Videos: Creating and Installing Media Profiles with HP Latex 300 Series Printers

HP Latex 360 PrinterHP made great advances with the latest generation of HP Latex Printers, the 300 Series. One of those improvements is the process for creating ICC profiles.

With the HP Latex 360 Printer, profiles are created directly on the printer through the front panel in three easy steps.

If you are depending on third-party profiles created by media manufacturers, you can also easily install these profiles on your Latex 310, 330 or 360 Printer through the HP Embedded Web Server.

The best part is that profiles for the Latex 300 Series Printers are RIP-agnostic. Once you install the profile on your printer, it can be used in any compatible RIP software.

In the videos embedded below in the order shown, learn how to create a new media profile with the HP Latex 360 Printer and learn how to install a third-party profile for any Latex 300 Series Printer.

Step 3 in Color Management: Understanding ICC Profiles and Settings

In Step 1 of the color management to-do list we discussed how the quality of your monitor impacts the precision of your output. In Step 2 of 3 we focused on understanding how printer and media choices affect color. The final step includes learning about ICC profiles and settings as well as some tips and tricks for viewing the print.

How do we get our monitor, which uses RGB values to project your image, to translate to our printer, which uses CMYK values? How do profiles work? And why is following the settings LexJet provides with the profiles so crucial to the accuracy of your results?

Custom Color Profiling
Figure 1 shows the 1,728 patch printout used to make a custom profile.

When LexJet creates a profile, we cover a wide range of specific printer models and LexJet media choices so our customers do not have to go through the time-consuming process of making their own profiles for each product/printer combination.

A Profile is Born
We first start by choosing a media type in the driver or plug-in, depending on which printer the profile is for. This lays down a platform for the rest of the profile to be built upon. If you get this wrong when using the profile your results will show a big discrepancy from the monitor to your print.

We give you this media type and settings to use with every profile we make and each will vary by printer and material type.

The process uses a chart of 1,728 patches, which are printed to that specific media choice with those specific settings. Each color patch has a mathematical color value set by the International Color Consortium (see Figure 1).

The patches are then run through a spectrophotometer, which then measures the actual values of those colors with that ink and media combination. The software creates a correction curve for that media to reach the closest color in CMYK language that the printer can produce. A profile is born!

To find out how to download and install ICC Profiles, check out the following videos:

Download and Install ICC Profiles – PC

Download and Install ICC Profiles – Mac

Rendering Intent and Lighting
In the process of making profiles there are colors that are out of gamut since you are converting projected light values (RGB) to reflected light values (CMYK). The way the printer determines how to handle those colors is called a Rendering Intent. To read about the different rendering options and what they mean, visit our prior post: How to find the right rendering intent.

For the purposes of this article we’ll generalize by advising you to stick to just Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric. There is an overall theory that Perceptual is usually best for semi-matte, satin or glossy surfaces and Relative Colorimetric is best for matte surfaces. If you want to be specific to each image, use the soft proofing technique to see which looks best on that specific image.

Another point to be made here is that Perceptual tends to produce smoother gradations in color while Relative Colorimetric stays truer to the original color when rendering.

Now that you have your monitor correctly calibrated, you have an understanding of your printer and media you are using and you can comfortably say you are using the right profile, rendering intent and settings. We’re now ready to click print! So here are a few valuable pointers on viewing or presenting your print…

If you’ve come this far you are obviously concerned at the accuracy and quality of the print. How you display a print can be equally as important as all of the steps we just provided on the production side. Light temperature can add another wrench into the color management mix when viewing a print for accuracy.

The print will look different under a cooler light source (fluorescent) than a warmer light source (Tungsten). So, if you have calibrated for 5500 K on your monitor but are viewing it in a warmer light the colors on the print would look warmer than on your monitor.

Keeping lighting consistent will help you judge accuracy in fairness. In a perfect world your workspace would have daylight-balanced bulbs (5500 K) installed and you would block out any exterior light sources that would interfere with the temperature of the light around your work computer. Your monitor would be calibrated using the same daylight 5500 K setting.

It’s not often we find customers working under such tight constrictions but those that do are less likely to find discrepancies when comparing the soft proof to print.

