Discussion:
targen preconditioning file vs calibration question
Chris Palmer
2014-03-13 18:45:51 UTC
Permalink
I'm profiling a printer by (1) producing a calibration, (2) feeding the
.cal into printtarg -K to do a profile, (3) applying the .cal to the
.icc to produce the final .icm for the printer.

That seems to work fine. My question is around when a refine the profile
using targen -c. Should the preconditioning file be the .icc (without
calibration applied) or the .icm (with calibration applied) from the
steps above? (I was then going to feed the ti1 into printtarg -K, and
applycal the calibration in again).

I initially tried targen -c xx.icc (the one without the calibration
applied) but got the "Failed to re-seed the veronoi after 100 tries"
until I reduced adaptation to about 0.8.

Then I tried targen -c xx.icm (the one with the calibration applied) and
it appeared to work at adaptation 1.0

My understanding is obviously incomplete though, as I really can't
decide which one should be used. Any advice appreciated....

Thanks
Chris
Graeme Gill
2014-03-19 07:21:41 UTC
Permalink
Chris Palmer wrote:

Hi,
That seems to work fine. My question is around when a refine the profile using targen -c.
Should the preconditioning file be the .icc (without calibration applied) or the .icm
(with calibration applied) from the steps above? (I was then going to feed the ti1 into
printtarg -K, and applycal the calibration in again).
The profile should be the one that corresponds to the same relationship between
device values and colors as the measurements you are going to make.

You you are measuring the printer in its calibrated state, so the profile
used to inform target should be the calibrated device values,
so the ICC profile without the calibration curves applied to it.
I initially tried targen -c xx.icc (the one without the calibration applied) but got the
"Failed to re-seed the veronoi after 100 tries" until I reduced adaptation to about 0.8.
Then I tried targen -c xx.icm (the one with the calibration applied) and it appeared to
work at adaptation 1.0
The former should is the correct one. It's a bit of a puzzle as to why it should be less
well behaved than the raw (uncalibrated device space) profile.

You could try reducing the resolution of the pre-conditioning profile (ie. -qm or -ql)
or increasing the -r parameter, but reducing the adaptation level is also fine.

If it still gets those warnings, take a look at the output if you can (using targen -w
and -W and a VRLM viewer), but you should be able to use it anyway.

Graeme Gill.
Chris Palmer
2014-03-19 12:30:11 UTC
Permalink
Hi Graeme
Post by Graeme Gill
The profile should be the one that corresponds to the same relationship between
device values and colors as the measurements you are going to make.
You you are measuring the printer in its calibrated state, so the profile
used to inform target should be the calibrated device values,
so the ICC profile without the calibration curves applied to it.
Ok, that makes sense. It's around the other way to what one might
naively think, but I see the logic.
Post by Graeme Gill
I initially tried targen -c xx.icc (the one without the calibration applied) but got the
"Failed to re-seed the veronoi after 100 tries" until I reduced adaptation to about 0.8.
Then I tried targen -c xx.icm (the one with the calibration applied) and it appeared to
work at adaptation 1.0
The former should is the correct one. It's a bit of a puzzle as to why it should be less
well behaved than the raw (uncalibrated device space) profile.
You could try reducing the resolution of the pre-conditioning profile (ie. -qm or -ql)
or increasing the -r parameter, but reducing the adaptation level is also fine.
targen completed ok (and very quickly) using -r, but I went ahead with
-A 0.83. Then "printtarg -K" and chartread. However every row gives a
warning "There is at least one patch with an very unexpected response!
(DeltaE 49.046876)" so I've got something wrong.

Could I ask you to cast an eye over the complete workflow below? I have
to say that using argyllcms have given me far better results than any
other product, so thankyou! And the profile from the "Initial Profile"
stage below is pretty good. There was a tremendous improvement after I
changed to doing the calibration separately and then combining them.
It's just the refining that I can't get right.

