help with Spyder Print4, calibration and paper profiles

Seems like I'm stuck in a spiral - headed the wrong direction.

Printed a test target (EZ Colors, the 2-page one) on Archival Matte with epson's own paper profile (after making sure this gave better results than other paper profiles) Measured the 2 pages, saved the profile. Don't like what I see very much in the SpyderProof-view, nor in prints.

Now what? Should I use this profile to print a next set of targets, measure them, use the resulting profile? I did that, with progressively worse results! I expected it to be a re-iterative process, this fine tuning, but somehow it isn't.

Or... should I take the above profile, fiddle with the parameters in the Edit section and save it? That didnt work out too swell either. But maybe there's a certain way of 'fiddling' with all the sliders at your disposal in the edit section?

Hope to hear from anyone who went through this and got out better than before!

Hi,

Your big mistake is right at the start.

You must print the measuring targets with no profile at all. You are double profiling which will give weird & usually awful results.

Use the Spyder Print software to print the targets from & make sure all colour management is turned off in the printer driver before you actually print.

You should then measure the targets (I leave mine overnight to properly dry, enabling the inks to stabilise) & save the profile you have created. Then set the profile in your print software & leave the printer set to no colour management (very important, again to avoid double profiling).

You should then be able to print images that are very close to what you see on your screen, assuming you have calibrated it.

I have been using my Studio 3 kit for over 5 years & have always been more than satisfied with the results.

Good luck!

Thanks for your answer. So simple! just too much common sense for my decaying brains ;-) Will give it a go tomorrow first thing, looking forward to the results!

yes, targets must be printed w/ NO COLOR MANAGEMENT.

O.k., getting there, 3 steps forward 2 backward. Three questions. Printing "Media Setting Check.tif" from LR3 gives the same results as from Preview: passable but not great: a couple of patches are clearly wrong, especially in the upper left corners of the 6 upper quadrants (/"ninths"?). Which is exactly where I'd need the exact tone of shadow-dark-green in my prints.

So this will be my first question: how to fine-tune these little glitches? Is there a certain order in which you best go about fiddling with the sliders in the "Advanced editing" module of SpyderPrint? (- out of personal interest, question 1b: how many "off-" patches do you consider passable?)

Secondly, printing from Photoshop PS3: weird artefacts, whole swathes of patches mixed up. As far as I can tell, exactly the same settings as in LR. It's a PS copy a friend gave me, I'm not too sure about its legality. Could that be the cause? (Another PS copy, PS5 of which I'm certain it's an illegal one, just crashes every time I hit "print"!)

Third question: in the print dialog, drop down color matching, why are the radio boxes where you choose between Color synch and Epson Color controls, greyed out when reached from LR and PS and not in Preview? Should they be greyed out?

many thanks in advance!

I have the Spyder3 Studio kit and initially also had problems with getting a good profile. Called them for suggestions and was told two things which made all the difference:

1. use the EZ High Quality Target Plus Grays, which prints on four sheets, not two. This gives you much better tonalities, as the printer uses black ink for color shading and so needs those gray readings to fine tune it.

2. don't use the default, supposedly fast, "strip" way of reading your targets as this way is prone to mistakes, which will throw off your profile. When the target pages come up on the screen, at the bottom right corner make sure to choose "patch" reading and not "strip." This will set the software to accept each color patch reading separately one at a time and at your own pace so you don't make any mistakes. Also make sure your sound is turned on so you can hear the "click" of a successful reading, and that the initial "white" reading, which the software requests before the color patches are read, is good because if it's not it will throw off your entire reading.

Doing these two steps enables me to make better profiles than any of the canned profiles I can download from the manufactures web site.

Good luck.

o.k., thanks i'll give it a go! In strip measuring mode it doesn't give much confidence to see the red measuring light peeping out from underneath the spectro. Presumably the measurement could be contaminated by ambient light ?

- But how do you know the white reading is to be improved upon? Software just says "allright, on to the next step."

