Color managing tablets
Couldn't resist buying a Win7 tablet last night. It's an ASUS Eee P121 (under $1k). I won't go into the hardware details but I measured it's beautiful 10" LED screen this morning and found from 185 (6100K) to 320 cd/m2 (6200K), depending on the viewing angle. Since this is a full blown Windows operating system, I have access to a wealth of good tools for calibrating and ICC profiling. As soon as I throw Adobe Photoshop, I'll have a "respectable" color system. Not "best", because the screen is not very well polarized, as you can see. / Roger
In the past I have always found Bill Atkinson's "9600 profiles" to be the answer to my problems. Recently I have been getting very dark results. I have tried many solutions, not the least of which, was to use PM4.1 Profile Editor to make "Global Correction" lightening of the profile itself. While this has some value, it is not "good" and I've never needed to go this direction before. I have even tried the profiles Epson shipped with the printer; no joy there as you might imagine. The results were even darker. I have begun to wonder if my printer could just be "darkening" everything. This does not seem to make sense. Has anyone run into this? The machine had new heads and a general tune-up about 2 years ago. TX Tim Vitale Paper and Photographs Conservator Oakland, CA 510-594-82877
Post the system versions and the software your are printing with, please On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 5:48 AM, Tim Vitale <tjvitale@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
In the past I have always found Bill Atkinson's "9600 profiles" to be the answer to my problems.
Recently I have been getting very dark results. I have tried many solutions, not the least of which, was to use PM4.1 Profile Editor to make "Global Correction" lightening of the profile itself. While this has some value, it is not "good" and I've never needed to go this direction before. I have even tried the profiles Epson shipped with the printer; no joy there as you might imagine. The results were even darker.
I have begun to wonder if my printer could just be "darkening" everything. This does not seem to make sense. Has anyone run into this?
The machine had new heads and a general tune-up about 2 years ago.
TX
Tim Vitale Paper and Photographs Conservator Oakland, CA 510-594-82877
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Hey Tim. Your situation is common. These printers do change over time - especially after heavy usage. All you need to do is make a fresh set of custom profiles. If made well you'll see better results than ever. Scott Martin www.on-sight.com On Sep 8, 2011, at 10:48 PM, Tim Vitale wrote:
In the past I have always found Bill Atkinson's "9600 profiles" to be the answer to my problems.
Recently I have been getting very dark results. I have tried many solutions, not the least of which, was to use PM4.1 Profile Editor to make "Global Correction" lightening of the profile itself. While this has some value, it is not "good" and I've never needed to go this direction before. I have even tried the profiles Epson shipped with the printer; no joy there as you might imagine. The results were even darker.
I have begun to wonder if my printer could just be "darkening" everything. This does not seem to make sense. Has anyone run into this?
The machine had new heads and a general tune-up about 2 years ago.
TX
Tim Vitale Paper and Photographs Conservator Oakland, CA 510-594-82877
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Thanks Scott. The problem is the 9600 was the last Epson Pro without internal linearization The Atkinson profiles were made with several iterations of the profiling process to carefully define the shifts between inks, such as light cyan to cyan, specific to pattern-of-dots used by the 9600's print engine for the specific paper. When I talked to him I think (many years ago) he said he profiled in many steps/iterations (maybe 8 times) each just one RGB number (for each patch) higher. I'm not sure how to preserve those valuable response curves created by Atkinson, yet update the changes in the machine over time. My immediate response was to convert [in PS, <Convert-t-Profile>] a small i1 target (RGB 1.5, 288-patch) to the respective Atkinson profile, and then, to profile (or, re-profile) based on that [modified] target. Unfortunately, the result was a much "darker and greener" image when using the protocol (convert the image to the Atkinson profile) with the second profile. I called it a "helper" profile. So, that didn't work, or I did it wrong. I guess I just have to bite the bullet and profile using Atkinson's 4096-patch i1 target to make a new profile. When I use ColorThink to look at the Neutral Rendering Curves (using Profile Inspector, Curves tab) for the Atkinson and Epson-supplied profiles, they look different. There are definitely more bumps in the upper part of the red and blue lines. Do you have any suggestions? I'll be using PM4.1 with a 4096-patch i1 target (made by Atkinson) and an i1Pro with the hand-powered scan table that came with it. Tim Vitale Paper and Photographs Conservator Oakland, CA 510-594-82877 -----Original Message----- From: Scott Martin [mailto:scott@on-sight.com] Hey Tim. Your situation is common. These printers do change over time - especially after heavy usage. All you need to do is make a fresh set of custom profiles. If made well you'll see better results than ever. Scott Martin www.on-sight.com
if Color Base was available in 9600 days, it may well be worth the time to find, install, and run it on the media settings you use for the particular Atkinson profiles. I have not seen Epson drift over the years to the extent you imply, I would suspect an OS, app, or driver update, or combination of those, the be the problem. Or media manufacture evolution? The ColorThink curves are telling you more about what each profile measurement data is reporting about the state of uncorrected output at measurement time than anything else, and differences may even just be between the devices used for each. Without all things being equal, device, software, settings, etc etc, with a before and after profile made identically to compare curves, I'm not sure the curves are helping with your particular issues right now. Tyler
Thanks Scott.
