Giles, I'll have a go at answering some of your problems.. > I am re-posting this with the original subject field, because after very > quick flurry of replies to the initial query, no response at all to this and > so wondering if the thread had been lost somewhere... maybe amongst the > myriad Neil Barstow eulogies. I apologise to the mums if this is out of > order, but I seemed to be making progress and was looking forward to getting > to the bottom of the prob. > > Firstly, I am very thankful for any advice that anyone can throw my way. I > don't mind whether advice stems from personal experience or professional - > if its free and it helps, i'm grateful. If someone is truly helpful and they > incidentally offer a commercial service that I can use, then I am pleased to > now about it and much more inclined to use them than someone whose > helpfulness is untested (my database of suppliers has a > pleasure-to-do-business-with-ness ranking). > > I totally understand that the only way to get a truly accurate and > predictable result is to have monitor and printer calibrated, as they will > all be unique to a greater or lesser degree (if something can be 'less' > unique?). What I expect from a generic profile is similar to what I would > hope for in a proof print from my own black and white darkroom: black at > black, white at white (after all 0%C 0%M 0%Y 0%K is pretty unambiguous), and > everything else roughly in the right place in between. Then I know whether > it is worth spending time (and money) refining the output... in this case > seeing the potential of the setup and deciding whether to spend money on > perfect calibration. > > Now, results so far, using Mac OS9.0.4, Photoshop 6.0.
As already mentioned, its probably worth updating to 9.1 and photoshop 6.01, also make sure you are using the latest version of colorsync. > > Using Thomas Holm's advice, converted to profile first using Adobe ACE > engine, then printed using no conversion. This produced (bingo) no unwanted > background colour, but a rather unpleasantly coloured print that was > nonetheless rather similar to the converted image as displayed by p'shop. I > guess that this is perfectly possible as (from what I can tell) any CMYK > gamut is going to be within that of an RGB screen. Have tried some other > engines (Apple CMM and Heidleberg CMM) and the result appear the same. Are you sure you did CONVERT to profile... There shouldn't be significant changes in colour appearance, maybe a shift in density in shadow areas where an inkjet will need most adjustment, and maybe some strong primary colours will look less saturated, but on the whole the image should look the same. Maybe you did ASSIGN profile, which would shift the colour appearance considerably. > > Armed with this info, it appears that the conversion to profile can be done. Check again (see above) > > The problem is... the final image (as appears on print and screen) is not > the same appearance as the original scan, with which I was happy and had > required very little adjustment. Some weird things have happened (e.g. > clipping of black and white points shown in 'levels') as well as significant > shifts of red and green. Do I have to manipulate the converted image back to > the original appearance (prob not as easy as theory suggests, and a time > consuming pain in the butt), or can someone suggest how to get the computer > to do the conversion properly (knowing now that the generic printer profile > can be used to generate a roughly accurate print of what appears on screen)? Try doing this: I'm assuming you are using adobe gamma to calibrate your monitor, but if you obtain a known greyscale, perhaps a Kodak step wedge or a macbeth chart, use that to compare with your screen, its better than adobe gamma on its own, but not as good of course as a hardware calibrator. Make sure the resulting monitor profile is selected in the monitors control panel. Open the colorsync control panel, ( I'm not using os9 anymore so going from memory here) set your monitor in there too, also set document space to adobe rgb and the output to your printer profile and the cmm to adobe ACE. In PS, go to colour settings and set: Advanced mode Working space Adobe1998 Relative colormetric Check black point compensation. Cmm = Adobe ACE Everything to ask when.. Don�t worry about cmyk and greyscale for now. Open a document In PS. If its not tagged with adobe1998 it will ask what to do, in which case, select convert to profile. Bring up the print dialogue The document space is Adobe1998 The print space is your printer profile Open the custom settings, set no colour adjustment (important) Make sure your paper type is correct, dpi is 1440,etc Hit print. The result should be representive of what you see on screen, if not check everything, and repost here, with all your details, paper, ink etc. > Rather ignorantly perhaps, it seems to me that the previous (normal) method > was bunging a layer of magenta and cyan over the whole printed image (whites > and all) to get the converted (red and green shifted) image to look like the > Adobe RGB 1998 rendition. It would be virtually impossible to correct images in PS for consistent inkjet output, don't even try > > (By the way Neil, I have '1290-Fton-manualv4.pdf', which I guess is the > manual you are referring to. Its all out the window using the above method > though... apart from printer res etc. Also my 1290 refers to itself as a > 1290S... is this an indication of mods, or has this always been the case?) > > Thanks to all so far > > Giles Good luck Dave Greenwood =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
