Epson LUT print technology

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 18:31:37 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 16:24:08 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2015-10-17 22:16:47 +0000, Me said:

On 17/10/2015 16:04, Eric Stevens wrote:
I have previously written that the instructions for Epson Sure Color
P-800 recommend that with Photoshoop CS3 or later, All LR and also PS
Elements 6 or later - the printer should manage colours. I have
confirmed that with CC LR having the printer manage colors gives a
vastly superior result when using Epson Premium Glossy paper. I may
now have discovered why this should be.

Epson in conjunction with the Rochester Institute of Technology have
taken color management to new levels. The problem appears to be that
while with 8 colors there are a zillion ways to blend them to achieve
a particular color there is only one best way. Apparently the
mathematics are complicated but are vastly simplified by use of a
massive Look Up Table (LUT). Presumably all this is built into the
driver.

Down loading the driver results in about a dozen ICC paper profiles
being installed in Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color but these can
only be used with LR and the like. They cannot be loaded into the
driver which reports that they are incompatible (or some such).

My suspicion is that the LUT is available only when the printer
manages colors. I don't know why this should be but that's what it
seems to be. Apparently Epson's larger printers have been using this
for a while and it is now moving to smaller models.

http://factor.bg/epson/SP9900/Maximu...r_fidelity.pdf is a blurb
which doesn't really tell you much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egLCg3GiXIE is also a blurb but gives
more information.

Whatever the explanation I am banging my head on the wall waiting with
great impatience for a version of the driver which incorporates the
profile for Archival Matte paper.

I suspect that your observation may be the result of a mistake somewhere.

The photo you posted the other day of flower in a vase, I was going to
comment on. I didn't see any issue with it viewed on screen, and it
was also totally within gamut (R3880) on gloss/pearl papers. I viewed
the photo on a large TV with laptop connected, yet that had no problem
displaying the colours without any obvious posterisation or other
issues. I didn't look on my calibrated system.
I'm confident it would print fine using "printer manages colour" and
default settings for Epson paper stock.
But a problem exists if using non Epson paper... Probably not too bad
in some cases though, as for example, I've printed using "printer
manages colour" with Ilford papers and Epson settings for similar
papers, and the result is probably close enough for most people.
However on matte papers, it's a different story, some of the reds were
definitely out of gamut. Sure - you could try it out and see, but I'll
stick with soft-proofing and adjustment and a colour managed print
process to ensure that I get WYSIWYG screenrint matches - rather than
a lottery.
I guess with Epson matte/fine art papers, those adjustments to avoid
out of gamut and to tweak colour could be used by editing while
soft-proofing, then send to the printer and allow the printer to manage
colour. With non-epson papers or custom profiles - then no, it won't
work.

Ilford has icc profiles for their papers and most printers.
http://www.ilford.com/printer-profile-list

I would be suprised if they have one for the Epson LUT technology. I
suspect Epson may be reluctant to let others use it.

It's not specific to the Epson technology, it fits the
ICC standard.

Waiting for Epson to supply a larger variety of profiles
is never likely to be productive! They have not done so
for many years, and are unlikely to change any time
soon. This is not an issue that just surfaced recently
or only for the printers you are looking at.

Perhaps the reason is obvious too, though I personally
don't think this should ever apply to consumer printer,
and don't even much like it for commercial photo
printers either! But the fact is that buying a Color
Monki and making your own custom profiles is a vastly
better solution. At the commercial level that is
extended to the point that a new batch of ink or a new
batch of paper (never mind just a new type or brand) is
cause to generate a new ICC profile. Note that some of
the commercial printers even come with spectrograph
hardware pre-installed.

Yes, all that's true. The problem is that if you do that all you would
produce is but another external profile which cannot be loaded into
the driver. You then do not have access to 'Printer Manages Color' or,
presumably, the LUT and associated software. You will see why I do not
want that from the two scanned images to the right of:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%20compare.jpg

Then there is the matter of getting right:
Color Density
Drying Time per Pass
Paper Feed Adjustment
Paper Thickness
Print Quality Level
Print Quality
Speed
Finest Detail On/Off
Edge Smoothing On/Off
Colour Adjustment
Gamma
Setting

All of this comes in with the Epson profile. Otherwise you have to
work it out and set it yourself.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 18:31:37 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 16:24:08 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2015-10-17 22:16:47 +0000, Me said:

On 17/10/2015 16:04, Eric Stevens wrote:
I have previously written that the instructions for Epson Sure Color
P-800 recommend that with Photoshoop CS3 or later, All LR and also PS
Elements 6 or later - the printer should manage colours. I have
confirmed that with CC LR having the printer manage colors gives a
vastly superior result when using Epson Premium Glossy paper. I may
now have discovered why this should be.

