Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop (zackchan)

User

Fri 15-Dec-00 09:25 AM

Hi All...

I'm currently experiencing a few problems with PhotoShop 5.5 and my Canon BJC-8200. The problem arises when it comes to printing a photo.... the output of the print doesn't match the monitor...its way far from it. I have done the Gamma adjustments, and almost everything else. I think it might be a problem with my current monitor. Its an ADI MicroScan 4V. It doesn't have any ICM profiles, and I have done a bit of searching over the 'net and came up with nothing.... Are profiles available for my monitor, or have I missed out on something important? BTW, I'm using Kodak Premium Photo Paper....

Thanks!!

Later,

Zacka Gerard Chan

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Subject	Author	Message Date	ID
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	15th Dec 2000	1
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	Mikepoison	15th Dec 2000	2
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	15th Dec 2000	3
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	16th Dec 2000	4
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	16th Dec 2000	5
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	16th Dec 2000	6
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	17th Dec 2000	7
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	17th Dec 2000	8
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	18th Dec 2000	9
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	19th Dec 2000	13
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	18th Dec 2000	10
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	19th Dec 2000	11
RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop	User	19th Dec 2000	12
Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	20th Dec 2000	14
RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	21st Dec 2000	15
RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	21st Dec 2000	16
RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	21st Dec 2000	17
RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	22nd Dec 2000	18
RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	29th Dec 2000	19
RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	29th Dec 2000	20
RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!	User	29th Dec 2000	21

User

#1. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 0

Fri 15-Dec-00 12:23 PM

You don't really need monitor profiles to calibrate your monitor under Photoshop 5.5. If you haven't already done so, run the Adobe Gamma wizard from Color Management under the Help menu. This should produce a very good calibration for your monitor.

I suspect that you are having greater problems with you printer profile, or lack thereof. If your Canon printer driver uses ICC profiles, it will only provide profiles for Canon and perhaps HP paper (whatever paper types you can choose from in the printer driver). Short of getting into doing your own profiles, you should try selecting from the different paper types in the printer driver and see if one's a good match for the Kodak paper. Since I use Epson printers, I'm extrapolating on what the Canon drivers may offer. I know HP drivers offer little advanced control of output...one of the reasons Epson is held in higher regard for color accuracy.

There are a lot of ways to get into doing your own profiles, but there will be a learning curve to climb...

BJ

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Mikepoison
Is from: Amsterdam, NL
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#2. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 0

Mikepoison Basic Member

Fri 15-Dec-00 12:57 PM

try the following:

preview the image in CMYK color mode (That's what the printer uses). if that matches what rolls out of your printer, then you need to make sure you printer will accept RGB input too, or convert the image to a CMYK equivalent of the image, then print it (difference in RGB - CMYK is often that blue turns purple)

If you could be a bit more specific as to the nature of the difference, I might be able to help more =)

Mike K.

"The world will not be quantified on celluloid... But I'll be damned if I don't try!"

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#3. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 0

Fri 15-Dec-00 11:02 PM

BJ & Mike,

The colors that have been printed out lack the saturation and punch of the scanned neg/slide. Bright blues look washed out, sometimes even too light. I have tried calibrating the monitor with Adobe Gamma correction, but still to no avail... Skin tones are also too light and sometimes look a little too washed out..

I have just mucked around with viewing the image in CMYK, and it is much closer to matching the final printed output. I might be doing something wrong by selecting sRGB on the printer input...hmm...*scratchin head*.... looks like its time to start wasting a few sheets of paper..

I'll let you guys know what happens....

Later,

Zacka Gerard Chan

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- User
  
  #4. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 3
  
  Sat 16-Dec-00 12:02 AM
  
  Actually, althought the Epson printer ends up converting the data internally to a 6-color CMYK model, the printer needs RGB data to be sent to it. I suspect the Canon driver is similar, but you may want to research that further. Mike,: you should work with RGB images and RGB colorspace for printing using Epson's driver. Here's a helpful link to Ian Lyon's excellent printing overview, even though it's Epson specific, the color management prinicipals are the same-
  
  http://lioncity.s-one.net.sg/~printer/print/ian_winse/index.html
  
  You should use the Adobe RGB (1998) colorspace, not sRGB. The difference is sRGB has a much wider color gamut (it's a good profile for working on images for electronic display and the web). The Adobe RGB colorspace will flatten the colors. Then all you need to do is increase the saturation (about 20% in my experience) to compensate. The CMYK colorspaces that come with Photoshop are for offset printing, not inkjet printing. You may want to look at your driver disk or the Canon website to see if there are .icc profile files on the disk.
  
