in Lion systems, the library is intentionally hidden by Mac, so you have to hit Option-GO to make Library show up, then you can open that directory and find the /colorsync/profiles folder.
loaded the profiles for Neutral and Selenium and am soft proofing away. none of them look quite as neutral as my un-profiled image (switching back and forth between preview,/nho-preview however, and you can see differences between various paper/ink combos. have not yet set up my viewing booth next to the monitor to do a side-by-side print vs screen.
You should see differences between different ink/paper soft proof profiles, that means they’re working correctly, as the paper has a huge impact on the “color” of the inks.
I recommend you use our Piezography printing service to have your image printed with Neutral inks on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag and Photo Rag Baryta papers for you to see. The Baryta isn’t an option to select, but you can choose another glossy paper and add a note that you would like PhotoRag Baryta paper to be used for that print. You can locate our online Piezography printing service here: http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/sc.15/category.29282/.f
humans have different biases towards what they think is neutral and often what they see as neutral. the only method to discovering what any one particular human sees as neutral would be to have them dial in red, green and blue light until the do not perceive any more red than green than blue… And then at that point. comparing them against other humans you can map out color blindness (just in case they have some) and we arrive at what is neutral for you in regards to white light. This could be done also at 50% gray.
When we made Piezography Neutral inks - we used the ICC concept of “neutral” (which is along that line above which I wrote) and we decided to make what is perceived by the “standard human” (one without any color blindness) as “neutral” on a standard grade of paper (we chose Hahnemuhle Photo Rag).
Will you see Neutral inks on Photo Rag as “neutral” - I do not know… You may not and it can be because of bias (personal) or bias (color blindness) or a combination of both.
But, I do know that you should not see Selenium inks on any paper as neutral. If you do - it definitely confirms a large personal bias or some color blindness. So you should stop trying!!!
I just looked at all your test prints again and I noticed that you have printed on a lot of warm papers that you sent us and what I see is warm paper under very light amounts of Selenium inks - and the ink can not make the paper warm white appear “neutral” nor even less warm - until about 50% coverage - maybe somewhat less - and then the ink is still influenced by the warmth of the papers you are selecting or the warmth of the paper combined with the coating.
i understand why you like warm papers - but I do not know how you can make the papers less warm other than by printing with color inks and using ICC color management to have the color inks counteract the warmth of the paper. Of course it will not be able to do that to the highlights and near highlights.
I suggest instead - that you use near white papers and stop using warm papers. the warmth can not be eliminated from your images if you print on warm papers. I suggest you switch to Piezography Neutral inks.
Dana’s suggestion is a very inexpensive way for you to determine if Neutral inks on more standard whites is “neutral” to you. If it is not - and its too cool - then you can move the inks to warmer papers such as you like. If you see the neutral as too warm - then you can shift it to brighter white papers.
We can serve you up achromatic neutral - but in the end you have to arrive at something you consider to be neutral and a neutral you are happy with. That will necessarily demand that you select a paper - not because you like it it - but because you like the color of the neutral inks on it. in a way - its just like darkroom printing in that regard. hope that makes sense!
i thought i was using a range of papers from warm to not-so warm when making the test prints, thinking the canson and ilford baryta were the least warms, and then i tried what i had around. the only reason I picked selenium inks was i had the perception from darkroom days that it would produce cooler tones compared to neutral, and your description " the best possible replacement for the actual short bath, selenium-toned, fiber based silver print" and when i look at your MPS comparison page, the selenium glossy on ex fiber is very cool. sounds like i should change inks to neutral K7, so…
if you can suggest a gloss paper that is not warm, I’m ready to try it. i did just pay for a 8-1/2x11 test print, your gloss papers choices with Neutral MPS inks are epson ex fiber, type 5, and Pictorico OHP; what do you suggest?
i am also having trouble uploading via FTP as the Exa vault site is not providing host and user name fields as your instructions describe . so i called in, and am expecting an e-mail back to clear this up.
we are thinking Hahnemuhle PhotoRag Baryta as the most likely to produce achromatic neutral with neutral inks. That’s what we are going to produce your print with. Dana will get back with the ftp instructions…
We still see Selenium on Exh Fiber as being very purply rather than cool (which we think of as bluish rather than purply).
