Punching up matte prints (R2400)

[soboyle]

Yes, I do look away from the monitor when I activate the soft proofed profile for Crane Museo II paper in photoshop, and it still gives me a fright when I look back at the screen. Gone are the shadow details, and I'm left with a grayish muddy image on the screen. So I then start using curves and saturation to try and get back some of the shadow information, and some of the tonal range of the original file.
Any suggestions for tricks and techniques for making these images printable again with these papers?
Any secrets, or is it on a photo by photo basis that you make your corrections using curves, trying to compensate for the lack of contrast in these papers?
And yes, the prints (unfortunately) do match what I am seeing on the monitor.
Using profiles provided by Crane for the R2400.

[sgwrx]

i get the same with VFA paper, and yes i look away.  i have found a few times that using one curves layers with a handle at 192 and dragging it up to 212 or 222 often helps the overall images.  then i add some saturation.  this, all while looking at a copy of the original.

so far, i've found if i do much with the shadows, it either makes them worse, or i'll try to anchor some points in the shadow area and pull up some other points.

i'm not sure if these are good techniques or not, but they seem to work. i just got two new books: mastering color digital photography and mastering b&w digital photography, maybe there's something in there.  i need to get recommendations on good printing books.

[nma]

I have the same problem with the matte profiles and Epson 2200. I don't have a perfect solution, but here is one thing to try. I find it helpful to check the softproofing in the Raw converter. I do raw conversion with RSP or C1 and set the colorprofile to the paper I am planning to use in the print. Then I optimize exposure, contrast and saturation. But before conversion, I revert the colorproofile to output prophoto RGB. Then I open the image in photoshop for further tuning, sharpening, etc. I can then use soft proofing to watch the effect on the image. Hope this helps.

Yes, I do look away from the monitor when I activate the soft proofed profile for Crane Museo II paper in photoshop, and it still gives me a fright when I look back at the screen. Gone are the shadow details, and I'm left with a grayish muddy image on the screen. So I then start using curves and saturation to try and get back some of the shadow information, and some of the tonal range of the original file.
Any suggestions for tricks and techniques for making these images printable again with these papers?
Any secrets, or is it on a photo by photo basis that you make your corrections using curves, trying to compensate for the lack of contrast in these papers?
And yes, the prints (unfortunately) do match what I am seeing on the monitor.
Using profiles provided by Crane for the R2400.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=65553\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[skid00skid00]

I found that my R1800 was printing more yellow ink than it should on matte papers.  Put your image into cmyk mode, and drop the yellows.  Your softproof might just improve...

[jdyke]

The joys of softproofing!

I get the same problem using a variety of Matte/fine art papers on my 2200 using imageprint (and imageprint profiles).

I find that the best approach is as follows (works for me)

Duplicate the image as a reference and switch to softproof on the original
Create a curves adjustment layer and set the layer mode to hard light
Drop the opacity down to 0%
Open the blending options and move the left slider to about 40 the shift -option to break the slider and move the right hand split to about 80. This limits that changes to the midtones and highlights only with a gradual change between 40-80.
I then bring up the opacity unitl it looks right (normally 20-30%)

I then do the same again but this time for the shadows so I do the same as above but with the right slider moved left to 40 and split to 80.  This allows me to get some punch in the shadows only.

Finally I may do some selective sautration adjustments.

Last thing I do before print is to set my black point and white point.  My 2200 has a black point of about 10 and white point of 253 so I open up a levels adjsustment layer and set the output levels to these values.  

I find this method gets me as close as possible to where I want to be.

Hope this is of help

JD

[JeffKohn]

Yes, I do look away from the monitor when I activate the soft proofed profile for Crane Museo II paper in photoshop, and it still gives me a fright when I look back at the screen. Gone are the shadow details, and I'm left with a grayish muddy image on the screen. So I then start using curves and saturation to try and get back some of the shadow information, and some of the tonal range of the original file.
Any suggestions for tricks and techniques for making these images printable again with these papers?
Any secrets, or is it on a photo by photo basis that you make your corrections using curves, trying to compensate for the lack of contrast in these papers?
And yes, the prints (unfortunately) do match what I am seeing on the monitor.
Using profiles provided by Crane for the R2400.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=65553\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The canned profile from Crane isn't all that good, I have a custom profile I made that helps with these problems but doesn't completely solve them. I've found this to be an issue particularly with dark greens and to a lesser extent dark browns. The ICC profile seems to preserve saturation over luminousity and the saturated shadow tones get all blocked up.

The best solution I've found for this is to create a hue/saturation adjustment layer, and target it to the specific color range that's giving me a problem (using eye dropper). As you lower the saturation level you'll see the shadow tones darken like they should. The problem is this will also desaturate your midtones/highlights, so what I do is adjust the blending properties for the adjustment layer so that it only applies to the darker tones.