  If you're considering an upgrade to Photoshop 6, keep in mind that color management has been improved and made easier to understand and use in the new application.
  
  BJ
  
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    #5. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 4
    
    Sat 16-Dec-00 10:36 AM
    
    Oops. I think you got those the wrong way round there, BJ.
    
    sRGB is based on the gamut of a typical low-end monitor and as such it clips the blue and green ranges badly. It's OK for web publishing but it's a poor choice for doing high quality scans and prints.
    
    There's a good article by Bruce Fraser (of BruceRGB fame) at http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/6541.html that explains the trade-offs of the various gamuts and which are most suitable for printing.
    
    Alan.
    
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      #6. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 5
      
      Sat 16-Dec-00 10:15 PM
      
      LAST EDITED ON Dec-17-00 AT 04:41 AM (GMT)
      LAST EDITED ON Dec-17-00 AT 04:29 AM (GMT)
      
      I don't think so, and Bruce's article says that Adobe RGB (1998) is commonly used for output oriented workspaces (it doesn't even mention sRGB, you have to find that in the PDF link). sRGB is only apropriate for working on images targeted to a generic monitor display (e.g. web images), but it's the colorspace you get by default in Photoshop. In the sRGB gamut, there are many colors that will not reproduce in printed output. BruceRGB should be fine for Epson printer output, but since Adobe RGB (1998) is packaged with Photoshop and it works reasonably well for the purpose I avoided adding another complexity to advice on this level.
      
      In the complex realm, I find BruceRGB has way too large a gamut to work well for CMYK offset use... he includes oranges and blues that are impossible to produce with 4-color offset. The Epson Stylus Photo is capable of a little bit more orange and blue color range, so BruceRGB is a decent (but not ideal) space to use for that purpose. For offset printing, I convert a copy of my high-gamut scan or digital camera capture to the appropriate CMYK profile, matching the characteristics of the paper and printer as closely as possible. This isn't necessary or appropriate when printing using Epson's native printer driver since it uses printer and paper specific ICC curves independently of the application. That's why it's critical when printing to the Epson printer driver to turn of print color management in the Photoshop print dialog. The concern here is to set up the RGB preview to look like the printer output so you can adjust your image and have the print look like the display. It's easy enough to see which gamut looks most like the printer output by just changing the RGB profile for Photoshop, so if you want to see if BruceRGB or another colorspace is more accurate it's just a matter of switching profiles. The hard part is avoiding confusion along the way...
      
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        #7. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 6
        
        Sun 17-Dec-00 10:21 AM
        
        The reason I made this comment was Zacka's statement that the blues looked washed out when using sRGB. To quote from Bruce Fraser's article on the subject (see http://www.pixelboyz.com/ps5/PS5RGBSetup2.pdf):
        
        The gamut of sRGB has a serious mismatch with the gamut of CMYK printing. It clips the cyan corner of the print gamut severely — assuming a reasonably typical sheetfed CMYK setup, the closest you can get to a pure saturated cyan from an sRGB original is around 75C7M5Y. The sRGB gamut simply doesn’t go any further in that direction, so the reproduction of bright cyans, greens and blues is drastically compromised. The orange-red area is also somewhat subject to clipping, though not as badly. We feel strongly that sRGB is useless for any kind of print work, and is basically ill-suited for use as an editing space, though it may be a useful lowest-common-denominator output space for web and multimedia images.
        
        I've certainly noticed sRGB having an adverse effect on the greens in my (Epson 2000p) printed D1 photos: they can tend too far towards yellow. Similarly blues are often not 'true'. As you say, AdobeRGB is a far better 'out-of-the-box' choice of colour space for this type of work, as is ColorMatchRGB.
        
        On the subject of avoiding confusion in this area you'll find that Photoshop 6 is vast improvement since the colour management is far more tightly integrated, but if you're thinking of upgrading, watch out: PS6 fizzes violently on contact with Epson printer drivers, especially if you're using USB and/or Windows 2000 and currently no-one seems too certain just where the problems lie. It's certainly causing me an awful lot of problems at the moment: I get inexplicable error dialogs or have PS refuse to save files during or after a print run.
        
        Alan.
        
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        #8. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 7
        
        Sun 17-Dec-00 11:23 AM
        
        Guys,
        
        Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that there isn't a way to produce proper deep or bright blues on inkjet paper, or the CYMK process.. Forgive me, but I am still pretty new to this side of photography... In the past few days, I have tried everything from changing the colour spaces, increasing saturation, different paper, and most of the monitor profile provided with PS 5.5. Help....!! Email me if you want to see the blues I am trying to produce, and I'll send you an RGB image, and the CYMK image my printer is putting out. When it comes to colour accuracy compared to the CYMK image, the 8200 is spot-on. Here's my addy--> zackchan@tower.net.au
        
        Thanks!
        