Epson in conjunction with the Rochester Institute of Technology have
taken color management to new levels. The problem appears to be that
while with 8 colors there are a zillion ways to blend them to achieve
a particular color there is only one best way. Apparently the
mathematics are complicated but are vastly simplified by use of a
massive Look Up Table (LUT). Presumably all this is built into the
driver.

Down loading the driver results in about a dozen ICC paper profiles
being installed in Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color but these can
only be used with LR and the like. They cannot be loaded into the
driver which reports that they are incompatible (or some such).

My suspicion is that the LUT is available only when the printer
manages colors. I don't know why this should be but that's what it
seems to be. Apparently Epson's larger printers have been using this
for a while and it is now moving to smaller models.

http://factor.bg/epson/SP9900/Maximu...r_fidelity.pdf is a blurb
which doesn't really tell you much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egLCg3GiXIE is also a blurb but gives
more information.

Whatever the explanation I am banging my head on the wall waiting with
great impatience for a version of the driver which incorporates the
profile for Archival Matte paper.

I suspect that your observation may be the result of a mistake somewhere.

The photo you posted the other day of flower in a vase, I was going to
comment on. I didn't see any issue with it viewed on screen, and it
was also totally within gamut (R3880) on gloss/pearl papers. I viewed
the photo on a large TV with laptop connected, yet that had no problem
displaying the colours without any obvious posterisation or other
issues. I didn't look on my calibrated system.
I'm confident it would print fine using "printer manages colour" and
default settings for Epson paper stock.
But a problem exists if using non Epson paper... Probably not too bad
in some cases though, as for example, I've printed using "printer
manages colour" with Ilford papers and Epson settings for similar
papers, and the result is probably close enough for most people.
However on matte papers, it's a different story, some of the reds were
definitely out of gamut. Sure - you could try it out and see, but I'll
stick with soft-proofing and adjustment and a colour managed print
process to ensure that I get WYSIWYG screenrint matches - rather than
a lottery.
I guess with Epson matte/fine art papers, those adjustments to avoid
out of gamut and to tweak colour could be used by editing while
soft-proofing, then send to the printer and allow the printer to manage
colour. With non-epson papers or custom profiles - then no, it won't
work.

Ilford has icc profiles for their papers and most printers.
http://www.ilford.com/printer-profile-list

I would be suprised if they have one for the Epson LUT technology. I
suspect Epson may be reluctant to let others use it.

It's not specific to the Epson technology, it fits the
ICC standard.

Waiting for Epson to supply a larger variety of profiles
is never likely to be productive! They have not done so
for many years, and are unlikely to change any time
soon. This is not an issue that just surfaced recently
or only for the printers you are looking at.

Perhaps the reason is obvious too, though I personally
don't think this should ever apply to consumer printer,
and don't even much like it for commercial photo
printers either! But the fact is that buying a Color
Monki and making your own custom profiles is a vastly
better solution. At the commercial level that is
extended to the point that a new batch of ink or a new
batch of paper (never mind just a new type or brand) is
cause to generate a new ICC profile. Note that some of
the commercial printers even come with spectrograph
hardware pre-installed.

Yes, all that's true. The problem is that if you do that all you would
produce is but another external profile which cannot be loaded into
the driver. You then do not have access to 'Printer Manages Color' or,
presumably, the LUT and associated software. You will see why I do not
want that from the two scanned images to the right of:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%20compare.jpg

Then there is the matter of getting right:
Color Density
Drying Time per Pass
Paper Feed Adjustment
Paper Thickness
Print Quality Level
Print Quality
Speed
Finest Detail On/Off
Edge Smoothing On/Off
Colour Adjustment
Gamma
Setting

All of this comes in with the Epson profile. Otherwise you have to
work it out and set it yourself.

I'm not familiar with your printer or the driver, but I
doubt that comes from the profile (other than gamma).
The "profile" is an ICC profile. The rest of it is just
the set of options built into the driver (and regardless
of who wrote the driver, they are specified by Epson,
and available in the service manual for each printer).

