W. Fisher
Print Addict
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2015
- Messages
- 238
- Reaction score
- 106
- Points
- 173
- Printer Model
- Epsons, Canons, Brother.
I bought the SilverFast Ai Studio 9 to make profiles using my old Epson flatbed scanner. Not cheap along with the it8 Version 2 target needed for calibration of the scanner, about $430 for the pair.
Had all sorts of difficulties using it, and I was never pleased with the result, even edited. Seemed to make my profiles too warm, and me later editing the profile made it even worse. I never had a good eye to figure out what appeared the most neutral gray on the three ring-around matrixes it generates to pick out the most neutral gray from the highlights, midtones, and the shadows, and then apply the correction numbers to the profile to correct any hue in a gray.
After a lot of frustration and boxes of test papers, I figured out a means to generate a good and linear color profile using the three grays it uses in the edit ring-around chart. I used my old ColorMunki Photo and the old x-rite ColorPicker software it came with to read the Lab values of the patches to find the best one that would null the Lab of the three grays in the Red River Test image that has the same three Lab gray patches that SilverFast seems to use as their editor's gray patches for their ring-around. This method allows for less color shift in the highlights and shadows as seen with almost all other profile makers out there since it does the mid-values as others do, but it also corrects any tints in the highlights and shadows as well.
Using the printer test image off the Red River Paper website here: https://www.redrivercatalog.com/inf...LTjikWytOZju-8hpy_zn-nWCPkc9i6mjK6hASZWjFjdwL and I used the second one from On-Sight on it that has the L=75, L=50, and L=25 gray squares that are close to the SilverFast ring-around chart of Highlights, Mids, and Shadows numbers.
On the initial profile, I printed out the image and read the three squares with a ColorMunki Photo in spot-reading mode (Using the old x-rite software.) where it shows me both the RGB and Lab values. Maybe ArgyllPro app in an Android cellphone with the ColorMunki Photo would work too, but I think it costs around $99 for the app out of the Google Play Store if you no longer have the old x-rite software.
Example:
My first profile test print's Midtone L=50 RGB patch read 119, 114, 113 and the Lab was 48.5, 1.8, 1.6. So I read the SilverFast Editor's ring-around chart's Mid values and looked for a Lab value that makes the two Lab values of 1.8 and 1.6 zero or close to it. In the Edit part of SF, the patch at 022 reads a Lab value of almost a -1.8 and -1.6 to make the Lab effectively a L=48.5, 0, 0 or a neutral gray being void of any pesky a or b color hues. The newly edited profile made it 114, 115, 115 and the Lab 48.2, 0.3, 0.1 or very close to a perfect neutral gray with almost zero color tint!
Moving onto the highlights L=75 patch. The first highlight patch read was 177, 177,173 or a Lab 71.9, -0.3, 2. Edited correction patch in SF's ring-around read at 104 and I entered into the Edit pane in SF and the subsequent edited profile made it 177, 177, 177 or Lab 72, 0.3, -0.3. Again, pretty good numbers and very neutral compared to most.
The Shadow initially read 64, 59, 58 or Lab 26.3, 2.9, 1.5 and the patch at 021 was best and I entered it into the Edit pane in SF making the edited profile shadow patch image L=25 to read as 59, 62, 60 or Lab 25.6, -0.7, 0.5.
Hope this makes sense to anyone using SilverFast and frustrated with their profile editor. The edited result was definitely an improvement over me trying to eyeball a neutral gray with those three matrix charts which often went to the warm or red side for me. Nice part is I can also see, using the white-to-black graduated scale at the bottom of the Red River/On-site test image and the eyedropper tool in Photoshop, the L values increase or decrease while the Lab a and b color indicators stay near zero telling me the profile is linear and void of any color hue providing my ColroMunki Photo's null numbers were good - or as close as I could make them for the editor's profile correction.
W.F.
Had all sorts of difficulties using it, and I was never pleased with the result, even edited. Seemed to make my profiles too warm, and me later editing the profile made it even worse. I never had a good eye to figure out what appeared the most neutral gray on the three ring-around matrixes it generates to pick out the most neutral gray from the highlights, midtones, and the shadows, and then apply the correction numbers to the profile to correct any hue in a gray.
After a lot of frustration and boxes of test papers, I figured out a means to generate a good and linear color profile using the three grays it uses in the edit ring-around chart. I used my old ColorMunki Photo and the old x-rite ColorPicker software it came with to read the Lab values of the patches to find the best one that would null the Lab of the three grays in the Red River Test image that has the same three Lab gray patches that SilverFast seems to use as their editor's gray patches for their ring-around. This method allows for less color shift in the highlights and shadows as seen with almost all other profile makers out there since it does the mid-values as others do, but it also corrects any tints in the highlights and shadows as well.
Using the printer test image off the Red River Paper website here: https://www.redrivercatalog.com/inf...LTjikWytOZju-8hpy_zn-nWCPkc9i6mjK6hASZWjFjdwL and I used the second one from On-Sight on it that has the L=75, L=50, and L=25 gray squares that are close to the SilverFast ring-around chart of Highlights, Mids, and Shadows numbers.
On the initial profile, I printed out the image and read the three squares with a ColorMunki Photo in spot-reading mode (Using the old x-rite software.) where it shows me both the RGB and Lab values. Maybe ArgyllPro app in an Android cellphone with the ColorMunki Photo would work too, but I think it costs around $99 for the app out of the Google Play Store if you no longer have the old x-rite software.
Example:
My first profile test print's Midtone L=50 RGB patch read 119, 114, 113 and the Lab was 48.5, 1.8, 1.6. So I read the SilverFast Editor's ring-around chart's Mid values and looked for a Lab value that makes the two Lab values of 1.8 and 1.6 zero or close to it. In the Edit part of SF, the patch at 022 reads a Lab value of almost a -1.8 and -1.6 to make the Lab effectively a L=48.5, 0, 0 or a neutral gray being void of any pesky a or b color hues. The newly edited profile made it 114, 115, 115 and the Lab 48.2, 0.3, 0.1 or very close to a perfect neutral gray with almost zero color tint!
Moving onto the highlights L=75 patch. The first highlight patch read was 177, 177,173 or a Lab 71.9, -0.3, 2. Edited correction patch in SF's ring-around read at 104 and I entered into the Edit pane in SF and the subsequent edited profile made it 177, 177, 177 or Lab 72, 0.3, -0.3. Again, pretty good numbers and very neutral compared to most.
The Shadow initially read 64, 59, 58 or Lab 26.3, 2.9, 1.5 and the patch at 021 was best and I entered it into the Edit pane in SF making the edited profile shadow patch image L=25 to read as 59, 62, 60 or Lab 25.6, -0.7, 0.5.
Hope this makes sense to anyone using SilverFast and frustrated with their profile editor. The edited result was definitely an improvement over me trying to eyeball a neutral gray with those three matrix charts which often went to the warm or red side for me. Nice part is I can also see, using the white-to-black graduated scale at the bottom of the Red River/On-site test image and the eyedropper tool in Photoshop, the L values increase or decrease while the Lab a and b color indicators stay near zero telling me the profile is linear and void of any color hue providing my ColroMunki Photo's null numbers were good - or as close as I could make them for the editor's profile correction.
W.F.