        Later,
        
        Zacka Gerard Chan
        
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        #9. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 8
        
        Mon 18-Dec-00 11:54 AM
        
        LAST EDITED ON Dec-18-00 AT 06:03 PM (GMT)
        You're right. There are many blues that can't be produced using essentially CMYK inks. CMYK especialy falls down for certain blues, many oranges and some greens. However, there's no perfect print medium...silver based prints all have their own particular limitations. You simply can't fully reproduce a transmissive image on a reflective surface, especially compared to the wide colorspace and dynamic range digital cameras are capable of.
        
        The cleanest blues you'll get are near cyan blue. You'll often see your sky go grey or grey-purple when you do a CMYK preview of your image. What I do is selectively adjust images to make the image work better in print. You can selectively adjust problem colors in Photoshop to shift them into colors the printer can reproduce. I frequently shift blue values toward cyan so that sky colors will brighten to a more natural look.
        
        If you've ever done any painting, you discover that there's no such thing as a true blue, red, yellow etc. pigment. You have to have several tubes of paint to be able to mix a wide palette of colors. Forcing an image into the range of colors that just four inks can reproduce will inevitably force compromise. There are six color printing systems that add green and orange (Pantone Hexachrome) that dramatically increase printed color gamut. Unfortunately, the system adds at least 30% to the cost of printing and therefore it's only used for fine art reproduction and the occasional excellent "coffee table" book. Six color printers like the Epson Stylus add light magenta and light cyan inks. This allows the printer to do a better job with subtle color gradations, but it doesn't add to the spectral color gamut.
        
        BJ
        
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        #13. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 9
        
        Tue 19-Dec-00 02:20 PM
        
        I think that sums the situation up very well. While an inappropriate choice of working space can further restrict the range of your printer, the fact remains that there are colours that CMYK just can't reproduce.
        
        One additional point on the subject of Epson printers: the pigment based inks used by the 2000p seem to have a slightly narrower gamut than the dyes used by the 870/1270 series. So the increase in print life pigments give is not without it's price....
        
        Alan.
        
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        #10. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 7
        
        Mon 18-Dec-00 12:16 PM
        
        LAST EDITED ON Dec-19-00 AT 05:15 PM (GMT)
        I'm still under Win98 SE and I output my Photoshop files via Corel, so I've missed the Epson driver headaches.
        
        Unfortunately, Photoshop (or any other Adobe application) is pretty miserable when it comes to giving you print output control. Photoshop 6 is a little better and has a thumbnail print preview. I use Corel to provide me with a much more flexible print output engine. You can do n-up multiples and precisely set up your output in a full screen print preview window. It puts Adobe and just about everyone else to shame. However, I still do my image editing in Photoshop beforehand.
        
        BJ
        
        Udate: I've had no problems under Win98 with Photoshop 6 and the Epson driver doing test prints today.
        
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        #11. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 10
        
        Tue 19-Dec-00 09:00 AM
        
        I've been mucking around a bit more, and the best I can get that particular shade of blue is a deep purple/violet... 8( I'll try to output the print thru Corel, and see what happens....
        
        Later,
        
        Zacka Gerard Chan
        
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        #12. "RE: Color (ICM) Profiles for PhotoShop" | In response to Reply # 11
        
        Tue 19-Dec-00 11:20 AM
        
        I got your files and did some tweaking. Let me know if the adjustments make sense and work better for you.
        
        I can't correct my earlier posting, so anyone following this thread should note that you want "Print Color Management" enabled in the Photoshop dialog when you're using Epson's driver. I wrote the opposite in an earlier message.
        
        BJ
        
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        #14. "Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 12
        
        Wed 20-Dec-00 03:41 PM
        
        That's the sound of me getting a pie in the face!
        
        I've had a go at modifying Zacka's photos and I'm going round in circles: push the colours to the point where I have a reasonably 'clean' blue (although there's too much cyan in it when compared to the original) and the smooth gradients start to 'tear'. Push the brightness and up goes the noise. Get rid of those problems and things look dull again....
        
        The problem is the sheer amount of the shot that's out of the CMYK gamut: switch on the Photoshop gamut warning and virtually the whole image blanks out.
        
        So, BJ, if you could make really worthwhile improvements to the shot and keep anything like the original colours and smooth gradients then I take my hat off to you! And please tell how....
        
        Alan.
        
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        #15. "RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 14
        
        Thu 21-Dec-00 08:29 AM
        
        Hahaha.....
        
