Colormunki achieving an optimum target print

[William Wilson]

Hi all, I've recently bought the Colormunki Photo and have been creating paper profiles and have now reached a stage where I'm experimenting with ink limits on my papers since I see what I'd describe as puddling on matte papers leading me to the conclusion too much ink is being applied.

When I print a chart with different ink limits I see the color saturation weaken, that seems logical and reading up on it has brought me to ask what is a correctly printed chart from the Colormunki?

Could I read each of the targets and see if the destiny is correct as I may have over compensated with ink limiting. When I switch medias I see quite a difference in the actual printed target which might seem obvious as each paper will be different, in calibration I presume the calibration takes account of this but if the target isn't printed at it's optimum I'm sure the resulting profile wont be the best.

Any tips or guidance on this is greatly appreciated.

[afx]

The target has to be printed at the desired ink setting, otherwise the target will not match the conditions for which it is supposed to be created.

cheers
afx

[William Wilson]

Yes that was my thoughts but what is the best way to determine the optimum target print setting?

[Alan Goldhammer]

See Scott Martin's thought on this HERE.  You don't say what printer you are using but I can tell you from my experience that with an Epson 3880 and matte papers from Hahnemuhle, Museo, and Canson I see virtually no difference between any of the Epson Fine Art Settings.  I settled on using Velvet Fine Art for all of these when I did my profiling.  Scott's pattern set does contain a smudge test spot that you can use to see whether over-inking and improper dry time is a factor.

[William Wilson]

Thank you Alan I will check out the link and report back.

I'm a portrait photographer and use the Epson Stylus Pro 9600 ucmk matte papers and canvases and Epson Stylus Pro 4000 ucpk lustre/pearl papers.

[Wayne Fox]

See Scott Martin's thought on this HERE.  You don't say what printer you are using but I can tell you from my experience that with an Epson 3880 and matte papers from Hahnemuhle, Museo, and Canson I see virtually no difference between any of the Epson Fine Art Settings.  I settled on using Velvet Fine Art for all of these when I did my profiling.  Scott's pattern set does contain a smudge test spot that you can use to see whether over-inking and improper dry time is a factor.

that link seems to be down.

I have a target that looks like a 'target', alternating black and yellow bands.  I look for puddling in the blacks and black bleed in the yellow and vice versa.

I've found you can increase the ink load sometimes, but usually the results are not visually different than just using the media type recommended by the manufacturer.  On most papers I also haven't found color munki profiles to be better than most of those provided by manufacturers.

[William Wilson]

I have been thinking out of gamut colours would obviously create a different looking initial target print if done on a fine art matte paper from a gloss/luster paper this will compromise the target print and no amount of the profile being tweaked will compensate.