Deep dark greens in shadows print dark brown

"David DeBar" …

I used the Monaco EZ color w/ Optix to calibrate both my LCD and CRT and my Epson 2200 printer. I have a photo that is driving me nuts. It’s a great photo of the "Grand" in the Grand Tetons. The mountain has it’s top sticking into some big fluffy clouds and a sparkling stream is in the foreground on it’s way to the base of the distant mountain. It looks great on my screens but when I print it, a large stand of deep dark green trees print a drab dark brown, not deep green like the CRT. …
I could cheat and use the color replace tool to change the dark green to a lighter green and hope that prints more like what I want. I would rather make a global change to my printer profile so it matches my screens. The rest of the picture looks great! It’s just this one dark shade of green that is giving me a fit.

I had a similar problem with Photoshop’s RGB->CMYK separations (from sRGB or Adobe RGB). Eventually I found a solution: avoid UCR and use GCR separation instead. Switching to GCR fixed a lot of problems I was having with brownish/reddish shadows changing colour and going flat in CMYK.

In line with typical trade seps here, I use a Black limit of 70%, Light black generation, and a total limit of 350% (usual SWOP, 20% dot gain).

My guess is you’re using GCR anyway (usual in North America I believe) so the above advice may not help.

–Toby

Thank you for any suggestions.

Dave

I’m having similar problems on my 1270 and 1280, and surprised to hear it is on the 2200. Using Epson’s media profiles, the majority of the colors would soft proof and print pretty accurately. But there are some dark saturated colors that would turn very dull and way off in soft proof and in print. (Does your soft proof also turn dull?) Once these colors are present, I have never been able to correct them globally without screwing everything else up. I now soft proof incrementally during my editing workflow and try to avoid these colors earlier in the game. I belief that the media profiles are not handling these colors correctly. But I don’t know enough to mess around with the profiles. What is the rgb values of the dark green color you have problem with?

David DeBar wrote:

I used the Monaco EZ color w/ Optix to calibrate both my LCD and CRT and my Epson 2200 printer. I have a photo that is driving me nuts. It’s a great photo of the "Grand" in the Grand Tetons. The mountain has it’s top sticking into some big fluffy clouds and a sparkling stream is in the foreground on it’s way to the base of the distant mountain. It looks great on my screens but when I print it, a large stand of deep dark green trees print a drab dark brown, not deep green like the CRT.

I have spent weeks and a lot of paper and ink attempting to adjust my printer profile to make the print look like the CRT to no avail. I downloaded a profile from Red River that was made for my printer. This profile was a disaster, giving the picture a purple cast.
I could cheat and use the color replace tool to change the dark green to a lighter green and hope that prints more like what I want. I would rather make a global change to my printer profile so it matches my screens. The rest of the picture looks great! It’s just this one dark shade of green that is giving me a fit.

Thank you for any suggestions.

Dave

I’m not sure how "Photoshop’s RGB->CMYK separations" comes into this discussion. My understanding is that even if you work in the cmyk space, the file will be converted to the rgb space before being sent to the Epson driver. I work in the rgb space, and leave the cmyk preference settings at their default values. I think that the cmyk Black limit and Total limit values are only meaningful if your printer driver accepts a cmyk file. Please clarify.

Toby Thain wrote:

"David DeBar" …

I used the Monaco EZ color w/ Optix to calibrate both my LCD and CRT and my Epson 2200 printer. I have a photo that is driving me nuts. It’s a great photo of the "Grand" in the Grand Tetons. The mountain has it’s top sticking into some big fluffy clouds and a sparkling stream is in the foreground on it’s way to the base of the distant mountain. It looks great on my screens but when I print it, a large stand of deep dark green trees print a drab dark brown, not deep green like the CRT. …
I could cheat and use the color replace tool to change the dark green to a lighter green and hope that prints more like what I want. I would rather make a global change to my printer profile so it matches my screens. The rest of the picture looks great! It’s just this one dark shade of green that is giving me a fit.

