A Time to Print #2
This post should be read in conjunction with the previous ‘A Time to Print’ post which can be found here.
Having set up the printer from the box and installed ink cartridges, the next step is to make some prints. However there are some significant steps to make before we hit the ‘Print’ button in Photoshop. The major parts of this are monitor calibration and colour management. My Viewsonic monitor is factory calibrated and while this is not the end point in reliability, I’ve chosen to leave it as is on the basis of one important fact. Every print that I’ve previously sent off to either Loxley or other individual printers has come back looking as close as I can judge to my original file as displayed on the monitor. This allows for the fact that a print is viewed with reflected light and the monitor displays with transmitted light. The additional factor here is that prints need to be viewed in the best daylight possible. For now at least, I’ve chosen to leave my monitor alone in terms of colour and brightness. The second element is the need to select an ICC profile according to the paper used. My paper so far is of two types; Fotospeed NST Bright White 315 and Fotospeed Platinum Cotton 305. It is necessary to tell the printer what paper it is using. At the most basic level, a Matt Photo paper can be selected. The next stage is to visit the Fotospeed website and download the generic profile for each paper. This gives an acceptable result in most instances as seen in the prints above. However, if the best match is desired, Fotospeed will generate an individual custom profile for your printer and paer. This is the approach I took and the Fotospeed website gives very full and clear instruction on how to accomplish this. Essentially you download a colour chart, print is out using their instructions and post the chart(s) off to them. They then scan the chart and produce an ICC profile that matches your individual printer and paper combination. For all the Fotospeed papers and some others, they provide this service for free. I’m currently waiting for my first two ICC Profiles to be returned. The ICC files are installed simply by opening them in Windows. I think Mac might be different.
My two colour charts for NST Bright White and Platinum Cotton 305
I couldn’t persuade myself to sit idle while the charts were away and so I made a small number of prints using the generic profiles. While these were generally acceptable or better, some were much less impressive with muddy and shifted colours. I’m hoping the custom profiles make a noticable improvement here as I’ve been led to believe they will. At this stage, I’d suggest to anyone with an interest that they visit the support section of the Fotospeed website and also make use of their excellent tutorials on YouTube.
The current state is that the more straightforward images print well but some of the more complext woodland images with warm light have struggled both with overall brightness and shifts to warmer colours than I see on screen. Greens seem to be the most affected here.
At this point, I’m only concerning myself with colour images. I’ve seen that this printer, at the entry level price range, struggles for neutral Monochrome prints. At some point I will take advantage of the Fotospeed ‘super profiles’ which involve more charts and a fee for the finished profile.Once the first profiles arrive, I’ll make some prints to compare with the set made using only the generic versions.
In the next episode, I’ll compare the pairs of prints and set about making the best possible prints that I can at my current levels of knowledge and experience. Spoiler - the Fotospeed Custom ICC Profiles make a huge difference.