Hobbiecolors ink, Spyder3 profiles - issues.

I started this post hoping that Dominic Chan, Bob Mert, and Dmiller, along with others, will jump in here with some guidance. The results may bennefit others jumping to 3rd party inks, papers, and custom ICC profiles.

The following tests were performed using a Canon I950 (6 color) printer, OEM inks, and both Kodak Ultra and Red River Artic Polar Luster papers. I have printed a lot in the past with OEM inks, the standard Canon print driver, custom Spyder3Print ICC profiles on Kodak Ultra paper with great results. Nikon NX2 was used for printing, I ran some through Photoshop CS4 with the same print results. All prints viewed under daylight corrected lamp.

I recently decided to change over to Hobbiecolors UW8 inks for both my Canon I950 and Canon PIXMA 9000PRO MK II printers. I have used Hobbiecolors in the past for prints using Canon and Epson papers and really didn't have any major issues.

In the following set of actual (1) & scanned (3-4) photos with

P1 the control photo
P2 OEM inks, standard Canon printer driver, Kodak Ultra paper
P3 Hobbicolors ink, custom Spyder ICC profile, Kodak Ultra paper

P4 Hobbiecolors ink, custom Spyder ICC profiles, Red River Artic Polar Luster paper

I printed two different sets, on two different days, of Spyder test targets (729 partches plus greys) to eliminate any variables, and let them dry 24 hours before profiling. And yes I know how to use ICC profiles, Canon driver color management set to none for both the printing the Spyder profile targets and th actual prinouts seen here.

Photo 2 with OEM ink and Kodak Ultra paper with the Canon standard print driver looks like a great match against the control print. Grey scale ramp and the color gamut looks very good indeed. This is why I have loaded up with over 700 sheets of 8.5X11 and 100 sheets of 4x6 Kodak Ultra. OEM ink usage was getting expensive and I decided to try cheaper 3rd party refilling 100%.

Now this is where it gets somewhat disappointing.....

P3 Hobbiecolors ink, custom Spyder ICC profile, Kodak Ultra paper. I realize that the Hobbie color ink set will have a shifted gamut than the OEM ink, but I thought that the Spyder profile would adjust enough to obtain a close match to the OEM gamut especially in the grey scale ramp. As you look at the grey ramp on this photo is all over the place. My scanned IQ doesn't show the tint change in the grey scal ramp from a beige, green, magenta. Also look at the color gamut maps in the top sides, not close at all to the control print.

P4 Hobbiecolors ink, custom Spyder profile, Red River Artic Polar Luster paper. Much better grey scale ramp and color gamut mapping compared to the control print but still not there.

I was under the impression that the Spyder3Print would generate acceptable color matching, especially grey scale, no matter what ink paper combination. I realize that there can be an overall tint issue but when I see a grey ramp with beige, cyan, green, magenta tint, overll tint adjustment to the profile is not possible.

Am I missing something to make this custom ICC profiling work? Or is it just not possible to do better than the OEM inks and standard driver?

I know that I can go to the Artic Polar Luster paper for farily good results, but my inventory of Kodak Ultra prevents that right now. Also what I have seen so far doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about using another 3rd party ink or paper.

Hopefully all you experts can shed some light on all of this for my sake and others thinking about going to 3rd part inks and papers, with custom profiling.

I'm waiting for my Canon 9000 OEM inks to run down before trying the same tests on that printer with the additional red and green ink set.

Thanks,

Bob P.

Petruska said:

I know that I can go to the Artic Polar Luster paper for farily good results, but my inventory of Kodak Ultra prevents that right now. Also what I have seen so far doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about using another 3rd party ink or paper.

Click to expand...

One suggestion I have, is to turn off the "Absolute Grays" option (under Advanced Editing). That should reduce or eliminate the yellowish highlight. It does not required any re-measurement, so should take only a few seconds to try out.

Also, did you allow sufficient time (one hour or preferably overnight) for the colour to stabilize, before taking the measurments?