I had a similar problem with Photoshop’s RGB->CMYK separations (from sRGB or Adobe RGB). Eventually I found a solution: avoid UCR and use GCR separation instead. Switching to GCR fixed a lot of problems I was having with brownish/reddish shadows changing colour and going flat in CMYK.

In line with typical trade seps here, I use a Black limit of 70%, Light black generation, and a total limit of 350% (usual SWOP, 20% dot gain).

My guess is you’re using GCR anyway (usual in North America I believe) so the above advice may not help.

–Toby

Thank you for any suggestions.

Dave

wrote in message news:…

I’m not sure how "Photoshop’s RGB->CMYK separations" comes into this discussion. My understanding is that even if you work in the cmyk space, the file will be converted to the rgb space before being sent to the Epson driver. I work in the rgb space, and leave the cmyk preference settings at their default values. I think that the cmyk Black limit and Total limit values are only meaningful if your printer driver accepts a cmyk file. Please clarify.

Your explanation sounds right to me. Unless the driver is asking for, and getting CMYK, then the separation setup does look irrelevant. Even if the driver wants CMYK, the separation would be governed by the printer profile, making my explanation irrelevant anyway?

–Toby

Toby Thain wrote:

"David DeBar" …

I used the Monaco EZ color w/ Optix to calibrate both my LCD and CRT and my Epson 2200 printer. I have a photo that is driving me nuts. It’s a great photo of the "Grand" in the Grand Tetons. The mountain has it’s top sticking into some big fluffy clouds and a sparkling stream is in the foreground on it’s way to the base of the distant mountain. It looks great on my screens but when I print it, a large stand of deep dark green trees print a drab dark brown, not deep green like the CRT. …
I could cheat and use the color replace tool to change the dark green to a lighter green and hope that prints more like what I want. I would rather make a global change to my printer profile so it matches my screens. The rest of the picture looks great! It’s just this one dark shade of green that is giving me a fit.

I had a similar problem with Photoshop’s RGB->CMYK separations (from sRGB or Adobe RGB). Eventually I found a solution: avoid UCR and use GCR separation instead. Switching to GCR fixed a lot of problems I was having with brownish/reddish shadows changing colour and going flat in CMYK.

In line with typical trade seps here, I use a Black limit of 70%, Light black generation, and a total limit of 350% (usual SWOP, 20% dot gain).

My guess is you’re using GCR anyway (usual in North America I believe) so the above advice may not help.

–Toby

Thank you for any suggestions.

Dave

I’ll answer the question I can, but I’m not skilled enough to answer all of your questions. I can tell you that I’m in the USA so I guess I’m using GRC?
Since I set Photoshop to work with the MoacoEZ color system I no longer get a large preview prior to printing. I was advised to turn that off.because the colors shown in this preview would no longer be accurate. I do get a very small preview when I chose print with preview. The colors look good in that tiny picture. I don’t know how to find the rgb values of a particular spot of color. I can tell you it’s a very dark green, almost black. If I remove the color from the picture those trees look BLACK.

I’m starting to think that the problem is a basic incompatibility with screen colors and the colors that paper and ink can produce. I think color monitors have a very large range from the brightest whites to the darkest shadows, that ink and paper can not replicate. If I turn up the brightness enough to print the colors in the shadows of a stand of trees, I blow out the light gray in my white clouds and the clouds become flat. If I tone down the brightness to give the clouds texture, then the green shadows go to muddy brown. I have played with my printer profile using the tools that MonacoEZcolor provides. Overall my screen and print colors match very closely! It is just that I’m unable to reproduce on paper, the range of brightness that my LCD and CRT. I decided to use the "replace color" tool and simply brighten up the troublesome dark shadows a bit before printing. THIS WORKS. Perhaps it’s not a fix that a purist would like but it’s the only fix I have found.

If someone else this that know a way to solve this printing problem, give me your email and I’ll gladly send you a JPG of the image.