This is a very straightforward situation, with a modest inkjet printer
that doesn't itself support calibration. Despite hunting around I
couldn't find any complete end-to-end workflow for calibrate/profile
then subsequent refines, so I put this together. I'm using 1.6.2,
ColorMunki Photo, and this particular printer is a Canon iP4700. (I
reverted from 1.6.3 because of the CM re-calibration problem when
profiling displays).


Initial Calibration
----------------------

P=iP4700; D=300
printtarg -v -iCM -h -b -T$D -pA4 ${P}_c
**** print using Lightroom (printer-managed; print driver no correction)
chartread -v -H ${P}_c
printcal -v -i ${P}_c


Initial Profile (4 x A4)
----------------

P=iP4700; D=300
targen -v -d2 -G -f840 ${P}_p
printtarg -v -iCM -h -b -T$D -pA4 -K ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p
**** print using Lightroom (printer-managed; print driver no correction)
chartread -v -H ${P}_p
colprof -v -S ../AdobeRGB1998.icc -cmt -dpp -D${P} ${P}_p
applycal ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p.icc ${P}.icm
**** Use ${P}.icm in Lightroom for printing (print driver no correction;
good results)


Refine Profile (1 x A4)
-----------------

P=iP4700; D=300
targen -v -d2 -G -f210 -A 0.83 -c ${P}_p.icc ${P}_p
printtarg -v -iCM -h -b -T$D -pA4 -K ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p
**** print using Lightroom (printer-managed; print driver no correction)
chartread -v -H ${P}_p **** DeltaE > 49 on every row ****
colprof -v -S ../AdobeRGB1998.icc -cmt -dpp -D${P} ${P}_p
applycal ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p.icc ${P}.icm
**** Use ${P}.icm in Lightroom for printing (print driver no correction)


Any comments on the overall workflow would be very welcome, as well as
clues as to why the chartread in the refine is going so wrong.

I do feel that including some complete workflows like this (for the
simplest cases) into the documentation would be of great help. There is
lots of detail, but it's sometimes hard to put it together right. I
appreciate that there are myriads of possibilities, but profiling a
simple inkjet (with the benefits of the separate calibration phase) must
be one of the commonest....?

Many thanks for your help, and for all your work on argyllcms.

Regards
Chris
Alan Goldhammer
2014-03-19 15:52:07 UTC
Permalink
You cannot print targets using Lightroom or Photoshop above CS4. It won't
allow you to print unmanaged targets. You need to use Adobe Color Print
Utility:
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/no-color-management-option-missing.html
That may be the source of your problem.

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: argyllcms-bounce-***@public.gmane.org [mailto:argyllcms-bounce-***@public.gmane.org]
On Behalf Of Chris Palmer
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 8:30 AM
To: argyllcms-***@public.gmane.org
Subject: [argyllcms] Re: targen preconditioning file vs calibration question

Hi Graeme



Initial Profile (4 x A4)
----------------

P=iP4700; D=300
targen -v -d2 -G -f840 ${P}_p
printtarg -v -iCM -h -b -T$D -pA4 -K ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p
**** print using Lightroom (printer-managed; print driver no correction)
chartread -v -H ${P}_p colprof -v -S ../AdobeRGB1998.icc -cmt -dpp -D${P}
${P}_p applycal ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p.icc ${P}.icm
**** Use ${P}.icm in Lightroom for printing (print driver no correction;
good results)


Any comments on the overall workflow would be very welcome, as well as
clues as to why the chartread in the refine is going so wrong.

I do feel that including some complete workflows like this (for the
simplest cases) into the documentation would be of great help. There is
lots of detail, but it's sometimes hard to put it together right. I
appreciate that there are myriads of possibilities, but profiling a
simple inkjet (with the benefits of the separate calibration phase) must
be one of the commonest....?

Many thanks for your help, and for all your work on argyllcms.