This leads to the next question: “What if I don’t know what light my customer is displaying the final product under?” Well, that is subject that you can educate your customers about! Providing them with a document that underlines proper care of the print and proper lighting instructions will only back up the fact that you are their printing expert. That should be part of the reason they go to you and not the guy down the street.

Here’s an example of the lighting instructions you can provide your customer: Placing your print under daylight balanced bulbs with minimal varied light interference will give the audience the most accurate depiction of the original art/photo.

Step 2 in Color Management: Printer and Media Color Gamut

In Step 1 of the color management to-do list we discussed how the quality of your monitor impacts the precision of your output. Step 2 of 3 focuses on understanding how your printer and the inkjet media choices affect color.

Print accuracy doesn’t rely solely on your use of a custom profile and an accurate monitor, though these two components guide you toward the closest possible result. There are two additional variables that can have a big impact on the types of colors you can hit with any printer…

The first is the gamut of the printer. How an ink is formulated in order to print a Coca-Cola red or a Pepsi blue, for example, may differ slightly from technology to technology.

These days I field a lot of questions about choosing between an 8-color system and a 12-color system.  Or, should I use the 9-color or the 11-color printer? Is there a noticeable difference between them?

The answer is yes, there is a noticeable difference any time you add colors. However, the next question I usually follow up with is, “What are you using the printer to print?”

When considering printing technology, there are printers made for higher-speed production (HP Z5200, Canon S Series, Epson T Series, to name a few) that can print a sellable photographic image, but would not be the ideal to use for an artist, photographer or fine art reproduction house. These printers have fewer inks, which cuts down on gamut but improves on speed in most cases.

If you’re in the market for a printer, talk to a LexJet customer specialist and explain the market you are in. We will make sure that you are using the right equipment for the job.

If you are seeing a color that is in your photograph or art piece that you just can’t nail with your printer, it may be out of gamut for the printer or out of gamut for the media you chose to print to.

If you’ve calibrated the monitor, make sure your printer is running at 100 percent capacity, that you’ve soft-proofed the image with the chosen rendering intent, and used a specific printer profile to print. If it still doesn’t portray what’s on your screen, then either of the above mentioned may be at fault.

Now I just spit out a bunch of jargon that may be foreign to you, so click on the links to the tutorials here to find out more…

Download and install ICC Profiles:

PC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W-F-k8z5io

MAC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOhztAqoyY

How to Softproof before Printing using Photoshop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahf9yEPO4zA

How to print using ICC Profiles (find your printer and computer combination):

http://www.youtube.com/user/LexJet/search?query=Printing+Through

Color gamut difference between a gloss and matte photo paper.
Figure 1 shows the difference in gamut between a gloss and a matte paper in the high, mid and low range of color (top to bottom). The gloss paper is our Sunset Gloss Photo Paper (red line) and the matte our Premium Archival Matte Paper (green line) as profiled on the Canon IPF8400 with the X-Rite DTP70. Click on the image for a larger version.

You can’t do anything to increase the gamut of the printer, but you can make the right decision based on your needs at the time you purchase the equipment. Making sure you use the right equipment for the type of work you are doing will dramatically increase the quality of your print.

Our second extremely important variable to understand is the media with which you choose to print. The less reflective the media, the less light that reflects back into your eyes, and therefore, the lower the gamut and detail your print will realize (see Figure 1).

Artists have come to love matte watercolor papers and canvas, yet always demand the best color on those surfaces. This is where the owner or production manager at a fine art reproduction house runs into the biggest conflict.

The reflectivity of your media is not the only aspect of the printable supplies that affects color outcome.  White point can change your gamut as well. The brighter the white point, the more gamut you’ll pick up, not to mention an increase in that lovely term the experts like to use, Dmax, which is the darkest measurable value your printer-media combination can hit.

For canvas, Sunset Select Gloss Canvas has the highest dynamic range and color gamut of the canvas offerings LexJet produces. The highest-gamut matte canvas is our Sunset Select Matte Canvas, which has a very punchy white base. Partnering the Sunset Coating line with Sunset Select Matte Canvas has been a very popular choice amongst artists and photographers.

