Datacolor User to User Support Group.

David,

Thanks for your quick response and your insight. You're absolutely right, I did expect 
smooth gradients. But in truth, I didn't take into account other factors like the ones that 
you mentioned, and those make sense (I'm working my way through Real World Color 
Management as well right now). 

As far as printed photographic material goes, I *do* see improvement over the Crane-
supplied profile, and that's what matters most! I guess I need to be reminded of that from 
time to time (how many gradients will I really print, after all?) :) 

Thanks again, and best wishes,
Jeff


--- In colorvision_group@yahoogroups.com, David Miller <dm2363@...> wrote:

> 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
>