Printer Profiling Report - Kodak Papers on PIXMA MG5250

I profiled two paper types on the Canon MG2552 printer. Kodak Premium Glossy and Kodak Matte.

Glossy:
It took 3 scans to get a half decent profile on the glossy paper. The first 2 scans produced profiles which resembled blocks of Swiss cheese instead of neat 3D polygons. The last profile while looking somewhat complete still had some major flaws which were only evident after doing a test print. When soft proofing the test image against the profile in Photoshop it was clear that the printer did not have the full colour range and gamut required to print an exact copy of the test image. In the actual print  I was surprised to find red and green colour shifts which looked like chromatic aberrations, and banding throughout the colour and black and white tonal bars. Clearly something had gone wrong again while scanning. Soft proofing the image again in Photoshop really didnt reveal the issues which were present in the actual test print. A reprint of the test patches and reprofiling would be required to fix these issues.

Kodak Gloss compared with Adobe RGB

Matte:
The matte paper only took 2 scans and the final profile polygon looked much cleaner. Again when soft proofing the test image against the matted profile in Photoshop it was clear that the printer did not have the full colour range and gamut required to print an exact copy of the test image.The actual test print was was quite clean with really only the printers colour limitations noticeable to my untrained eye.

Kodak Gloss compared with Adobe RGB

Kodak Matte compared with Eizo Monitor Profile

With the glassy profile unusable my ring around was produced on the matte profile. Looking at the printed ring around its easy to see how slight colour shifts could easily be mistaken for the wrong colour or no shift at all.



Comparing the printer and monitors to the Adobe RGB colour space revealed the gamut limitations of the devices. The Canon 5250 printer was by far the worst colour gamut performer and greater shifts in available colours were noticeable. I was surprised to find that the iMac and Eizo displays preformed reasonably well overall when compared to the RGB space.

While the calibration processes were somewhat tedious, its clear after working through them and looking at the varied outputs I produced, that having a colour managed workflow is vital in getting consistent and predictable results.

Monitor Calibration Report

Having a calibrated monitor is one of the essential requirements in a colour managed workflow. With a calibrated monitor you can be confident that the colours you are seeing and editing on screen will accurately match the output of your prints (printer profiling also necessary). If you profile your monitor against a standard you can also be assured that other users with monitors profiled against the same standard will be viewing your images with the same colours.


Calibration of a monitor involves adjusting a monitor’s settings to configure it into an optimal state and then producing and implementing a colour profile which allows the monitor to display colours as accurately as possible. This process should be repeated on a regular basis as the colour accuracy of a monitor changes over its lifetime.

This report details the results of monitor calibrations performed on an Eizo SX2462W monitor on workstation 4 in the digital darkroom and an IMac home computer. The calibrations were carried out using an X-Rite i1Display Pro calibration device and i1Profiler software.

Setting	Target Value	1st Calibration Eizo SX2462W monitor	2nd Calibration Eizo SX2462W monitor	IMac
Display	Wide Gamut CC	NA	NA	NA
White Point	D6500K	6577K	6503K	6515K
Luminance	120	116	117	119
Contrast Ratio	Native	673:1	706:1	823:1
Flare Correct	Off	NA	NA	NA
Ambient Light Control	Off	NA	NA	NA

As can be seen in the table above, the white point was closely matched to the target value of 6500K by both monitors but the luminance was slightly lower. Overall the displays are achieving a very close output to the requested industry standard.

The comparison of the profiles to the Adobe RGB colour revealed the limitations of the monitors and shift in available colours. I was surprised to find that the IMac display had a very similar profile to the Eizo.