Regards
Chris
Chris Palmer
2014-03-19 17:01:52 UTC
Permalink
Hi Alan
Post by Alan Goldhammer
You cannot print targets using Lightroom or Photoshop above CS4. It won't
allow you to print unmanaged targets. You need to use Adobe Color Print
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/no-color-management-option-missing.html
That may be the source of your problem.
Thanks for the suggestion. I've just tried reprinting from ACPU, and the
results are absolutely identical. When printing the targets using
Lightroom 5 on Win7 I print with "Managed by Printer" (which takes away
the perceptual/relative options etc), and obviously have everything in
the printer driver turned off. I store all of this in a Lightroom Print
Template, and am absolutely sure that LR reinstates them in the printer
driver whenever I select the template (I keep checking out of paranoia).
Using the same print driver settings with ACPU produces exactly the same
printed output, and the results from chartread are the same.

Is this something that is still relevant with LR5 using the technique
above? After all, even with ACPU you have to make exactly the same
settings in the print driver.

I fairly sure what I'm doing to print the targets isn't far off because
the result out of the initial profile is pretty good...

Regards
Chris
Alan Goldhammer
2014-03-19 17:43:19 UTC
Permalink
Chris,

It is my understanding the LR converts any imported image with untagged
color space to LR color space. So what you end up printing is not an
"untagged" image with no color management. I stand to be corrected if this
is not the case (I know it has been this way since LR 2 which is when I
began using the software).

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: argyllcms-bounce-***@public.gmane.org [mailto:argyllcms-bounce-***@public.gmane.org]
On Behalf Of Chris Palmer
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 1:02 PM
To: argyllcms-***@public.gmane.org
Subject: [argyllcms] Re: targen preconditioning file vs calibration question

Hi Alan
Post by Alan Goldhammer
You cannot print targets using Lightroom or Photoshop above CS4. It
won't allow you to print unmanaged targets. You need to use Adobe
Color Print
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/no-color-management-option-missing
.html That may be the source of your problem.
Thanks for the suggestion. I've just tried reprinting from ACPU, and the
results are absolutely identical. When printing the targets using Lightroom
5 on Win7 I print with "Managed by Printer" (which takes away the
perceptual/relative options etc), and obviously have everything in the
printer driver turned off. I store all of this in a Lightroom Print
Template, and am absolutely sure that LR reinstates them in the printer
driver whenever I select the template (I keep checking out of paranoia).
Using the same print driver settings with ACPU produces exactly the same
printed output, and the results from chartread are the same.

Is this something that is still relevant with LR5 using the technique above?
After all, even with ACPU you have to make exactly the same settings in the
print driver.

I fairly sure what I'm doing to print the targets isn't far off because the
result out of the initial profile is pretty good...

Regards
Chris
Chris Palmer
2014-03-19 18:02:57 UTC
Permalink
Hi Alan
Post by Alan Goldhammer
It is my understanding the LR converts any imported image with untagged
color space to LR color space. So what you end up printing is not an
"untagged" image with no color management. I stand to be corrected if this
is not the case (I know it has been this way since LR 2 which is when I
began using the software).
Yes, I don't know the answer, but I can see that there could be other
factors at play, such as that. Thanks for the tip. To be safe I will go
back to using ACPU for printing targets...

However, as the printing method doesn't seem to have materially altered
this particular issue, I'd still appreciate input anyone could give on
the original post (the particular problem, and the overall workflow).