        Thanks guys for your help in this blue-ish issue.... i guess that particular shade of blue is in the 'impossible' range of most printers, and maybe even some lab prints...
        
        I'll try to Pro Labs after the Xmas break, and I'll let them try to reproduce it on dye-sub and inkjet prints. I'l let you know how it goes.... And I'll ask them for a Ilfo print too (just wanna see how it comes up on 'normal' photographic paper)...
        
        Thanks again....
        
        Later,
        
        Zacka Gerard Chan
        
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        #16. "RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 15
        
        Thu 21-Dec-00 01:40 PM
        
        Hi Alan,
        
        When you have a specific color that you want to shift into a printable color, you should try the Selective Color adjustment tool in Photoshop. My Epson 1270 just couldn't reproduce the blue of the Super Eight image, so I used Image, Adjust, Selective Color to push the blue into a clean cyan blue that the printer can reproduce. The advantage to the selective color tool is that you can adjust a general family of a problem color without messing up the overall color balance of your image.
        
        I printed the RGB image to my Epson and then found an Epson profile that simulated the print results to view the RGB image. For this image, I found blue to be the primary effective color range to shift; increasing the cyan component to +50 created the brightest, cleanest blue I could get. I found that the blue shadows cleaned up when I reduced the yellow. I settled on -45 yellow as a fair compromise. What values you end up using are based on the best compromise to your eye, since you're trading off closer but duller blues vs. a different blue that has the bright clean intensity of the original.
        
        I have to do this kind of correction all the time to bring life back to prints of blue skies. I've also shifted greens, oranges and reds this way as well as fixing neutral colors that the printer wants to give a color cast.
        
        BJ
        
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        #17. "RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 16
        
        Thu 21-Dec-00 02:25 PM
        
        BJ,
        
        This is so similar to what I was trying to do - I'd even settled on +50 cyan as a good compromise. What I'd missed was your technique for getting rid of noise in the shadows by reducing the yellow: I'll try that (or an appropriate variation) next time I've got a difficult image.
        
        Funny thing here is that I've not had much trouble with blue skies in D1 shots. Looking at one of the shots I posted in that "Autumn Floods" series I can see why: the sky is R=70 G=106 B=154 so it's tending towards the cyan and within the CMYK gamut.
        
        Having said that I do remember ending up with some truly horrible prints when I used a circular polarizer to get a really deep blue sky with bright white clouds on a couple of shots.
        
        Thanks for the advice.
        
        Alan.
        
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        #18. "RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 17
        
        Fri 22-Dec-00 02:13 AM
        
        That's a great observation. As I think of it, the skies that give me the most color problem are probably shot with polarizers. Your D1 images have such great color. I remember some super foliage greens that looked like they'd be a challenge to print and keep as vivid.
        
        Yep, sometimes you'll mess up gradients if you have to push a color too hard. That's when I get a bit more creative and do things like doing feathered selections to protect transitions and even airbrushing color, hue or saturation onto a problem spot. For my design work, I'm often have to trade the impact of the printed image against its accuracy and quality. It's still frustrating to give up great colors in photographs that look so good in their native format.
        
        I hadn't though of it, but it may be that we'll eventually realize that the many of the best color photographs will have to be viewed electronically in order to see them at their highest quality. "Yes, the print on acid free watercolor paper is fine, but I want to see the photo in the original RGB"
        
        BJ
        
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        #19. "RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 18
        
        Fri 29-Dec-00 02:58 AM
        
        Hi Guys,
        
        I've been trying the whole week to get some decent results from that image, and I have just given up, and accepted that its just one of the drawbacks of CYMK printing. In the best image, its just a tad better than the print comparisons, but still way off the original.... Looks like its one of those sort of images that I'll have to leave to the labs to print.... 8)
        
        Have a happy new year, and all the best !!!
        
        Later,
        
        Zacka Gerard Chan
        
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        #20. "RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 19
        
        Fri 29-Dec-00 02:34 PM
        
        I'm curious, did you get a lab print made? Some print emulsions may get you closer to the blue in the image, but there is no printing method that will allow accurate reproduction of all colors. If you found a print medium capable of producing "Super Eight Blue", I'd love to know the details!
        
        BJ
        
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        #21. "RE: Whoosh.........SPLAT!" | In response to Reply # 20
        
        Fri 29-Dec-00 11:38 PM
        
        As soon as the labs reopen after the New Year's break, I'll go get a print done. And as for printing, 3 friends of mine have also tried to reproduce that blue, and even with all the different equipment used, nothing has come as close to the original slide.... I'll let you know on the 'Super Eight Blue' when I get the print back next week...
        
        Later,
        
        Zacka Gerard Chan
        
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