So its just different ways of describing or possibly what you see on your display? Dana said you have an Eizo CG. Did you calibrate your Eizo with Color Navigator or another calibration system?
up and running with the neutral K7 glossy inks (left the photoblack and GO from before, as advised) a better coolness to my liking. ran a power clean to purge. (also syringed out the remaining ink in the feed tube of the cartridge to get the new ink in there)
have made some quite acceptable prints on Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, Canson satin Baryta and ex fiber (what i had around), still experimenting, tried some Han rag Baryta as well, ut only had 8-1/2 x 11.
so far the canson is showing longer range and great tone separation, better contrast and snap.
couple of questions:
i assume the same profiles are used as for the selenium inks? paper/printer/gloss specific, but not ink specific?
what is the P2 I am reading about?
i have been printing my tests from an original image sized to 16 x20 color proPhoto and converted to bw by silvereffects, but left as proRGB; should i convert to greyscale as well?
also when printing to 8-1/2 x 11 for testing, i have been re-sizing using QTR for simplicity; is this a good idea in general? (my usual practice is to convert from native in PS using genuine fractals)
thx
anyone interested in some partial bottle of gloss selenium inks? have about 175cc each of shades 2,3,4,5,6,7
Glad you’re up and running with a choice that better matches your intentions.
yes - all K7 curves are used with any of the five Piezography K7 ink sets - and also for any K7 Split Tones.
P2 is where we reduce a K7 system to a K6 system by eliminating shade 7 in place of running both matte and photo blacks in the printer at one time. THis way without changing out the blacks on printers with only 8 slots, both matte and glossy/overprint can be achieved in one printer.
In this case - there are different P2 curves for each of the P2 ink sets.
Pro RGB is not recommended as an imaging space for printing. It’s great in theory of course. We will not get into the pitfalls of imaging in a color space that is not printable - but for Piezography you are imaging with a contrast gamma of 1.80 when Piezography only prints Gamma 2.20. So - the contrast of your images will necessarily be different between display and print. We recommend that you use AdobeRGB 1998 because even though it is a color RGB working space - it’s Gamma is 2.20. THerefore, a grayscale RGB file can be printed the same way a grayscale single channel file will print. You want to avoid mis-matchnig gamma.
This is covered in the NEW Piezography manual beginning with the chapter: Piezography Workflow Background. Make sure you follow our recommended workflow. We are not compatible with the QTR manual. K7 curves are not made with QTR tools. Much of the QTR advanced adjustments will severely distort output results of K7 curves.
Let us know if it changes anything on your end - by this suggestion… and also check to make sure that you are following how we instruct use of the QTR according to your OS version, etc…
working well and i am very satisfied with the Canson Satin Baryta. converted my image to adobeRGB98 and got more open shadows and better (a bit less) contrast overall
have been reading and trying to follow your new P manual, but the chapter you refer to seems to be specifically about the display calibration, that being useful for pre-viewing images, of course. nothing mentioned there about setting the image profiles.
would like your opinion on this: my native images after processing from my phase back are typically full color, proRGB. tif what is your workflow to go from that to a Piezo-print-ready B/W image?
what i have now been doing is process from raw to the tif with CApture One, open in PS, convert to B/W with silvereffex, then your last suggestion, convert to adobeRGB98. my display for examining pre-print is the Eizo CG241, calibrated with the Eye1 and color navigator, i print using QTR, your K7 4880-MPS-CansonBarytaSatin profile
Your workflow seems ok to me. For the Eizo, if you haven’t already, I would make a calibration for “print” at Gamma 2.20 (5000k if you have an imaging booth), and brightness at about 85. You can make calibrations for other purposes and switch on the fly.
The chapter where I pointed to (Piezography Workflow Background) reads…
“We recommend that you set up your imaging software to display your images in a grayscale space of Gamma 2.20. Conversely, if you prefer to image in RGB grayscale, the Adobe RGB 1998 color space also uses a Gamma 2.20. In this way, images will be displayed to you with the correct contrast relationship.”
I had wanted you to check that for background. Later and elsewhere we explain setting up Photoshop Color Settings.
If Photoshop Color Settings is setup correctly (with Adobe RGB1998 as the color workspace, and Gamma 2.20 as the grayscale workspace) when you convert your images the image profiles are embedded from these Photoshop Color Settings. When you save your images from Photoshop, you will be given the option to embed Adobe RGB 1998 if it is an RGB image, or Gamma 2.20 if it is a single channel grayscale image.
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