Color Cast Compensation (PRO-100) -- Good News

[ed_vatza]

This post finds me in a better mood than the previous one. 

Here is the process that seems to have worked for me. (I will admit that in the quest for a solution to the magenta color cast issue (comparing the print from the PRO-100 to one from my Epson 3800 in ABW mode) that has been haunting me and in the name of thoroughness, I went through about 10 sheets of Red River Arctic Polar Satin for this experiment. I'm sure it can ultimately be done with less paper waste.)

I am printing from a calibrated iMac to the PRO-100. The image to be printed is black and white, the conversion being made in Lightroom. I decided to print from the Canon Print Studio Pro plug-in although I am confident the results would be the same printing directly from Lightroom. 

STEP 1 -- I started to dig more into the Black and White setting available with the PRO-100. I found reference that the B&W setting is to be (only?) used when converting a color image to B&W just before printing. The references seemed to suggest that checking the B&W box for an image already converted to B&W in LR or PS would results in double color managing the image and could result in color casts. 

STEP 2 -- Once I turned off the B&W Print box, I could then select an icc profile to use while printing. I selected the Red River Arctic Polar Satin profile available from Red River. So I am treating this as a color print where the colors are all grayscale.

STEP 3 -- I went into the Correction section of Print Studio Pro and did a PATTERN PRINT. Well actually, I did three. I did a small with medium; a medium with small; and a large with small. In the future I could jump directly to probably the large with small or at worse the medium with small. Anyway, I knew what I was getting from the printer was a magenta cast so I could eliminate all the samples on the magenta side of C=0; M=0; Y=0 and focus on the samples on the other (green) side if you will. I also knew that the cast was very slight so I didn't have to deviate far from the 0; 0; 0. After studying the large/small pattern print I arrived at a choice that looked like it would work (C = 6; M = -3; Y = -3). I made a print using those settings on 8 1/2" x 11" RR Arctic Polar Satin and voila the cast was gone. Not being one to accept success so easily, I think I did about four more prints with CMY settings from the Pattern Print that were around the 6; -3; -3. After all that, I still thought the 6; -3; -3 looked best.

STEP 4-- Now the moment of truth. I put the PRO-100 print next to the Epson 3800 print and still saw no cast. But I did notice the print from the PRO-100 was a bit darker than to print from the 3800. SO I went back into the Correction section and tried a couple of Brightness and Contrast settings. I think I settled in on B = 6 and Contrast = -6 but may actually end up pushing the brightness up to 9. I'm not sure.

Remember, I was trying to match the tonality, brightness, contrast, etc from the Canon PRO-100 to that from the Epson 3800. A bit of comparing apples and oranges, I know. The bottom line is I got close enough for me with prints on Arctic Polar Satin. Now I will have to try hopefully shorter versions of this process with the other papers I use. 

Thanks to all who helped out here on the forum, from Canon Technical Support, from Red River Paper, master printer friends and a variety of sources on the Internet/YouTube. The final missing link came from a video from Jose Rodriguez. It wasn't easy but I think I got it figured out.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Ed

[ebiggs1]

I think you do have a handle on how it works. 

[ed_vatza]

I've also nailed the settings for Canson Baryta Photographique. Only took me four sheets of paper this time. 🙂

Ed

[sylberg]

Thanks Ed_vatza, this helped me a lot to figure out how to improve the B&W rendering with the PRO-100 and the Pro Platinum paper. Still not in my full taste but may be the best I can get from this paper (which is normally the Canon best of the best !!).