If you are trying to appease the artist crowd who prefer fine art papers, the highest-range matte paper is Sunset Fibre Matte (a very smooth bright-white fiber cellulose paper). If you need 100% cotton with a smooth finish, Sunset Hot Press Rag will be close behind.

If they would like texture on their cotton paper our latest addition to the line is Sunset Bright Velvet Rag.  This paper has the highest Dmax of our cotton line and prints very elegant-looking velvet-textured prints.

On the photographic side of media options, all of our bright white glossy and semi-glossy fibre-based papers put out a phenomenal range. They are all meant to emulate different versions of old-style air dried chemical bath papers that film photographers were used to exposing in the darkroom. These papers include Sunset Fibre Gloss, Sunset Fibre Elite and Sunset Fibre Satin.

Our newest paper in this category is Sunset Fibre Rag, which is 100% cotton and has a warm tone to the base. Even though it is warm in tone, the range is very large and the texture is very fitting to that style of paper.

For RC photo-based paper replicas, nothing tops the gamut of the Sunset Photo Gloss Paper. It reflects the most light, has a high-gloss wet-looking surface like one you would receive from a photo lab providing chemical-style glossy prints.

Also ever so popular for printers looking for a beautiful thick luster paper (e-surface) is our Sunset Photo eSatin Paper. This paper has a very cool white point and the surface is the most popular amongst the RC-emulating class of papers.

LexJet will provide you with the ICC profiles for every media above mentioned. If we do not list one here for your technology we will happily make one for you free of charge! Next time, we’ll tackle Step 3 in the color management to-do list: understanding ICC Profiles and settings. In the meantime, feel free to call us any time at 800-453-9538 with questions.

Colorado Photo Gallery Built on HQ Photography, Printing and Framing

Bald Eagle Photo by Wil Harmsen
In addition to the work of renowned Colorado landscape and wildlife photographers, The Canyon Gallery in Montrose, Colo., also features the photography of owner Wil Harmsen.

You might say that art is in Wil Harmsen’s blood. In 2001 his grandparents donated a large and important collection of Western art to the Denver Art Museum. Harmsen keeps that tradition alive in the western Colorado town of Montrose, which sits near some of the most spectacular scenery in the state.

The Canyon Gallery
The Canyon Gallery, Montrose, Colo.

Harmsen and his wife, Amy, opened The Canyon Gallery in Montrose about four years ago. The gallery focuses on landscape and wildlife photography, representing the work of some of Colorado’s top photographers, including Glenn Randall of Boulder, Andy Cook of Colorado Springs, Vince Farnsworth of Montrose, and Doug Sprock of Grand Junction. Harmsen’s photography, as well as that of Idaho’s Jess Lee, is also featured in the gallery.

Printing at The Canyon Gallery“It’s been a childhood dream of mine to own my own gallery. I grew up around art; my grandparents owned one of the biggest collections of Western art,” says Harmsen. “Four years ago a couple of buildings became available in downtown Montrose. It was a terrible time to open a gallery, but a great time to purchase real estate, so we bought the buildings and opened the gallery. I’m realizing a childhood dream and it’s been fantastic.”

An important component of the gallery’s success, says Harmsen, has been in providing print production and finishing services.

The Canyon Gallery Printing“I knew that being a photography gallery and just trying to sell art was probably not a good idea, which is why we got into printing and framing and creating a product from start to finish. If art wasn’t selling, we would print and frame other people’s images, and it’s worked like a dream. Printing and framing is probably why we’re 150 percent up over last year,” says Harmsen. “Art is a want, not a need, so we started printing and framing right from the beginning.”

Harmsen was referred to LexJet for his printing needs by Gary Haines, Grizzly Creek Gallery, Georgetown, Colo. The Harmsens had already been experimenting with printing before they opened the gallery and finding the right source ensured a successful print process.

The Canyon Gallery Print Room
The Canyon Gallery print room: two Epson Stylus Pro 9900s from LexJet and LexJet inkjet media.

“Printing is probably the hardest part about photography: getting what you have on the screen to print on the paper. What I really liked was that LexJet already had the ICC profiles, so it was very easy for me to go in, get the paper and profiles and print high-quality images. It was super-easy, compared to how I was doing it before making my own profiles,” says Harmsen. “Our print quality has been fantastic and we’ve never had a problem. Whether we’re using Sunset Metallic paper, canvas or anything else, the ICC profiles from LexJet work.”

