101 3800 -muddy

[stephenjedgar]

hi again gang!

trying out some new profiles for the moab entrada 190 rag paper.
 somewhere during the process the tests have
taken on a certain flatness...milkyness.  No real crisp blacks, and no real white.  NO PUNCH.

while I am sure this has a lot to do with the fact that the profile is not 100%, I'm wondering if
this sounds at all familiar?  Did I do something wrong here!? Yes, I've boosted the contrast and crushed
the blacks but still....

Also, because I am a newbie to the inkjet thing I must ask about the constant swapping between blacks.
I haven't changed the paper during the tests, or the profile, or the 'quality' settings....but it continues to
do so every 3 or so prints.....is this normal?

I'm on Mac osx, ps cs3,

thanks guys and gals

s

[howardm]

what makes you think it's swapping?

are you sure you're using the right equiv. paper in the driver for the Moab?

[ddk]

hi again gang!

trying out some new profiles for the moab entrada 190 rag paper.
 somewhere during the process the tests have
taken on a certain flatness...milkyness.  No real crisp blacks, and no real white.  NO PUNCH.

while I am sure this has a lot to do with the fact that the profile is not 100%, I'm wondering if
this sounds at all familiar?  Did I do something wrong here!? Yes, I've boosted the contrast and crushed
the blacks but still....

Also, because I am a newbie to the inkjet thing I must ask about the constant swapping between blacks.
I haven't changed the paper during the tests, or the profile, or the 'quality' settings....but it continues to
do so every 3 or so prints.....is this normal?

I'm on Mac osx, ps cs3,

thanks guys and gals

s

Sounds like you might be printing on the back side of the paper, it happens.

[stephenjedgar]

Sounds like you might be printing on the back side of the paper, it happens.

yes, I've been there...THIS however, is double sided paper.

as for the 'right paper in the driver', I'm PRETTY sure.  my MOAB connection suggested the
watercolor setting and I did not deviate from that.  Should I consider switching it out for another
paper setting just for kicks?

as for the swapping out, I'm not completely sure if that is in fact what it is doing....It sounds as if it is
'changing' over and and counts the percentage of 'completeness' while it's going on.

thoughts?

[David Sutton]

hi again gang!

trying out some new profiles for the moab entrada 190 rag paper.
 somewhere during the process the tests have
taken on a certain flatness...milkyness.  No real crisp blacks, and no real white.  NO PUNCH.

while I am sure this has a lot to do with the fact that the profile is not 100%, I'm wondering if
this sounds at all familiar?  Did I do something wrong here!? Yes, I've boosted the contrast and crushed
the blacks but still....

Also, because I am a newbie to the inkjet thing I must ask about the constant swapping between blacks.
I haven't changed the paper during the tests, or the profile, or the 'quality' settings....but it continues to
do so every 3 or so prints.....is this normal?

I'm on Mac osx, ps cs3,

thanks guys and gals

s

If it is swapping over then the on-screen status monitor box (or whatever it's called), and the lcd screen on the printer should tell you. If it is doing this then assuming the printer isn't faulty it may be the settings are getting changed between prints. Are you double checking these before printing?
As to the flatness of the prints, how much difference between the softproof on screen and the final print do you see? When you softproof, have you got "simulate paper colours" checked and "preserve RGB" numbers" off? Etc etc.
Any difference between rendering intents? Are you printing B&W or colour? David

[bill t.]

I've boosted the contrast and crushed
the blacks

Ironically, that's a recipe for muddiness.  Matte papers have a certain range of tones they can represent, if try to force upon them a range of tones in excess of what they can handle, you get an ugly muddy mess.

Open up the shadows, and in particular increase the tonal range (I hesitate to say contrast) in the shadow areas.  Separation is what you want in shadow areas for matte papers (and BTW glossy papers as well, but especially matte papers).  In fact, separation is what you want everywhere.

Matte papers are about subtlety rather than punch.  Could be you would prefer glossy.

Also be sure you've got all the color management stuff right.  Classic mistake when going from glossy to matte is to forget to set the proper media type, in addition to the correct profile etc. etc. etc.

Don't know that particular printer and driver, but if it's swapping blacks inexplicably you might be bringing back in a wrong default media type (or even profile) when you reload a new file.

[stephenjedgar]

hi David, thank you for responding.

the lcd does in fact indicate that it is " ...Black Ink Changing Photo-matte..."
I have been making some minor changes, true and will pay more attention to what changes might result in an ink change.  In my inexperience, this waiting period while the printer 'did it's business' seemed a little on the random side.
Thank you for mentioning the 'simulate colours' box!  Yes, the soft proof looks 'milky'...
Generally I have been keeping things consistent so as to get to the bottom of all the printers various quirks.

cheers

s

[stephenjedgar]

Ironically, that's a recipe for muddiness.  Matte papers have a certain range of tones they can represent, if try to force upon them a range of tones in excess of what they can handle, you get an ugly muddy mess.

Open up the shadows, and in particular increase the tonal range (I hesitate to say contrast) in the shadow areas.  Separation is what you want in shadow areas for matte papers (and BTW glossy papers as well, but especially matte papers).  In fact, separation is what you want everywhere.

Matte papers are about subtlety rather than punch.  Could be you would prefer glossy.

Also be sure you've got all the color management stuff right.  Classic mistake when going from glossy to matte is to forget to set the proper media type, in addition to the correct profile etc. etc. etc.

Don't know that particular printer and driver, but if it's swapping blacks inexplicably you might be bringing back in a wrong default media type (or even profile) when you reload a new file.

Hi Bill, thanks for posting.
I only resorted to those measures (crunching blacks, boosting contrast) as a last ditch effort to verify whether or not my computer display was WAY outta wack.  The manipulation DID result in change but obviously not what I intended.
As for the choice of papers, I agree with assessment of matte vs glossy, however in this particular case I'm kinda stuck:  This is a bindery job that requires a certain tactile 'effect' that, in my inexperience, can only be found in a Rag paper.  It had to be light enough for the binding and yet heavy enough to withstand a certain amount of 'pawing'.  AAAnd on top of all this, the paper had to be double-sided.  Whew!  The Moab Entrada 190 has fit all those specs...now all i have to do is make it look good!

This has been an expensive yet enriching learning curve.  

[David Sutton]

Hi Stephen. There are a lot of settings to remember in the printing preferences, so I usually save my settings for a particular paper and size using the box next to "Select Settings". Otherwise sometimes I forget to triple check what I'm doing and another sheet of paper goes in the bin.
Once a year I do a small run of calendars on double sided paper, this year I used Ilford Smooth Heavyweight Matte. So far I haven't found a double sided matte paper that doesn't turn my photos to mush. What I do now is to start as I usually do with both images open on screen and with the left one having the softproof turned on. Then after doing what I can to match the two, I close down the right image completely and leaving the softproof on, work as best I can on the photo. The image may turn out slightly different to my original file but usually comes out much better than flailing around trying to get a close match (which is just never going to happen).
Bill's comments about matte papers are good. I'm going to print them out and stick them on my wall as a reminder.
David