The problem is the 9600 was the last Epson Pro without internal linearization The Atkinson profiles were made with several iterations of the profiling process to carefully define the shifts between inks, such as light cyan to cyan, specific to pattern-of-dots used by the 9600's print engine for the specific paper. When I talked to him I think (many years ago) he said he profiled in many steps/iterations (maybe 8 times) each just one RGB number (for each patch) higher.
I'm not sure how to preserve those valuable response curves created by Atkinson, yet update the changes in the machine over time. My immediate response was to convert [in PS, <Convert-t-Profile>] a small i1 target (RGB 1.5, 288-patch) to the respective Atkinson profile, and then, to profile (or, re-profile) based on that [modified] target. Unfortunately, the result was a much "darker and greener" image when using the protocol (convert the image to the Atkinson profile) with the second profile. I called it a "helper" profile. So, that didn't work, or I did it wrong.
I guess I just have to bite the bullet and profile using Atkinson's 4096-patch i1 target to make a new profile.
When I use ColorThink to look at the Neutral Rendering Curves (using Profile Inspector, Curves tab) for the Atkinson and Epson-supplied profiles, they look different. There are definitely more bumps in the upper part of the red and blue lines.
Do you have any suggestions?
I'll be using PM4.1 with a 4096-patch i1 target (made by Atkinson) and an i1Pro with the hand-powered scan table that came with it.
Tim Vitale Paper and Photographs Conservator Oakland, CA 510-594-82877
-----Original Message----- From: Scott Martin [mailto:scott@on-sight.com]
Hey Tim. Your situation is common. These printers do change over time - especially after heavy usage. All you need to do is make a fresh set of custom profiles. If made well you'll see better results than ever.
Scott Martin www.on-sight.com
_______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Colorsync-users mailing list (Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/colorsync-users/tyler%40tylerboley.co...
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Thanks Tyler -----Original Message----- From: colorsync-users-bounces+tjvitale=ix.netcom.com@lists.apple.com [mailto:colorsync-users-bounces+tjvitale=ix.netcom.com@lists.apple.com]O n Behalf Of tyler@tylerboley.com Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 12:06 PM To: colorsync-users@lists.apple.com Subject: RE: Problems with Atkinson profiles on an Epson 9600 if Color Base was available in 9600 days, it may well be worth the time to find, install, and run it on the media settings you use for the particular Atkinson profiles. TJV: Looks like ColorBase was only available for Stylus R2400 & Pro 4800/7800/9800 and later, not 76/9600. Too bad, it looks like its the ticket for linearization to factory specifications. I have not seen Epson drift over the years to the extent you imply, I would suspect an OS, app, or driver update, or combination of those, the be the problem. Or media manufacture evolution? TJV: I feel the same about the degree of drift I have seen. You can be sure: I have been over and over the setup trying to find the small error that is producing this effect. The OS and version of PS are the same as when I didn't see this effect. The driver updates, well, time just can't be rolled back system move forward. I used to print the same images from both Mac and PC based PS and never saw any difference. I saw Epson as very stable and uniform. I'm with you on this issue, just haven't seen this type of problem. The ColorThink curves are telling you more about what each profile measurement data is reporting about the state of uncorrected output at measurement time than anything else, and differences may even just be between the devices used for each. Without all things being equal, device, software, settings, etc etc, with a before and after profile made identically to compare curves, I'm not sure the curves are helping with your particular issues right now. TJV: I'm hearing you, but I saw the curves made by Atkinson at a presentation. They were much more complex than those shown in ColorThink, but related. They were the real deal. If I'm not misunderstanding, its all about taking the output and correcting it back to a standard, thus the curve represents how much change has to be made to get output back to a standard state. I see that you run an artist quality digital printing service, so you know the issues. Have you ever tried to build a new profile built on a previous version. Seems as if you might have been there. Thanks for your interest and advice, I'm chewing on what you've said. Tim Vitale Paper and Photographs Conservator Oakland, CA 510-594-82877
Tim Vitale wrote:
....
