I am printing from Lightroom 2.2 to an Epson 3800 on Ilford Gold Fibre Silk. I am using Ilfords ICC profile for this paper. Here is the issue: What I see on my clibrated monitor in Develope is exactly what I want but when I see the print preview it takes on a cyanotic cast. The print matches that preview to a tee. But I want it to look like what I see in the Deveolpe. Any thoughts? Maybe I need to go see Nat for some lessons! Thanks in advance!
My experience with manufaacturer-supplied profiles has not been very good. Ilford is one I recall being exceptionally poor. Buy custom profiles for the papers you use, or get something like Colorbyte Software's ImagePrint RIP which has outstanding profiles for virtually every paper on earth. It's $895 for your printer. Profiles are free. If you find a paper they have not profiled, send them samples and they will profile it for free. If I sound like a commercial for ImagePrint it's because I have used it in my studio for the last two years and had great success. We have it licensed on a 7800 and a couple of R2400's.
You can also buy the equipment to roll your own profiles. The price of admission starts around $2000 for pro-level colorimeters.
Thanks Kelly! That confirms what I suspected was the problem. I decided to not use the ICC profile and let LR control the printing. This worked much better!
Posted by Mel Ladewig on March 23, 2009 at 10:40 AM
On the other side of this coin, I'm printing on the 3800 through Photoshop CS3 with the Ilford GFS profile and am very happy with the quality of this profile. I have not printed at all through lightroom so I don't know what may be happening there.
There is also a check box ...maybe your printing is being managed by printer??? I do know that when you print through Lightroom, whatever shows in the print preview, it's gonna print that. If it doesn't look right to me there, I start changing settings. Sharon
Posted by John Klotz on March 24, 2009 at 12:23 AM
Thanks Sharon. I know about the check box and made sure I was not having a conflict by trying to print with both the ICC profile and printer color managment.
Posted by Nat Coalson on March 25, 2009 at 1:18 PM
You will always get the most accurate prints using a custom profile (this is letting Lightroom handle color management on the output; through the profile) and disabling ALL color management in the driver
(except for black and white on the Epsons; let the printer handle color management and use the Advanced BW controls in the Epson driver).
I haven't used Ilford's profile, I make a custom profile for everything I print on.... I can make you a custom profile; info here.
Some profiles provided by paper manufacturers can be very good; it's hit and miss and depends on how much effort they put into the process... depending on the equipment used and the number of color patch readings taken, printer/paper profiles will vary in gamut. I use the X-Rite Pulse system which after several years use still generates excellent profiles.
You can use software to view the gamuts of profiles loaded on your computer; Mac ColorSync and Windows Color Management control panels both provide this feature.
If you're using a RIP, set Lightroom to use printer color management and let the RIP handle it, assuming you have accurate profiles for the RIP. (Some profiling systems can make custom profiles for RIPs, too.)
And whether you're using a RIP or not, for some images it might be worth trying both Perceptual and Relative rendering intents - though I nearly always use Relative.
Discussion
6 repliesYou can also buy the equipment to roll your own profiles. The price of admission starts around $2000 for pro-level colorimeters.
(except for black and white on the Epsons; let the printer handle color management and use the Advanced BW controls in the Epson driver).
I haven't used Ilford's profile, I make a custom profile for everything I print on.... I can make you a custom profile; info here.
Some profiles provided by paper manufacturers can be very good; it's hit and miss and depends on how much effort they put into the process... depending on the equipment used and the number of color patch readings taken, printer/paper profiles will vary in gamut. I use the X-Rite Pulse system which after several years use still generates excellent profiles.
You can use software to view the gamuts of profiles loaded on your computer; Mac ColorSync and Windows Color Management control panels both provide this feature.
If you're using a RIP, set Lightroom to use printer color management and let the RIP handle it, assuming you have accurate profiles for the RIP. (Some profiling systems can make custom profiles for RIPs, too.)
And whether you're using a RIP or not, for some images it might be worth trying both Perceptual and Relative rendering intents - though I nearly always use Relative.