I've been preparing quite a few files for printing. I've not put any images to paper for months and thought it was about time. I also got my printer back in working order.
My printer is the cheap, but decent quality output, Canon iP6700D (Photo-i review) a six ink consumer level A4 printer. Not flash but gets the job done. When properly controlled, the output can look very nice, even for black and white. Unfortunately it stopped working a while back as it couldn't recognise one of the ink tanks despite it being original canon supply from a reputable store. canon's answer was to send it back to them. I never got round to it. This weekend I decided to buy a replacement for the offending tank: bingo, it worked first time. Annoying but fixable. Now I'm back in service.
It's taken a while to tweak my printing workflow to match my updated processing workflow. I've spent quite a bit of time determining the black point for the printer: a whopping level 35. That means levels tweaking for most images. That done, I had a job tweaking black and white output to get the right tonal range and balance. First mistake was to try printing B&W as colour - can you say "colour cast"? In-built greyscale is the way to go, nice neutral tones. Colour images are fine, settings just off those I used previously. Save both set-ups as in-built profiles and I'm away.
As to colour profile, I'd reset that using the Monaco EZColor kit that came with my Epson V750 scanner. Once the scanner is properly profiled you can run a test print and use the scanner & software to profile the printer. That's a good reason to go with the V750 versus the V700.
Monday, 21 January 2008
Back to printing
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That profiling routine with the V750 looked kind of interesting. Do you know how it compares to a dedicated printer profiler, like printfix pro?
ReplyDeleteI need a scanner, and it wouldn't hurt if I could make some simple printer profiles as well.
I can't speak to custom profiles as I've not worked with them (no one does them for cheap printers anyway). what I can say is that the results appear very good - I'm getting accurate reproductions within the printer's limits.
ReplyDeleteIf you work with a wide range of papers or with a printer not (well) supported by custom profiles this is a relatively easy way to go. Cheaper, too.
The Monaco pack also comes with the targets for profiling the scanner (the first step). You get a 264-patch target which is pretty detailed. IIRC, I had to download the printer target. I can't find it off-hand to check the number of patches.
I'm very happy with the total package - from scanner through to printer.
hmm, I was looking at the v700, which seemed to cover my needs, but this may alter the decision a bit. I do have a lot of godd canned profiles for the papers I use most (Epson R2400 is well supported), but it would have been interesting to do some simple profiles for the occational use of the more odd media.
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