Do you see the problems in the Spyder3Print's Soft Proof screen?

Dominic.Chan said:

One suggestion I have, is to turn off the "Absolute Grays" option (under Advanced Editing). That should reduce or eliminate the yellowish highlight. It does not required any re-measurement, so should take only a few seconds to try out.>

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Done that and now the gres ramp has more of a majorityof magenta tint with some cyan, yellow. See photo below.

Dominic.Chan said:

Also, did you allow sufficient time (one hour or preferably overnight) for the colour to stabilize, before taking the measurments?>

Click to expand...

Dried for 24 hours.

Dominic.Chan said:

Do you see the problems in the Spyder3Print's Soft Proof screen?

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Not much a grey scale ramp there to see the changes. The original Spyder profile soft proof has a slight yellow tint to the black white photos, the revised profile with the Absolute Greys removed now shows those same black white photos with a slight magenta tint.

I'm defintely not an ink and paper expert, but do you think that this is a Hobbicolors and Kodak Ultra paper "chemistry" mismatch?

Just my two cents.

I'm a long time non OEM ink user and have found by testing and experimenting not all ink sets are gray balanced. If an ink set is not gray balanced you will end up with gray color shifts through the ramp and they will more than likely shift in different direction giving the rainbow effect. Miss matched inks can also cause a reduced color gamut and hollow shadow colors not to mention a loss of detail in the highlights especially in the neutral colors.
I'd suggest a new non oem ink.
Bob

Petruska said:

The following tests were performed using a Canon I950 (6 color) printer, OEM inks, and both Kodak Ultra and Red River Artic Polar Luster papers. I have printed a lot in the past with OEM inks, the standard Canon print driver, custom Spyder3Print ICC profiles on Kodak Ultra paper with great results. Nikon NX2 was used for printing, I ran some through Photoshop CS4 with the same print results. All prints viewed under daylight corrected lamp.

Click to expand...

Are you using the same workflow for P2, P3 and P4 (except for different profiles)? You used different terms to describe them, i.e.,

P2 OEM inks, standard Canon printer driver, Kodak Ultra paper

P4 Hobbiecolors ink, custom Spyder ICC profiles, Red River Artic Polar Luster paper

The printer driver is presumably the same throughout; what profile did you use for P2?

I have used Hobbicolors inks before and didn't have any problem with them (as long as a custom profile is used).

Dominic.Chan said:

Are you using the same workflow for P2, P3 and P4 (except for different profiles)? You used different terms to describe them, i.e.,

P2 OEM inks, standard Canon printer driver, Kodak Ultra paper

Click to expand...

Dominic.Chan said:

P4 Hobbiecolors ink, custom Spyder ICC profiles, Red River Artic Polar Luster paper

The printer driver is presumably the same throughout; what profile did you use for P2?

Click to expand...

P2 no custom profile, just the standard Canon print driver, auto color turned on. Best color match and quality, but I'm trying not to use OEM inks anymore (too expensive).

P3, unique Spyder profile for the Hobbicolors ink & Kodak Ultra paper

P4, unique Spyder profile for the Hobbiecolors ink & Red River Artic Polar Luster paper.

Thus P3 and P4 did not use the same profile.

Dominic.Chan said:

I have used Hobbicolors inks before and didn't have any problem with them (as long as a custom profile is used).

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From my tests the Red River APL paper was close to acceptable over the Kodak Ultra. Hobbiecolors has a great track record but just maybe the ink chemistry and the Kodak paper chemistry don't match well at all.

BobMert said:

Just my two cents.

I'm a long time non OEM ink user and have found by testing and experimenting not all ink sets are gray balanced. If an ink set is not gray balanced you will end up with gray color shifts through the ramp and they will more than likely shift in different direction giving the rainbow effect. Miss matched inks can also cause a reduced color gamut and hollow shadow colors not to mention a loss of detail in the highlights especially in the neutral colors.
I'd suggest a new non oem ink.
Bob

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Well what you state sure looks like my problem.