The Canyon Gallery runs two Epson Stylus Pro 9900s and a complete framing and finishing operation in the three-story, split-level gallery. Harmsen estimates that printing and finishing represents 60 percent of their business.

Photo by Wil Harmsen
Photo by Wil Harmsen, The Canyon Gallery.

“We find that we’re constantly expanding printing and framing because we do so much of it, including canvas gallery wraps on Sunset Stretcher Bars, which is the easiest canvas stretching method we’ve ever come across,” he says. “And, if we run into a weird issue, as we did using Sunset Select Gloss Canvas because it has a unique finish with unique requirements, we can call Michael any time for help. In this case, I called Michael and he gave me specific directions. Lo and behold, I did what he told me to do and it printed perfectly.”

Harmsen says the gallery’s three best inkjet media sellers are Sunset Photo eSatin Paper, Sunset Photo Metallic Paper and Sunset Select Matte Canvas.

Photo by Wil Harmsen, The Canyon Gallery.
Photo by Wil Harmsen, The Canyon Gallery.

“I love the Metallic paper, and when it’s printed in black-and-white it’s unbelievable,” he says. “The shipping is also amazing. Knowing that you can typically get product quickly really helps a small business, especially a gallery where cash flow is very difficult. If we’re running out of eSatin we can get it right away and we don’t have to have a bunch of it sitting on the floor waiting to be used. I did my research before we opened the gallery and really spent a lot of money and time trying to get that process nailed. When we came upon LexJet, it just clicked.”

All would be for naught, however, if Harmsen didn’t concentrate on customer service. For Harmsen, customer service can be boiled down to three principles: Listen, set proper expectations and put yourself in the customer’s shoes. “Adhere to those three principles and you’ll be successful, and if our customer is not satisfied, we’ll make it right,” he adds.

Will Harmsen Colorado
Photo by Wil Harmsen, The Canyon Gallery.

Based on those principles, in addition to the quality output and finishing The Canyon Gallery provides, Harmsen has found that positive word-of-mouth has spread beyond Montrose into the prime tourist spot of nearby Telluride.

“We decided this past year not to do any traditional advertising. Unless you have a specific market you’re trying to reach, a sporadic ad doesn’t work. We quite advertising and we’re up 150 percent,” says Harmsen. “Amy is really good at Facebook and Twitter, so we’re always putting new artwork on social media. We have found that social media is our best form of advertising.”

Photo by Wil Harmsen, The Canyon Gallery.
Photo by Wil Harmsen, The Canyon Gallery.

Cross-promotions with local businesses and the photographers the gallery represents and local photographers have also been successful marketing tools. For instance, The Pour House has a wine tasting once a month at The Canyon Gallery, promoted through the local liquor store’s monthly newsletter and social media. The Canyon Gallery also showcases a Photographer of the Month, which brings people back to see who the next featured photographer is, helping ensure repeat traffic to The Canyon Gallery’s Facebook page.

The Canyon Gallery also plans to offer photography classes and workshops, taking advantage of all the natural beauty that surrounds them in the San Juan Mountains.

“Every year we try to expand on something we’re doing, or bring in something new, like the photography classes, where we’ll cover Photoshop, Lightroom, how to use the camera, fall color shots, photographing bald eagles at Ridgway Reservoir, and more,” says Harmsen. “We try to be broad in what we offer, but if we’re going to do something we’re going to do it darn good.”

Chromaco and Canvas: A Match Made in Hawaii

Canvas Gallery Wraps by Chromaco
Perfect reproduction of Colleen Wilcox’s art by Chromaco on Sunset Reserve Matte Canvas.

 

Chromaco was printing canvas before canvas was cool. Well, it’s always been cool, but Chromaco perfected its print processes on canvas and other fine art media years ago. During that time, canvas has always been the mainstay of Chromaco’s fine art reproduction business.

