Datacolor User to User Support Group.

On Nov 7, 2008, at 7:59 PM, dirkjellooo wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I recently purchased the Spyder3 Studio suite, graduating from the  
> old i1 Display (yes, the
> first one), and getting myself into the world of printer profiling  
> as well. I've been working
> on making a profile of Crane Museo Silver Rag on my Epson 2200, and  
> while I've finally
> gotten a profile that's pretty good (after burning through an entire  
> box), it's giving me
> some odd banding in color gradients, especially in greens and cyans.  
> I know it's not the
> printer misfiring, as the same banding shows up in my soft proof  
> display as well. That
> banding does not show up using the OEM profile from Crane.
>
> I've redone the profile several times; I've reprinted the patches,  
> remeasured, and I've even
> tried using the 729 patch monster as well, but the banding still  
> persists (although the 729
> profile doesn't show it quite as much as the others). I've got a  
> screenshot of the soft proof
> for reference here:
>
> http://www.designoland.net/stuff/banding.png
>
> For reference, I printed the patches at 1440 resolution, no color  
> adjustment, non-high
> speed, default ink density, and using the suggested Premium Luster  
> setting in the Epson
> driver. I did try the media settings tests for all of the other  
> possibilities while PK was
> loaded, and didn't see reason to go with one of those (although,  
> honestly, I'm not quite
> sure what I'm looking for).
>
> Might anyone have any suggestions about what to try in order to  
> resolve this, or is it one
> of those "it's as good as it's going to get" things?
>
> Thank you in advance, and best regards,
> Jeff
>


I think your problem here is in expecting to see perfectly smooth  
gradients
when you print through an image like this.

Color gradients are unlikely to print with perfect smoothness; this is  
true of what you
can expect from all 3rd party printer profiling software, not just  
ours. Some OEM profiles
may be additionally optimized for printing smooth color gradients like  
that, but to do that,
they will typically use fewer data points and then do some smoothing  
on the data afterwards;
it can result in better looking gradients, but overall, the profile  
may also be technically
less "accurate", more likely to have small color casts and crossovers,  
grays that are less
neutral and tinted differently in places, etc. It comes down to a  
tradeoff; more patches
and a profiling mechanism that "pushes" the gamut limits of the  
printer harder as we do (to
give you darker blacks, better shadow detail, better saturation and  
more overall accuracy)
will also tend to produce gradients that may be a bit less smooth in  
places.


David Miller
Senior Software Developer, Digital Color Solutions
Datacolor