Dominic indicates that his experience with Hobbicolors ink should be no problem with the correct custom profile. I'm starting to think that the Kodak paper is a major part of my problem.

Now I really need to try and find 3rd party inks that will work with my large inventory of Kodak Ultra paper so I'm willing to try other 3rd party inks. Which do you recommend from your wealth of experience?

Thanks,

Bob P.

Petruska said:

P2 no custom profile, just the standard Canon print driver, auto color turned on. Best color match and quality, but I'm trying not to use OEM inks anymore (too expensive).

P3, unique Spyder profile for the Hobbicolors ink & Kodak Ultra paper

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For P2, it would be better to use Canon Profile with Canon ink, rather than using a completely different work flow. That would make sure the only variable is the profile, making it easier to pinpoint the problem.

Petruska said:

From my tests the Red River APL paper was close to acceptable over the Kodak Ultra. Hobbiecolors has a great track record but just maybe the ink chemistry and the Kodak paper chemistry don't match well at all.

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That may be a factor, but the results should not be nearly as bad as what you're getting, especially since you're using 729 patches plus extended grays when creating the profile. Have you done a soft proof of the grey scale using the profile?

Dominic.Chan said:

For P2, it would be better to use Canon Profile with Canon ink, rather than using a completely different work flow. That would make sure the only variable is the profile, making it easier to pinpoint the problem.

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For my I950 I have never found an ICC Canon profile to use with my work flow. I just used the embedded Canon Photo Paper Pro selection. When I made a custom Spyder profile for the Canon OEM ink and Kodak paper in the past it was identical to the standard Canon standard driver. I have no more OEM ink so I can't run the anymore tests.

Dominic.Chan said:

Dominic.Chan said:

From my tests the Red River APL paper was close to acceptable over the Kodak Ultra. Hobbiecolors has a great track record but just maybe the ink chemistry and the Kodak paper chemistry don't match well at all.

Click to expand...

That may be a factor, but the results should not be nearly as bad as what you're getting, especially since you're using 729 patches plus extended grays when creating the profile. Have you done a soft proof of the grey scale using the profile?

Click to expand...

I see the various color tints when soft proofing the grey scale. I have other papers to try, Ilford Galerie, Kodak Professional and 17 other Red River types. It's some work to generate more profiles (sure wish I had the new Spyder scanner) but probably worth it to see if it is the paper chemistry.

Thanks,

Bob P.

Petruska said:

For my I950 I have never found an ICC Canon profile to use with my work flow. I just used the embedded Canon Photo Paper Pro selection. When I made a custom Spyder profile for the Canon OEM ink and Kodak paper in the past it was identical to the standard Canon standard driver. I have no more OEM ink so I can't run the anymore tests.

Click to expand...

An alternative would be to do the reverse, i.e., to use the standard Canon driver to print with Hobbicolors ink and Kodak Ultra paper, (you might even have done this already). Do you see the corkscrew effect in the greyscale of that print? If so, that may indicate a bad combination.

Dominic.Chan said:

Petruska said:

For my I950 I have never found an ICC Canon profile to use with my work flow. I just used the embedded Canon Photo Paper Pro selection. When I made a custom Spyder profile for the Canon OEM ink and Kodak paper in the past it was identical to the standard Canon standard driver. I have no more OEM ink so I can't run the anymore tests.

Click to expand...

An alternative would be to do the reverse, i.e., to use the standard Canon driver to print with Hobbicolors ink and Kodak Ultra paper, (you might even have done this already). Do you see the corkscrew effect in the greyscale of that print? If so, that may indicate a bad combination.

Click to expand...