I see that you run an artist quality digital printing service, so you know the issues.
Have you ever tried to build a new profile built on a previous version. Seems as if you might have been there. The issues and how they are dealt with are different for me. I removed all OS, driver, and imaging app influence from the mix by using a RIP, years ago. So any reason to suspect some kind of change first puts me into a re-linearization, which more resembles the Color Base option, then re-profiling over that if necessary (rare). My biggest constancy issue tends to be paper batches, so monitoring printer drift due to age may be more difficult for me.. as things tend to be brought back into line somewhat regularly anyway. At this point, since it seems you've covered the bases with making sure you're in the same hard/software place you were before the change... just walking away from the Atkinsons and moving forward with new profiles may be the best solution.... possibly even better than where you were. Tyler
green tint on Epsons indicates driver corruption in my experience. I have a 9600, never had any problems profiling it, if you have a scanning spectro big targets do it well. Edmund On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:05 PM, <tyler@tylerboley.com> wrote:
if Color Base was available in 9600 days, it may well be worth the time to find, install, and run it on the media settings you use for the particular Atkinson profiles. I have not seen Epson drift over the years to the extent you imply, I would suspect an OS, app, or driver update, or combination of those, the be the problem. Or media manufacture evolution? The ColorThink curves are telling you more about what each profile measurement data is reporting about the state of uncorrected output at measurement time than anything else, and differences may even just be between the devices used for each. Without all things being equal, device, software, settings, etc etc, with a before and after profile made identically to compare curves, I'm not sure the curves are helping with your particular issues right now. Tyler
Thanks Scott.
The problem is the 9600 was the last Epson Pro without internal linearization The Atkinson profiles were made with several iterations of the profiling process to carefully define the shifts between inks, such as light cyan to cyan, specific to pattern-of-dots used by the 9600's print engine for the specific paper. When I talked to him I think (many years ago) he said he profiled in many steps/iterations (maybe 8 times) each just one RGB number (for each patch) higher.
I'm not sure how to preserve those valuable response curves created by Atkinson, yet update the changes in the machine over time. My immediate response was to convert [in PS, <Convert-t-Profile>] a small i1 target (RGB 1.5, 288-patch) to the respective Atkinson profile, and then, to profile (or, re-profile) based on that [modified] target. Unfortunately, the result was a much "darker and greener" image when using the protocol (convert the image to the Atkinson profile) with the second profile. I called it a "helper" profile. So, that didn't work, or I did it wrong.
I guess I just have to bite the bullet and profile using Atkinson's 4096-patch i1 target to make a new profile.
When I use ColorThink to look at the Neutral Rendering Curves (using Profile Inspector, Curves tab) for the Atkinson and Epson-supplied profiles, they look different. There are definitely more bumps in the upper part of the red and blue lines.
Do you have any suggestions?
I'll be using PM4.1 with a 4096-patch i1 target (made by Atkinson) and an i1Pro with the hand-powered scan table that came with it.
Tim Vitale Paper and Photographs Conservator Oakland, CA 510-594-82877
-----Original Message----- From: Scott Martin [mailto:scott@on-sight.com]
Hey Tim. Your situation is common. These printers do change over time - especially after heavy usage. All you need to do is make a fresh set of custom profiles. If made well you'll see better results than ever.
Scott Martin www.on-sight.com
_______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Colorsync-users mailing list (Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
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participants (6)
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edmund ronald
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Roger Breton
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Scott Martin
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Tim Vitale
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Tyler Boley
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