Ilford Gold Fibre Silk printing with cyan cast?

[JDClements]

I had a test pack of Ilford Gold Fibre Silk paper awhile back and really liked it. I just stocked up, but when I did my first print it had a definite cyan cast to it. I did a nozzle check, and two of the black channels had some holes, so I cleaned the heads, but the result is exactly the same.

I am printing directly from Lightroom, using the profile supplied by Ilford. When I tested this paper before, I did not see this. I've checked and re-checked the settings to make sure I am not double-managing: The printer driver has "no color mangagement" checked off. Yesterday, I did a print on matte paper, and it came out neutral, so I am thinking the Ilford profile is the problem?

Any help is appreciated.

[Mark D Segal]

When you tested the paper before, were you using the same application, the same image and the same profile?

[JDClements]

When you tested the paper before, were you using the same application, the same image and the same profile?

It was back in the spring, so it would have been an earlier version of LR (2.0 I think), different images, and the profile was obtained in the same way (downloaded from Ilford), however, I re-downloaded it so it is possible that it is not the same. I will try printing the same image I did a few days ago, and see how it compares.

[Mark D Segal]

It sounds as if the profile may be the problem. Presumably you checked to make sure that the version of the profile you downloaded corresponds with the identical printer model you are using. One way of checking for profile behaviour would be to open the image having the cyan cast when printed, and soft-proof it in Photoshop. If you find when you activate the soft-proof that a cyan cast appears, you will have a good indication that it could well be a profile issue, because the softproof is supposed to read back to your display the effect of using the profile being soft-proofed.

If the soft-proof shows no cyan cast in Photoshop, this would indicate that the profile is probably OK and perhaps there is a setting in LR which needs to be tweaked.

In either case, it would be an idea to print it from Photoshop and see what happens.

[JDClements]

I just did a test with an image that printed nicely on Epson matte paper. On the Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, it exhibits the same blue-green colour cast. This is using Ilford's IGGFS13_EPR2400_PSPPn.icc profile. I tried the same print using Epson's 'SPR2400 PremLuster BstPhoto.icc' profile and got what I am looking for. Therefore, I guess I can conclude that Ilford's profile is faulty.

Now, I am second guessing myself and wondering if I had the same problem back in the Spring. I do recall wasting a couple sheets of the 5-sheet sample pack.

I'll use the Epson Premium Luster profile to print on Ilford's baytra paper (until I venture into trying my own profile).

[JDClements]

It sounds as if the profile may be the problem. Presumably you checked to make sure that the version of the profile you downloaded corresponds with the identical printer model you are using.

Ilford's site makes it fairly easy, through a series of drop-downs. It is possible the site is serving up the wrong profile after I make the choices, but the profile name makes sense for my printer.

One way of checking for profile behaviour would be to open the image having the cyan cast when printed, and soft-proof it in Photoshop. If you find when you activate the soft-proof that a cyan cast appears, you will have a good indication that it could well be a profile issue, because the softproof is supposed to read back to your display the effect of using the profile being soft-proofed.

If the soft-proof shows no cyan cast in Photoshop, this would indicate that the profile is probably OK and perhaps there is a setting in LR which needs to be tweaked.

Good tip. I just tried that, I cannot detect a cyan-cast when switching between the Epson PremLuster and Ilford GFS profiles. The image definitely takes on a slight warm-tone when I switch the proof setup to the GFS setting, which I would expect since this paper does have a pronounced warm tone. Hmmm. The image I get from the printer is almost a perfect match to the soft-proof when using the Epson profile and printing on the Ilford paper.

[Mark D Segal]

The image I get from the printer is almost a perfect match to the soft-proof when using the Epson profile and printing on the Ilford paper.

Great! Seems as if the problem is solved. If LR is your preferred application for printing, and if you obtain satisfactory prints from LR using the Epson Premium Luster profile, then you are in business. If you think there remains room for improvement (remembering however you cannot soft-proof from LR), then an alternative to waiting for your own profiling set-up is to buy a profile for your 2400 using IGFS from one of a number of good services available on the internet. Andrew Rodney, Giorgio Trucco, Cathy's are known names which come to mind. In all cases, they send you a target, ask you to print the target with no colour management anywhere, you mail the target to them, they read it and they email you the profile.