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 20:27:07 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

--- snip ---

It's not specific to the Epson technology, it fits the
ICC standard.

Waiting for Epson to supply a larger variety of profiles
is never likely to be productive! They have not done so
for many years, and are unlikely to change any time
soon. This is not an issue that just surfaced recently
or only for the printers you are looking at.

Perhaps the reason is obvious too, though I personally
don't think this should ever apply to consumer printer,
and don't even much like it for commercial photo
printers either! But the fact is that buying a Color
Monki and making your own custom profiles is a vastly
better solution. At the commercial level that is
extended to the point that a new batch of ink or a new
batch of paper (never mind just a new type or brand) is
cause to generate a new ICC profile. Note that some of
the commercial printers even come with spectrograph
hardware pre-installed.

Yes, all that's true. The problem is that if you do that all you would
produce is but another external profile which cannot be loaded into
the driver. You then do not have access to 'Printer Manages Color' or,
presumably, the LUT and associated software. You will see why I do not
want that from the two scanned images to the right of:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%20compare.jpg

Then there is the matter of getting right:
Color Density
Drying Time per Pass
Paper Feed Adjustment
Paper Thickness
Print Quality Level
Print Quality
Speed
Finest Detail On/Off
Edge Smoothing On/Off
Colour Adjustment
Gamma
Setting

All of this comes in with the Epson profile. Otherwise you have to
work it out and set it yourself.

I'm not familiar with your printer or the driver, but I
doubt that comes from the profile (other than gamma).
The "profile" is an ICC profile. The rest of it is just
the set of options built into the driver (and regardless
of who wrote the driver, they are specified by Epson,
and available in the service manual for each printer).


As I understand things, in the Epson world, you can regard there as
being three classes of profiles. There is the basic, which is the ICC
standard. Each type of paper has it's own profile for a particular ink
and printer combination.

Then there is the next one up, which is the one supplied by Epson for
the (in the Windows world) collection under the
....\spool\drivers\colour collection. This includes not only the ICC
profile but the optimum settings for that particular printer and
paper. You used to be able to select these profiles from the printer
driver, but no more. For the P800, they are only accessible to
external applications and, I suspect, may be identical to the first
type of profile in that they carry no printer setup information

Finally, there are the profiles built into the driver. These contains
everything that is in the second type of profile and something else. I
don't know what the something else is but I suspect it as being
information necessary to the LUT. I do know that the driver has the
ability to import profiles and rejects the second type of profile
above as being incompatible. So there is a difference. This last
category of profile is only accessible from within the driver: hence
the preference for 'Printer Manages Colours'.

Even if you use '***** Manages Colors' (where ***** is the particular
application) you don't have to manually configure the printer set up
as long as you tell the printer driver that you are using such and
such paper and that the printer is not managing colours (but I expect
you knew that). The driver already knows the settings for such and
such paper.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

Eric Stevens wrote:
As I understand things, in the Epson world, you can regard there as
being three classes of profiles. There is the basic, which is the ICC
standard. Each type of paper has it's own profile for a particular ink
and printer combination.

Then there is the next one up, which is the one supplied by Epson for
the (in the Windows world) collection under the
...\spool\drivers\colour collection. This includes not only the ICC
profile but the optimum settings for that particular printer and
paper.

That is the ICC profile. Everything else you have discussed are
not profiles at all, but just various hardwired options.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On 18/10/2015 15:31, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Note that some of
the commercial printers even come with spectrograph
hardware pre-installed.

One of the reasons for this is that with thermal print-heads (HP/Canon)
there's colour drift as the heating elements for the nozzles age. So
although this feature is an advantage for producing custom profiles,
it's also a needed feature for colour accuracy over the life of the
print-head. HP and Canon use similar (but different) thermal print-head
technology. Epson piezo print-heads don't age in that manner, are
factory calibrated, and shouldn't drift over the life of the printer.

On Sun, 18 Oct 2015 13:06:48 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
As I understand things, in the Epson world, you can regard there as
being three classes of profiles. There is the basic, which is the ICC
standard. Each type of paper has it's own profile for a particular ink
and printer combination.

Then there is the next one up, which is the one supplied by Epson for
the (in the Windows world) collection under the
...\spool\drivers\colour collection. This includes not only the ICC
profile but the optimum settings for that particular printer and
paper.

