Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hello
I have had PP for sometime and got very good results with it.  However, profiling new glossy paper is giving awful results from the profile.
My printer is a Canon iP4500, scanner canoscan 5000F, Vuescan, Qimage and used Lightroom to print the printer target.
Let it dry for 12 hours. Scanned as recommended and get these results:-

Prism target
Exposure:image is properly exposed (251)
White balance accuracy: 5% (Excellent - white balance is very accurate)
Lighting variance: 4% (Excellent - even lighting across chart)
Note : 3 patches marked with "X" are at minimum/maximum brightness.
Shadow detail: Excellent - no gray patches clipped.

Printer target
Exposure : 254
Note: 4 patches marked with "X" are at minimum/maximum brightness.
-------------
Printer/paper/ink dynamic range: 84.5
Printer/paper/ink coverage of Lab space: 8.8%
Smoothing required: 3 passes
Printer profile usable range: 0-255,38-255,0-255

They seem quite good to me but as I say the results using the profile are awful.  Shadows are grey, red is too vivid, the image is flat and looks 'silvered'.
The results are the same from LR and Qimage.

Any ideas gratefully received.
Thank you
John

Hi John,
This is your problem I think. I don't really know much about Lightroom, but I was told by a colour management professional during lecture at my camera club never to use LR for target printing because it always applies a profile; a no-no for target printing.
Use Qimage for printing, it has a special Job with all the right settings.
In Qimage use Recall, Job, and scroll down to look for "{Q} printer target setup.job" and OK. You will know about setting your driver appropriately too.
Terry.

Thank you for your prompt reply Terry.
I'll make another profile using Qimage and will report back when done.
Cheers
John

Hello Terry
Certainly Lightroom was the problem as my new profile printed from Qimage is nigh on spot on.
Comparing the target prints from LR and Qimage it was obvious the the one from LR was quite a lot lighter.
Prints from Qimage are very good while those printed from LR, using the new profile, are not so good so it does seem that some alteration/profiling is being applied.  I wonder why?  I have the latest beta version3 so I'll see if that does the same.
Thank you for the pointer as I would have never figured out it was LR at fault.
Best wishes
John

You should not be surprised that Qimage makes better prints, why use anything else?  ::)  ;D
Terry