1st Calibration Eizo 28 Feb 2013

1st Calibration Eizo 28 Fen 2013

Eizo 28 Feb 2013 Comparison Adobe RGB

2nd Calibration Eizo 3 April 2013

2nd Calibration Eizo 3 April 2013

Eizo 3 April 2013 Comparison Adobe RGB

IMac Calibration

IMac Calibration 2 April 2013

IMac Calibration 2 April 2013

IMac 2 April 2013 Comparison Adobe RGB

IMAGES
i1Display Device = http://www.borge.com.au/images/X-Rite%20i1%20Display%20Pro.png
IMac = http://zapp5.staticworld.net/news/graphics/201962-10imac215_frontcopy_original.gif
Eizo SX2462W = http://www.eizo.com/global//products/flexscan/sx2462w/product_photo_02.png

Imaging Techniques - Sharpening Images in Photoshop

Most digital images benefit from some level of sharpening. The level required will obviously depend on the image and its intended output (screen, print, etc). As we all know there are more than a zillion ways to do the same thing in Photoshop. Below are just two of many methods to sharpen images. One is fairly strait forward which will work 70-80% of the time and the other is a little more involved. Both techniques have been taken from the tutorial on the following website http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/sharpen-an-image/photo-sharpening.html

ORIGINAL IMAGE

1st Method - Simple High Pass Sharpen

1. Duplicate the background layer and set its blending mode to Overlay.







2. With the duplicated background layer selected. Select Filter > Other > Highpass.
3. Increase the pixel radius until the you feel you have the right amount of sharpening. Around 1.0 to 3.0 works well but will depend on the image. Best to look at the image at 100% for this.





4. Select the paintbrush too and select a soft edged brush. Set the colour to a mid tone grey.
5. Paint over the parts of duplicated background layer which do not need sharpening. E.g. Skin.

ORIGINAL CLOSE UP

WITH HIGHPASS SHARPEN

Note: keep an eye out for colour fringing with this process. If it occurs try the 2nd method below to reduce it. 

2nd Method - Unsharp Mask/ Smart Sharpen

Use this method to avoid colour fringing and saturation issues.

1. Duplicate the background layer.
2. With the duplicated background layer selected. Select Filter > Other > Highpass.
3. Increase the pixel radius until the you feel you have the right amount of sharpening. Around 1.0 to 3.0 works well but will depend on the image. Best to look at the image at 100% for this.





4. Select Image > Adjustments > Threshold to apply a Threshold adjustment to the layer. Drag the slider just below the histogram to isolate the edges that require sharpening. The aim of moving these sliders is to render all of those areas you do not want to sharpen white .



5. Refine the image by painting over the parts of the image which don't require sharpening with a soft edged white brush.



6. Go to the Channels palette and Command-click the RGB thumbnail to load the edge detail as a selection.
7. Go back to he layers palette and duplicate the original background image again and drag it to the top of the layers.











Turn off the visibility of the High Pass layer.
With the new background copy selected Option-Click the new mask icon.



8. With the mask selected, select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a 1.5 pixel radius blur to the mask.
9. Now select the image thumbnail for the background copy. Zoom into 100% then select Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen or Unsharp Mask. Adjust the Amount slider to between 80 and 150%.



10. Change the blend mode of the sharpening layer (the uppermost layer) to Luminosity mode. Luminosity mode will restrict the contrast changes to brightness only, and will remove any changes in saturation that have occurred due to the use of the Unsharp Mask. The changes are often very subtle so this technique is only recommended when you become aware of the problems of color fringing due to increased saturation.

ORIGINAL CLOSE UP

AFTER UNSHARP MASK

First Monitor Calibration - Digi Darkroom

Below is the results of a monitor calibration performed on an Eizo SX2462W monitor on workstation 4 in the digital darkroom. The calibration was carried out using an X-Rite i1Display Pro calibration device and ?i1Profiler software.

http://www.eizo.com/global//products/flexscan/sx2462w/product_photo_02.png

http://www.borge.com.au/images/X-Rite%20i1%20Display%20Pro.png

Setting	Target Value	Achieved Value
Display	Wide Gamut CC	NA
White Point	D6500K	6577K
Luminance	120	116
Contrast Ratio	Native	673:1
Flare Correct	Off	NA
Ambient Light Control	Off	NA

As can be seen in the table above the white point was closely matched to the target value of 6500K but the luminance was slightly lower. Overall the display is achieving a very close output to the requested industry standard.