Hi All,
I’m a printer profiling novice. I’ve been trying to profile for a specific dye sub substrate. My problem is how the printer profile gamut shape looks in iprofiler, the black point doesn’t touch the 0 point, see photo
The pressed results I’m getting look good, colours as they should be, but obviously the dark colours/blacks get clipped by the profile.
Is this a normal problem with dye sub - getting enough ink down - or is it a scanning error? I seem to get very different results each time I scan (using i1pro and i1profiler) so finally resorted to a spot scan…
Dye sub processes are pretty challenging for a printer profiling novice. Good job getting this far! I think this is a normal issue with dye sub. Your system is not going to be able to achieve as dark a black as an inkjet printing onto quality glossy paper for instance. A profile of that paper would show the black point sitting all the way to the bottom of the 3D graph. Youre just not going to get that dark transferring over to whatever material youre working with.
You mention the blacks getting clipped by the profile - is that what you are seeing in the prints? A well made profile should scale properly all the shadow and highlight subtleties in the original image, but it sounds like you are seeing the shadows blocking up? All blending into one black blob? Or do I misunderstand you? If the shadows are blocking up, try using a different rendering intent, such as Perceptual. Or i1Profiler will allow you to change the contrast level when building the profile which can give you more detail, or a stronger black if you want to go the other way.
You should not be getting inconsistent results when you scan with an i1Pro. That would be something to look into. Use data analysis in i1Profiler to see how far apart your measurement samples are.
