Joseph Holmes on new printers
In case you have missed it (I had until late last night) the article by Joseph Holmes re his experience with the 9800 is worth a read.
I want to highlight some of his comments on color, as some have been distressed with my comments regarding the (lack of) _vast_ improvements in color.
Joseph writes:
"The gamut volume appears from 3D comparisons in ColorThink to be roughly five to eight percent bigger, give or take a few percent"
This isn't an assessment of prints by eye (you know, those two jelly marble things customers use when buying prints). This is a technically measured result. Is 5-8% as a vast increase? And does that translate to vast improvements related to color in the print? No, not always, even according to Joseph. He concludes (to me this reads as his assessment by eye):
"So far, every picture I've printed... has either had no change or been benefitted by the changes to the gamut, and every image has looked more brilliant because of the improved Dmax and surface gloss."
_No change_ or benefitted because of gamut. Looked more brilliant because of Dmax and surface gloss. My conclusion on color at this stage remains the same:
If you're expecting vastly improved color out of the 4800 over the 2100 you may be looking in the wrong place. I think it's going to take some time and effort to eek out significant improvements re color on the 4800 over Ultrachrome-based Epsons.
posted by Pete Walsh @ 11:05 AM 6 comments
At 3:45 PM, stephen best said...
One difference here is that Holmes has his own working colour space which I gather is larger than Adobe RGB. If your scans are limited to Adobe RGB you may not see the differences so much in your own prints. I recently switch to a 16-bit workflow with ProPhoto RGB and the results are looking promising.
At 5:08 PM, Pete Walsh said...
Hi Stephen I've been running a 16 bit workflow for some time now - can't say how long, from the release of Photoshop CS. I'd need to go back and check - between one and two years at a guess.
But yes I agree in as much as I'm going to rework some files from scratch and see what I need to do to maximize the use of the printer.
Regardless though - note his comments, saying in some prints colorwise, NO difference. An Epson tech said reds were the area worked on most, I'm going to check that out.
At 5:11 PM, Pete Walsh said...
Additionally, regarding workflow - yes I also use Prophoto were clipping is evident in Adobe RGB, Adobe RGB otherwise. If there's no clipping in AdobeRGB there's more than enough evidence to suggesting you are not helping yourself by sticking to Prophoto regardless of the data you see in front of you.
I think this will be another one of those pain in the arse topics that photographers will waste too much time arguing over :)
At 5:28 PM, stephen best said...
Your scans are directly into ProPhoto RGB? The colour space for the FlexTight (you're using Image Science?) is pretty big and will clip if converted on scan into Adobe RGB, irrespective of what you later use as a workspace. But I assume you know all this ...
At 5:38 PM, Pete Walsh said...
I haven't shot film for over three years and was referring to my digital workflow, sorry I thought that would've been assumed (hard to even remember pre-digital :)
Yes, Jeremy has scanned a film images for me, taken from prior to going digital, and yes they are in Adobe RGB. Film based images make up a very small percentage of images I have used day in and day out over the last few years.
Regardles, my point is the same. Prophoto when clipping is evident in Adobe RGB, Adobe RGB otherwise - for me, YMMV.
At 2:50 PM, Pete Walsh said...
BTW, I'm talking about selecting a color space when converting the RAW file initially, not later. In converters like ACR you can see the clipping in each color space and go from there. Would be nice if C1 handled that in a similar way.
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