Profiling the Fujix and other woes.
Profiling the Fujix and other woes.
- Subject: Profiling the Fujix and other woes.
- From: Nick Wheeler <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:14:46 -0500
on 12/21/01 8:17 AM, Ted Dillard at email@hidden wrote:
>
i'm assuming i print it without assigning a profile, and turning all image
>
processing off?
Ted
Yes, make absolutely sure all image processing is off. Or said better - It
is absolutely essential to get any device you are trying to profile to a
consistent state somehow. You would think this would be easy but it ain't. A
lot of these devices, applications, drivers etc are like automatic cameras
with no manual override.
So maybe you have to turn it all on in a way that puts the printer in an
accurate and repeatable state.
F'rinstance it is very possible that the newer Fujix drivers are now looking
for an embedded profile, or at the working space profile assigned in
Photoshop or even the profiles in the colorsync control panel. Who knows, I
sure don't. Thats the problem with all this garbage. Maybe you need to go
back to an older driver, are there preferences? Can you change them?
One thing you must do is a couple of prints with different profiles
assigned, to make sure that this has no impact on the printer - otherwise
you know there is image processing going on without your say so.
If an assigned profile does change things and you can't turn it off, you
could be chasing your tail forever. In that case you must choose a profile
to assign before creating a new profile, probably your workingspace is best.
Then after you use the newly created profile in "mode convert to profile"
you must be sure to reassign the working space profile before printing in
order to fool the Fujix in to being consistent.
Got that?
I use a really old Fujix driver here which was released in the days BC
(before colorsync), so I am fairly certain it is not doing any colorsync
processing. Unfortunately it won't drive the 4000.
I believe this may have been the problem at Martha's house. In Martha's case
we would make a change in the driver dialog box but the change would not be
accepted, always returning to default. We couldn't figure out which setting
was actually being employed, or what to do about it.
This is what was happening with my scanner. I established settings that I
assumed were consistent, unbeknownst to me the scanner was happily auto
neutraling itself for every scan. So a profile valid for the IT8 target was
totally invalid for every other image, as the scanner was resetting itself
for each and every image.
As usual this setting was buried in a tiny drop down menu hidden in the
corner of an obscure dialog box. I consider myself lucky, I only had to
fight with this for about three months before a consultant in New Jersey
(Don Hutcheson) was able to point out to me where the problem was, and Mark
Doyle knew the fix. There was also a lengthy dialog in there with a friend
in California (Joe Holmes) that got me off on the right path after a month
of wandering aimlessly in the bush.
I had worse luck with another scanner a while back: the Scanview F8+ with
Color Quartet. No one was familiar with that puppy and it took me over a
year to sort it all out. Again the fix was unbelievably obscure.
Scanners in general are a real nightmare to profile.
Best to imagine you are in a recording studio trying to make a professional
recording. In front of you is a mixing board with random knobs placed hither
and yon, all of them mislabled and some interconnected. You have to tweak
every knob to see what it does, label it properly, then on to tweak the next
one, then check back to see if that tweak somehow made the previous knob
change its mind.
And thats only the mixing board.
It's always good to compare notes with other recording engineers to see what
they have discovered. You will generally disagree, but it makes for good
entertainment.
Happy holidaze,
Nick