That is the ICC profile. Everything else you have discussed are
not profiles at all, but just various hardwired options.

They are not hardwired at all. These settings are all adjustable
through the driver. I don't yet know about the P800 but with my 3800
and earlier 1800 the settings would be changed if the nominated paper
was changed. I have always assumed that Epson profiles included more
than the bare ICC information.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Mon, 19 Oct 2015 10:13:28 +1300, Me wrote:

On 18/10/2015 15:31, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Note that some of
the commercial printers even come with spectrograph
hardware pre-installed.

One of the reasons for this is that with thermal print-heads (HP/Canon)
there's colour drift as the heating elements for the nozzles age. So
although this feature is an advantage for producing custom profiles,
it's also a needed feature for colour accuracy over the life of the
print-head. HP and Canon use similar (but different) thermal print-head
technology. Epson piezo print-heads don't age in that manner, are
factory calibrated, and shouldn't drift over the life of the printer.

Epson offers color calibration with some of their high-end printers:
http://www.epson.com.au/Prographics/...070&groupid=91
or http://tinyurl.com/o4uw2hs

"An optional SpectroProofer (ILS30) is available for precision
colour management and ISO standard proofing work."
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

Me wrote:
On 18/10/2015 15:31, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Note that some of
the commercial printers even come with spectrograph
hardware pre-installed.

One of the reasons for this is that with thermal
print-heads (HP/Canon) there's colour drift as the
heating elements for the nozzles age. So although this
feature is an advantage for producing custom profiles,
it's also a needed feature for colour accuracy over the
life of the print-head. HP and Canon use similar (but
different) thermal print-head technology. Epson piezo
print-heads don't age in that manner, are factory
calibrated, and shouldn't drift over the life of the
printer.

The discussion was only about Epson printers. The high
end Epson commercial printers are available with the
spectrograph, which is used for proofing. It literally
is used to adjust for the differences between batches of
ink or paper, not for aging.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On 19/10/2015 10:27, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Mon, 19 Oct 2015 10:13:28 +1300, Me wrote:

On 18/10/2015 15:31, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Note that some of
the commercial printers even come with spectrograph
hardware pre-installed.

One of the reasons for this is that with thermal print-heads (HP/Canon)
there's colour drift as the heating elements for the nozzles age. So
although this feature is an advantage for producing custom profiles,
it's also a needed feature for colour accuracy over the life of the
print-head. HP and Canon use similar (but different) thermal print-head
technology. Epson piezo print-heads don't age in that manner, are
factory calibrated, and shouldn't drift over the life of the printer.

Epson offers color calibration with some of their high-end printers:
http://www.epson.com.au/Prographics/...070&groupid=91
or http://tinyurl.com/o4uw2hs

"An optional SpectroProofer (ILS30) is available for precision
colour management and ISO standard proofing work."

Consider it an "extra" - not a necessity as may be the case with other
printers which exhibit colour drift.

I've never had the need to use custom profiles for fine art / landscape
printing despite an objective to get the work to look as good as
possible. I can understand why it could be an advantage (or even
essential) for other work where colour accuracy (side by side with other
output devices or same device, different time or subject) is critical.
Or of course if you use non OEM inks, or papers which aren't supported
with "good enough" ICC profiles from the maker.
"Good enough" is of course subjective.

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sun, 18 Oct 2015 13:06:48 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
As I understand things, in the Epson world, you can regard there as
being three classes of profiles. There is the basic, which is the ICC
standard. Each type of paper has it's own profile for a particular ink
and printer combination.

Then there is the next one up, which is the one supplied by Epson for
the (in the Windows world) collection under the
...\spool\drivers\colour collection. This includes not only the ICC
profile but the optimum settings for that particular printer and
paper.

That is the ICC profile. Everything else you have discussed are
not profiles at all, but just various hardwired options.

They are not hardwired at all. These settings are all adjustable
through the driver.

They are hardwired into the driver. You cannot add an
option or delete one. Yes the driver lets you enable
various option settings.

A profile is something you can change, it is not part of
the driver.

I don't yet know about the P800 but with my 3800
and earlier 1800 the settings would be changed if the nominated paper
was changed. I have always assumed that Epson profiles included more
than the bare ICC information.

The driver has more options that just which ICC profile.
Options such as paper thickness are not part of a
profile.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)