Ink limits were set by visually inspecting the Onyx target.
Can we talk about how we optimize the pre-profiling calibration steps (ink restrictions, linearization, and total ink limits)? RIPs often don’t provide much help here because they don’t give us great tools or analyzing what’s happening so that we can make an educated decision. For initial per channel ink restrictions, some RIPs give us sliders as if to say “Just set them where you want it” while others come up with a suggestion without telling us how they came up with it. A lot of times people like us make an educated guess but are left wondering “Was that the perfect setting? Could it have been better?” When it comes to total ink limits we might test 300, 360 and 400 TIL, for example, and see which looks best. But all are of these approaches appease “good enough” but don’t represent "optimal". The optimal cyan ink restriction might be 76.71% and the optimal TIL might be 342.2%. How do we get to that quickly and easily and stop messing around with glorified guesswork? I’d like to think we can take a data driven approach for scientifically determining the optimal settings for each step in the calibration process. I’ve been geeking out on this for a long time and have created a methodology for this that works with any printing process through any RIP. I call it the ChromaMax calibration methodology and you can read more if you like at https://www.on-sight.com/chromamax/ <https://www.on-sight.com/chromamax/> I also have some blog articles examining the different steps in some detail, like this one: CHROMAMAX PART 1: PRINTER INK RESTRICTIONS https://www.on-sight.com/chromamax-printer-ink-restrictions/ Solvent is a funny beast. If the ink restrictions are too high you’ll have to lower the total ink limits so far it will hurt print quality. If the ink restrictions are too low you will hurt print quality even though you can set the total ink limits really high. There is a see-saw effect here to manage so that you can find that "sweet spot” for optimal over all image quality. So ink restrictions are one part, linearization is another, total ink limiting is another and the final profile is the last. If the three pre-profiling steps are really done right (or what I like to call "optimally”), the final profile won’t have to work as hard and you’ll achieve maximum color gamut, DMax, and have excellent colorimetric color matching like it sounds like you’re looking for. So what I’m suggesting is all these steps are important, not just ink restrictions. Cheers Scott Martin www.on-sight.com <http://www.on-sight.com/>