Canvas Prints by ChromacoBased in Honolulu, Chromaco is at the heart of a vibrant art community, fed by (as you may have already guessed) a thriving tourist trade. Though most of Chromaco’s work serves the Hawaiian Islands, Chromaco also ships its superb prints to Japan and the mainland U.S.

The secret to Chromaco’s success? Quality. Chromaco’s business was launched by providing ICC profiles to end users and businesses. They were in the color game right off the bat, so it was a smooth transition to reproducing fine art, and reproducing it in Chromaco’s exacting way.

“Since we do our high-resolution digital capture here in-house, it’s all about maintaining accurate color profiles. We do all our own ICC profiling. We start off with our scanner profile for the Phase One back and then we have ICC profiles for all the different devices and materials, including our canvas of choice, Sunset Reserve Matte Canvas,” says Craig Ellenwood, Chromaco general manager. “I find that the Sunset Canvas has a large color gamut. When I print a grayscale bar I can definitely see every step cleanly. There’s no blocking up in the shadows, so the Dmax is there, and it offers a wide range of blacks. We profile the canvas after we coat it so we get the most accurate profile for how it looks as an end product.”

Fine art printing by Chromaco
Close-up of a canvas wrap printed on Sunset Reserve Matte Canvas with Sunset Gloss Coating by Chromaco for artist Heather Brown.

Ellenwood adds that they use Sunset Reserve Matte Canvas in tandem with Sunset Gloss Coating. The Sunset Coating, says Ellenwood, dries more quickly than most coatings on the market, which is essential for ensuring quick turnarounds for Chromaco’s clientele.

“Here in Hawaii we have high humidity and temperatures, and some of the coatings on the market can take three or four days to dry completely sometimes. It’s nice with the LexJet canvas and coating to have it dry overnight so we can package it up in the morning,” says Ellenwood.

Fine Art on Canvas by Chromaco
Printing Ray Tabora’s fine art on canvas at Chromaco.

Ellenwood adds that while canvas has been the company’s cornerstone for the past ten years or so, he’s seen an increase in clients requesting gallery wraps. He says gallery wraps are a simple solution for an artist to hand off to their clients because it can still be framed or hung up on the wall as-is.

“Framing can be expensive and people like the look of a gallery wrap without having to invest in a frame,” says Ellenwood. “The majority of our business is in canvas and most of our clients are painters, galleries and photographers. We also offer other art products like aluminum and watercolor prints and some commercial signage, but the mainstay of our business is canvas.”

LexJet Inkjet Media Profiled and Ready to Roll for HP Latex Printers

LexJet at HP Latex Academy

In addition to the valuable knowledge and training LexJet customer specialists received at HP Latex Academy, which we covered at the LexJet Blog last week, HP was able to test and profile a variety of LexJet inkjet media for its lineup of Latex printers: the L25500, Latex 210, Latex 260 and Latex 280.

The first round of new profiles is now available and ready for download at LexJet’s ICC Profile page. Go to www.lexjet.com/Profiles.aspx (or click on that link), then click on HP Printers and HP L26500 (the new profiles here will also work of the other HP Latex Printers), and select either Onyx Profiles or Caldera Profiles based on your RIP platform.

The LexJet inkjet media that’s been profiled and added includes…

  • LexJet Clear PreLume HD (for ONYX)
  • LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric (ONYX)
  • LexJet Simple Window Perf (ONYX)
  • LexJet Absolute Backlit (Caldera)
  • LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene (Caldera)
  • Fredrix 901SJ Select Matte Canvas (Caldera)

These are in addition to a number of other profiles for LexJet media available for HP Latex Printers. Be sure to check back at the Profiles page for more coming down the pike in the coming weeks.

One LexJet inkjet material you ought to check out for Latex printing is LexJet Clear PreLume HD, which is receiving rave reviews for the output you can achieve with it.

“I was pleasantly surprised at how well it printed on the Latex printer. There were no issues with posterization and it has great saturation. I’ve been able to switch the printing of LexJet Clear from our aqueous printer to the Latex, and I’m quite pleased about it since LexJet Clear has been one of our standard materials for the past 15 years or so,” says John Toth of Triad Creative Group, Brookfield, Wis.

If you have any questions, or need any help, contact a LexJet customer specialist at 800-453-9538.