Regards
Chris
Nikolay Pokhilchenko
2014-03-20 06:32:26 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Palmer
Post by Graeme Gill
You could try reducing the resolution of the pre-conditioning profile (ie. -qm or -ql)
or increasing the -r parameter, but reducing the adaptation level is also fine.
targen completed ok (and very quickly) using -r, but I went ahead with
-A 0.83. Then "printtarg -K" and chartread. However every row gives a
warning "There is at least one patch with an very unexpected response!
(DeltaE 49.046876)" so I've got something wrong.
Have you tried reducing the resolution of preliminary profile? If so, dE 49 warning may took a place because the low resolution profile may not predict device behavior exact enough and detailed enough. If this is the case you may try to read this target anyway (pressing Enter every time the message arose) and see whait is the resulting profile.
Some RGB-driven printers have a discontinuities in they responses closer to boundaries of gamuts because of rough transition (compressiona and clipping) between RGB to CMYK inside the printer software/firmware. It's not common for Canon printers I've profiled and I doubt this is your case. But I'd red the target through a warnings anyway to check what happens. It possible that warning will arose only some percent of lines - at a patches which wasn't characterized well by preconditioning profile.
The last: Are you sure you didn't missed up the calibration files at printtarg stage? Have you applied correct (the same as for preconditioning target) calibration?

The latest: apply only 0-100% calibration curves if calibrating at all, i.e.

printcal -i -x0 100 -x1 100 -x2 100 Calibratrion_target

Because the limiting of R/G/B channels translates then to limiting CMYK unpredictable ways. You may optimize "about gray" axis and at black point behavior by limiting RGB at princal stage. But you'll loose the gamut for the colors because R, G or B was limited all the way by its range even this is not needed for certain gamut region.

Please, excuse me for my English speak. It sometimes hard for understanding, I'm sorry.
Post by Chris Palmer
Could I ask you to cast an eye over the complete workflow below? I have
to say that using argyllcms have given me far better results than any
other product, so thankyou! And the profile from the "Initial Profile"
stage below is pretty good. There was a tremendous improvement after I
changed to doing the calibration separately and then combining them.
It's just the refining that I can't get right.
This is a very straightforward situation, with a modest inkjet printer
that doesn't itself support calibration. Despite hunting around I
couldn't find any complete end-to-end workflow for calibrate/profile
then subsequent refines, so I put this together. I'm using 1.6.2,
ColorMunki Photo, and this particular printer is a Canon iP4700. (I
reverted from 1.6.3 because of the CM re-calibration problem when
profiling displays).
Initial Calibration
----------------------
P=iP4700; D=300
printtarg -v -iCM -h -b -T$D -pA4 ${P}_c
**** print using Lightroom (printer-managed; print driver no correction)
chartread -v -H ${P}_c
printcal -v -i ${P}_c
Initial Profile (4 x A4)
----------------
P=iP4700; D=300
targen -v -d2 -G -f840 ${P}_p
printtarg -v -iCM -h -b -T$D -pA4 -K ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p
**** print using Lightroom (printer-managed; print driver no correction)
chartread -v -H ${P}_p
colprof -v -S ../AdobeRGB1998.icc -cmt -dpp -D${P} ${P}_p
applycal ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p.icc ${P}.icm
**** Use ${P}.icm in Lightroom for printing (print driver no correction;
good results)
Refine Profile (1 x A4)
-----------------
P=iP4700; D=300
targen -v -d2 -G -f210 -A 0.83 -c ${P}_p.icc ${P}_p
printtarg -v -iCM -h -b -T$D -pA4 -K ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p
**** print using Lightroom (printer-managed; print driver no correction)
chartread -v -H ${P}_p **** DeltaE > 49 on every row ****
colprof -v -S ../AdobeRGB1998.icc -cmt -dpp -D${P} ${P}_p
applycal ${P}_c.cal ${P}_p.icc ${P}.icm
**** Use ${P}.icm in Lightroom for printing (print driver no correction)
Any comments on the overall workflow would be very welcome, as well as
clues as to why the chartread in the refine is going so wrong.
I do feel that including some complete workflows like this (for the
simplest cases) into the documentation would be of great help. There is
lots of detail, but it's sometimes hard to put it together right. I
appreciate that there are myriads of possibilities, but profiling a
simple inkjet (with the benefits of the separate calibration phase) must
be one of the commonest....?
Many thanks for your help, and for all your work on argyllcms.
Regards
Chris
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