investment I made years ago for x-rite i1PRO and updating when a newer version comes out has been well worth it in time and expense.

I never have to tweak anything in programs, I have no paper or ink loss, and if the image is to my liking on screen in LR4, or Capture One, I know the print on any of the papers I choose will be extremely close to the screen.

The only canned profiles which make no difference (I compared many) are those from Harman.

maurice

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[otto.f]

Mija, hi

 

I ownder what might be going wrong, but if I choose the profile then in the 'print...' pulls up the same menu as 'print settings' on the bottom right hand side and I can choose media type, but I cannot do any advanced color adjustment or use ABW

 

If I choose ABW then the setting on the profile needs to be 'managed by printer'

 

Plus whatever I do I cannot choose any media type fine art paper as this is always greyed out

 

Tks

 

You should ignore ALL options where EPSON does the settings, color, AWB, whatever.

LR, or PS, or whatever PP-program should manage colors. In the Mac-window of printer settings you should put Color settings: OFF !! LR already did that for you, right hand side beneath. There you find your paper ICC-profiles for your paper if you properly installed as in post #12 and 13. If you use EPSON color settings this ICC-profile of the paper company will always be overruled, you don't want that.

I work with iMac 24" and Epson 3800, but in my experience you seldom have the perfect print in the first run. Especially in brightness, there are always unexpected things (mostly darker), depending on the specific photo; so proof-printing remains always necessary as in the good old dark room. This remains true even after perfectly calibrating your screen with EYE-or whatever comparable software. Besides, Mac-screens are in essence too bright to be a good match with printing. Turn the brightness button on your keyboard to the lowest level. But a non-glossy screen is preferable, that's s what experts told me.

[IWC Doppel]

Otto, hi

 

Thanks for your note, I am still learning with soft proofing and do find it easier with a calibrated screen, I have set lumens at 100, which is about bar 5 on the brightness. ( I allowed the probe to set then measured and it was the same lumens as I had set using a camera and exposure on a white screen (a neat method recommended on one thread) which was 5

 

I only adjust using LR, it is LR that insists you set, within the LR menu "managed by printer" otherwise ABW mode is not accessible. As noted there is insight into this in luminous landscape threads and how currently Eric Chans icc profiles for ABW mode are not usable with LR4 and Mac. I have not in estivated yet, but will buy the full Lula Lightroom videos and there is a supplementary video by Eric released on 20 September that looks interesting as well.

 

I will feed back from my course on the 5th I'm very much looking forward to it.