The white reading is just the initial calibration step done with the probe still in its dock before the color reading begins, and you can tell if its been done correctly if the color patch reading is close to the official color. But if the color is wildly off then you should redo the white calibration step.

O.k. The colors are not widely off, they all correspond with the pure ones but they're much, much less saturated. Sounds familiar?

Now trying to get a print to match my (calibrated) screen with "advanced editing" (where "advanced" seems quite the overstatement) and it's a mess. Clouds that are yellow / white in the setting sun turn an ugly orange / magenta in print.

OK, so what you're saying is that you're saving your finished profile and you're using the soft proofing in PS and the colors still are way off?

No I dont use soft proofing in PS (my version, 3, doesnt have that feature)

I'm using the profile to print through Lightroom 3. In the Printer Presets its says Colorsync is managing the colors (however, confusingly, the Presets do manage things like color density?)

Toggling between uncalibrated and soft proof views in the SpyderPrint software gives a slightly less saturated image which is to be expected as it's a matte paper that is simulated, its colors seem o.k.

The print of the measurement target (printer managing the colors!) looks quite allright but looking at it in the SpyderPrint software gives a vast difference between measured and pure.

I'll dig through all the buttons and menus afresh, hoping to find that elusive little switch "success / failure"

Also I'll again measure the targets, now in indirect daylight.

O.k. I've done a new measurement, of the EZ Colors plus grays, with the prints on top of a couple of sheets of the same paper (epson archival matte) patch by patch, correcting where necessary (often!). Soft proofing in SpyderPrint software looked okay except for one shadow region (the collar of the bass player to be precise, in case you're looking at the same file) With the resulting .icc profile I printed the Media Setting Check.tif from LR3 with both Relative and Perceptual rendering intent. (to keep things easily comparable - and paper consumption down! -i wont print anything else till this is sorted out)

These prints look o.k. at first glance but for four small regions, where the color rectangles should be darker but instead are a tad lighter, disrupting the 'step' logic with a bump that is too bright for its location (am I clear??) . I see the same faults in prints of Media Settings Check.tif with .icc profiles made yesterday and earlier this week. There are some differences between those prints but those would be measuring errors.

My question: The "step bumps" that recur in all of these prints... how to get rid of them?

I've never had to do any of that, but then I have the ability to soft proof, which I think may be your problem (I would find it difficult, if not impossible, to get an accurate print without it, as some papers experience a significant shift). If you wish you could download the 30 day trial of CC and use its soft proofing option to see if that is your problem.

Those bumps are called 'reversals'. Sorry, I can't help w/ the 'how do I fix them' part as I do not use the Spyder. I thought that they have a profile 'editor' though.

PS3 came out 20 years ago (1994). There is a good chance your drivers and/or video don't properly support it. ?

Steve Bingham said:

PS3 came out 20 years ago (1994). There is a good chance your drivers and/or video don't properly support it. ?

Click to expand...

I learned Photoshop with PS3. But I guess the OP meant CS3.

LOL yes that's CS3. Just came back from town with LR5, eager to try its soft-proofing function. If you don't hear from me anymore you can assume all went well. Many thanks for your answers so far!

Howard Moftich said:

Those bumps are called 'reversals'. Sorry, I can't help w/ the 'how do I fix them' part as I do not use the Spyder. I thought that they have a profile 'editor' though.

Click to expand...

Yes the Spyder software does feature an editor but I find it quite a pain in the neck to use.

spontaneousservices said:

Howard Moftich said:

Those bumps are called 'reversals'. Sorry, I can't help w/ the 'how do I fix them' part as I do not use the Spyder. I thought that they have a profile 'editor' though.

Click to expand...

Yes the Spyder software does feature an editor but I find it quite a pain in the neck to use.

Click to expand...

well, either the tool (the whole Spyder4 suite and puck) aren't that good or you're not driving it correctly. It shouldn't need all the hoops your jumping through to get a decent printer profile.