Dave

wrote in message

I’m having similar problems on my 1270 and 1280, and surprised to hear it is on the 2200. Using Epson’s media profiles, the majority of the colors would soft proof and print pretty accurately. But there are some dark saturated colors that would turn very dull and way off in soft proof and in print. (Does your soft proof also turn dull?) Once these colors are present, I have never been able to correct them globally without screwing everything else up. I now soft proof incrementally during my editing workflow and try to avoid these colors earlier in the game. I belief that the media profiles are not handling these colors correctly. But I don’t know enough to mess around with the profiles. What is the rgb values of the dark green color you have problem with?
David DeBar wrote:

I used the Monaco EZ color w/ Optix to calibrate both my LCD and CRT and

my

Epson 2200 printer. I have a photo that is driving me nuts. It’s a

great

photo of the "Grand" in the Grand Tetons. The mountain has it’s top sticking into some big fluffy clouds and a sparkling stream is in the foreground on it’s way to the base of the distant mountain. It looks

great

on my screens but when I print it, a large stand of deep dark green

trees

print a drab dark brown, not deep green like the CRT.

I have spent weeks and a lot of paper and ink attempting to adjust my printer profile to make the print look like the CRT to no avail. I downloaded a profile from Red River that was made for my printer. This profile was a disaster, giving the picture a purple cast.
I could cheat and use the color replace tool to change the dark green

to a

lighter green and hope that prints more like what I want. I would

rather

make a global change to my printer profile so it matches my screens.

The

rest of the picture looks great! It’s just this one dark shade of green

that

is giving me a fit.

Thank you for any suggestions.

Dave

I believe I have solved the problem! As I said before in this thread, the problem is that there is no way paper and ink can provide the range of brightness that my CRT can show or that the film I used (Fujicolor Superia ISO 200) can capture.

I found a Photoshop plug-in called shadowfixer that solved the problem for me. I’ll send them the $17 today.

Dave

"David DeBar" wrote in message

I used the Monaco EZ color w/ Optix to calibrate both my LCD and CRT and

my

Epson 2200 printer. I have a photo that is driving me nuts. It’s a great photo of the "Grand" in the Grand Tetons. The mountain has it’s top sticking into some big fluffy clouds and a sparkling stream is in the foreground on it’s way to the base of the distant mountain. It looks

great

on my screens but when I print it, a large stand of deep dark green trees print a drab dark brown, not deep green like the CRT.

I have spent weeks and a lot of paper and ink attempting to adjust my printer profile to make the print look like the CRT to no avail. I downloaded a profile from Red River that was made for my printer. This profile was a disaster, giving the picture a purple cast.
I could cheat and use the color replace tool to change the dark green to

a

lighter green and hope that prints more like what I want. I would rather make a global change to my printer profile so it matches my screens. The rest of the picture looks great! It’s just this one dark shade of green

that

is giving me a fit.

Thank you for any suggestions.

Dave

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:20:51 -0400, "David DeBar" wrote:

I believe I have solved the problem! As I said before in this thread, the problem is that there is no way paper and ink can provide the range of brightness that my CRT can show or that the film I used (Fujicolor Superia ISO 200) can capture.

I found a Photoshop plug-in called shadowfixer that solved the problem for me. I’ll send them the $17 today.

Dave

From the manual
http://www.fixerlabs.com/documents/ReadMe_ShadowFixer.pdf this sounds to me like something similar to a stripped down version of the image>adjustments>highlight/shadow… feature of CS. I notice that it does not seem to be available on CS.

Fred Athearn wrote:

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:20:51 -0400, "David DeBar" wrote:

I believe I have solved the problem! As I said before in this thread, the problem is that there is no way paper and ink can provide the range of brightness that my CRT can show or that the film I used (Fujicolor Superia ISO 200) can capture.

I found a Photoshop plug-in called shadowfixer that solved the problem for me. I’ll send them the $17 today.

Dave

From the manual
http://www.fixerlabs.com/documents/ReadMe_ShadowFixer.pdf this sounds to me like something similar to a stripped down version of the image>adjustments>highlight/shadow… feature of CS. I notice that it does not seem to be available on CS.

It is indeed. I don’t see how ShadowFixer would solve the problem of a color cast in the shadows. It only lightens them.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/