Printing with HC inks, Ultra paper with the standard Canon driver was the first thing that I did with the ink changeover a few days ago. The grey scale ramp was correct to where no various tints were all over the place, but it did have a slight overall cyan tint. This is when I knew that I needed the custom Spyder profiles to get rid of that slight cyan cast, but it turned out to much more than dialing just the cyan in. I see what you are saying here about the Canon driver being able to ramp the grey scale linearly using HC & Kodak Ultra paper. Now why can't the Spyder3Print system produce the same linearity on the grey scale even if it produced it was an overall tint? Then again the Spyder3Print system did fairly well with the HC & Red River APL paper.

It is almost never impossible for a given inkset to deliver a relatively neutral grey unless the inkset is no approximation of the original inkset.

If you would like, in order to give you another control point (or at least a workable solution for the kodak ultra paper you have so much of) I would be happy to produce you a profile free of charge.

My own profile setup (as you may have noticed from my earlier postings) is an x-rite i1 isis. I typically run 4096 patch targets and my own special 2108 patch target with a special post-processing step which eliminates black blocking. The isis is (I believe) the current absolute top of the line in reading equipment.

I have profiled for myself and other people a variety of 3rd party inksets and achieved a pretty decent approximation of neutrality and near perfect linearity.

Just drop me an email if you'd like my test charts.

xilvar

etruska said:

Dominic.Chan said:

Petruska said:

For my I950 I have never found an ICC Canon profile to use with my work flow. I just used the embedded Canon Photo Paper Pro selection. When I made a custom Spyder profile for the Canon OEM ink and Kodak paper in the past it was identical to the standard Canon standard driver. I have no more OEM ink so I can't run the anymore tests.

Click to expand...

An alternative would be to do the reverse, i.e., to use the standard Canon driver to print with Hobbicolors ink and Kodak Ultra paper, (you might even have done this already). Do you see the corkscrew effect in the greyscale of that print? If so, that may indicate a bad combination.

Click to expand...

Printing with HC inks, Ultra paper with the standard Canon driver was the first thing that I did with the ink changeover a few days ago. The grey scale ramp was correct to where no various tints were all over the place, but it did have a slight overall cyan tint. This is when I knew that I needed the custom Spyder profiles to get rid of that slight cyan cast, but it turned out to much more than dialing just the cyan in. I see what you are saying here about the Canon driver being able to ramp the grey scale linearly using HC & Kodak Ultra paper. Now why can't the Spyder3Print system produce the same linearity on the grey scale even if it produced it was an overall tint? Then again the Spyder3Print system did fairly well with the HC & Red River APL paper.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry I'm an epson user so no first hand with canon.

Mis makes some pretty good ink an their QA is pretty good at least on the epson end.
Bob

Petruska said:

Dominic.Chan wrote:

Printing with HC inks, Ultra paper with the standard Canon driver was the first thing that I did with the ink changeover a few days ago. The grey scale ramp was correct to where no various tints were all over the place, but it did have a slight overall cyan tint. This is when I knew that I needed the custom Spyder profiles to get rid of that slight cyan cast, but it turned out to much more than dialing just the cyan in. I see what you are saying here about the Canon driver being able to ramp the grey scale linearly using HC & Kodak Ultra paper. Now why can't the Spyder3Print system produce the same linearity on the grey scale even if it produced it was an overall tint? Then again the Spyder3Print system did fairly well with the HC & Red River APL paper.

Click to expand...

You said you produced two sets of targets; did you also measure them separately to rule out any measurement errors?

Another you may want to try, as part of the trouble-shooting process, is to use the HQ target with fewer patches and without extended grays. If your ink/paper has no linearity problems, that should give you an adequate profile (certainly should better than what you're getting).

--
http://www.pbase.com/goggled/rythmic_gymnastics

Dominic.Chan said:

Petruska said:

Dominic.Chan wrote:

Printing with HC inks, Ultra paper with the standard Canon driver was the first thing that I did with the ink changeover a few days ago. The grey scale ramp was correct to where no various tints were all over the place, but it did have a slight overall cyan tint. This is when I knew that I needed the custom Spyder profiles to get rid of that slight cyan cast, but it turned out to much more than dialing just the cyan in. I see what you are saying here about the Canon driver being able to ramp the grey scale linearly using HC & Kodak Ultra paper. Now why can't the Spyder3Print system produce the same linearity on the grey scale even if it produced it was an overall tint? Then again the Spyder3Print system did fairly well with the HC & Red River APL paper.

Click to expand...

You said you produced two sets of targets; did you also measure them separately to rule out any measurement errors?

Click to expand...

On the 2 set of targets, I did measured them separately and had identical results.

Dominic.Chan said:

Another you may want to try, as part of the trouble-shooting process, is to use the HQ target with fewer patches and without extended grays. If your ink/paper has no linearity problems, that should give you an adequate profile (certainly should better than what you're getting).

Click to expand...

I will run the HQ target with 225 patches and no extended greys today using the Kodak Ultra paper, along with targets using the Ilford, Kodak Pro, and just found Canon Platinum papers.

Dominic.Chan said:

--
http://www.pbase.com/goggled/rythmic_gymnastics

Click to expand...

xilvar said:

It is almost never impossible for a given inkset to deliver a relatively neutral grey unless the inkset is no approximation of the original inkset.

If you would like, in order to give you another control point (or at least a workable solution for the kodak ultra paper you have so much of) I would be happy to produce you a profile free of charge.

My own profile setup (as you may have noticed from my earlier postings) is an x-rite i1 isis. I typically run 4096 patch targets and my own special 2108 patch target with a special post-processing step which eliminates black blocking. The isis is (I believe) the current absolute top of the line in reading equipment.

I have profiled for myself and other people a variety of 3rd party inksets and achieved a pretty decent approximation of neutrality and near perfect linearity.

Just drop me an email if you'd like my test charts.

xilvar

Click to expand...

Xilvar,

I appreciate your offer on generating a profile for the Kodak Ultra paper using Hobbiecolors ink. It looks very important at this point to have another profile generated by a different system to eliminate any error of the Spyder3Print profiling system.

I will send you an email.

Thanks,

Bob P.

Dominic.Chan said:

Another you may want to try, as part of the trouble-shooting process, is to use the HQ target with fewer patches and without extended grays. If your ink/paper has no linearity problems, that should give you an adequate profile (certainly should better than what you're getting).

--

Click to expand...

Dominic,

I ran the Spyder 225 patch target without the greys. I used the Kodak Ultra, Kodak Professional satin, Ilford and Canon Platinum papers.

The test produced the same questionable grey scale on with the Kodak papers and the Ilford, but the surprise was the Canon Platinum looked very good.

P7 below shows the Ultra paper with the 225 patches profile, so-so!

P8 same conditions (Ultra paper, new profile generated) but changed the Canon driver paper selection from the Photo Paper Pro to Glossy Photo Paper and there is definitely a meaningful improvement with the grey scale. My conclusion for this improvement may be that less ink is laid down with this paper selection?

P9 is the results with the Canon Platinum paper, the results are actually stunning when viewed under a daylight corrected lamp, the print matches my monitor almost perfectly within the allowable physics, stellar contrast!

The gamut plot shows something interesting, the Platinum paper (wireframe) with HC inks has a much larger gamut than the Ultra paper (solid). I'm starting to think that the ink is soaking into the Ultra paper deeply producing darker patches which are not true to the colors expected. The Spyder system may not be able to compensate for that. I could be wrong.

Right now the best option for using the Kodak Ultra paper is to use the Glossy Photo Paper selection, make 729 patch profiles. Can you explain what the extended greys do for me when I produce a profile? Is it better to use them or not?

Petruska said:

P7 below shows the Ultra paper with the 225 patches profile, so-so!

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Your numbering in the scanned pictures seems to be P6, P7, P8 instead of P7, P8, P9. I will use the numbering on the prints.

To my eyes (based on the scanned pictures), P7 (Ultra, Glossy) has the most neutral grey, although I would have turned off "Absolute Grays" to eliminate the yellowish highlight. P8 (Platinum) seems to have been generated with "Absolute Grays" turned off; it has a wider gamut but the greyscale does seem as neutral.

Petruska said:

Can you explain what the extended greys do for me when I produce a profile? Is it better to use them or not?

Click to expand...

According to a previous post from David Miller:

Petruska said:

Petruska said:

If it has at least one gray ink, then it's worth printing the extra sheet of extended grays and using that to enhance the profile; even better if it has 2 grays (like, the light black and light light black in some of the Epsons). If you've only got "black" for black, then I wouldn't spend time on the extra patches

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=32930369

Dominic.Chan said:

To my eyes (based on the scanned pictures), P7 (Ultra, Glossy) has the most neutral grey, although I would have turned off "Absolute Grays" to eliminate the yellowish highlight. P8 (Platinum) seems to have been generated with "Absolute Grays" turned off; it has a wider gamut but the greyscale does seem as neutral.

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Yes, the photo #'s on the photos are correct, past midnight here, I do bad text when tired.

Absolute greys were not turned off on all 3 profiles. I will rerun the profiles tomorrow with absolute greys turned off.

Dominic.Chan said:

Dominic.Chan said:

Can you explain what the extended greys do for me when I produce a profile? Is it better to use them or not?

Click to expand...

According to a previous post from David Miller:

Dominic.Chan said:

Dominic.Chan said:

If it has at least one gray ink, then it's worth printing the extra sheet of extended grays and using that to enhance the profile; even better if it has 2 grays (like, the light black and light light black in some of the Epsons). If you've only got "black" for black, then I wouldn't spend time on the extra patches

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=32930369

Click to expand...

So for me without grey ink I will definitely skip grey scanning in the future.

One item that I just came across that is stumping me right now. I normally have the Show Preview before Printing turned on in the Canon driver. I noticed that it had a magenta tint and that tint showed up in the B/W photos I printed. I tunrned the preview off, and then the printout had no tint! I rebooted and the same issue. I will reload the Canon driver tomorrow, but now I wondering if some of my magenta tint I see after profiling could be from that preview flaw.

One other item you may have an answer for. I had purchased new empty cartridges from Hobbicolors to make sure that I had no residual ink from used cartridges to contaminate the new HC ink to obtain the best possible profiles. Dave from HC said that that new cartridges are not so good, to use old Canon OEM cartridges which I am doing. My concern now that I think about it more is that no one knows how much OEM ink was left in each used cartridge. I never ran them dry, I pulled them after a few prints after the low warning.

How contaminated could the HC ink get mixed with residual OEM ink in that OEM cartridge?

Is there a way to flush the cartridges before refilling?

Bob P.

Petruska said:

One item that I just came across that is stumping me right now. I normally have the Show Preview before Printing turned on in the Canon driver. I noticed that it had a magenta tint and that tint showed up in the B/W photos I printed. I tunrned the preview off, and then the printout had no tint! I rebooted and the same issue. I will reload the Canon driver tomorrow, but now I wondering if some of my magenta tint I see after profiling could be from that preview flaw.

Click to expand...

I have read some reports in the past regarding the Canon driver preview screwing up the print. Best to turn it off, just to be safe.

Petruska said:

My concern now that I think about it more is that no one knows how much OEM ink was left in each used cartridge.

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There is a significant amount of ink left in the sponges of the Canon cartridges eve after they are declared empty. You can flush most of it out by filling the cartridge with the new ink, and squeezing the sides (while covering the top vent); repeat a few times.

However, I don't think ink contamination was the cause of the problem, as you have been getting consistent results. With all the testing you've been doing, I would expect the residual ink to have been used up.

Not sure why Dave recommends against his own cartridges. I have used the Hobbicolors BCI-6 cartridges (with a screw plug) and find them to work well.