Hi from a newbie

Mickey

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Greeting from a newbie. Have been lurking in the background for a while and thought I might as well register and say Hi. Was referred here by Burt on the printer newsgroup. Wonder if FotoFreek = Burt? Yes?

I use a Canon i860 printer with MIS bulk inks and Costco's house brand "Kirkland" paper. Been a long time user of both. Oh, just noticed InkSupply (MIS) has added Costco paper in their offerings but the price is outta sight, 25sheets @$12.75. Nice profit for them when a full box is slightly less than $19 US.

Here are some rambling comments based on various posts I've been reading.

Was hoping to find a profile for the printer/ink/paper I use but have not seen one. But on the other hand I'm not sure how much I need one. I've DL's the "Gettyimages" file of the three ladies and I'm very pleased with the output as printed using Canon's Easy PhotoPrint program (8x10). Flesh tones look very good, no color cast I can detect and image is sharp, can read the bottom line of the eye chart. The banana's look natural with the yellow, brown and green tones. The gray scale at the top of the photo, I can see the gradients down to the darkest 4 grades. On the volt meter in lower right corner, I can see all the individual scale lines. I'm not sure what more I could ask of this set-up.

I refill my carts. Still using the OEM carts and have been refilling them since the OEM's first ran low. I've gone through about a third of a 4oz bottle for each of the colors and a half bottle for the pigmented blk. Have seen quite a discussion about how to fill, what stopper to use, how to plug the lower opening during the fill process or during storage. I use rubber plugs, can't recall where I bought these but they are green and have worked perfectly for me. Just need to make sure to press firmly in the center to insure a complete seal. Head is a mushroom design with an arrow point on the end of the stem. For closing the lower opening, I kept and use the molded caps that came with the cart. I secure them with a med-width rubber-band. Never have had a problem with this method. I do have a second set of carts that have been used so I have some experience with LT storage of used and filled carts.

Not sure what kind of contributions I can make as there are a lot of real knowledgeable people already here.

Nice friendly site, keep up all the good work.
 

fotofreek

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Hi Mickey - Welcome aboard! You will find this forum to be very friendly and supportive. Since you already refill carts and have hit on a good combination of inks and paper, you certainly have experience from which to contribute to the group. That information in itself adds reinforcement to what others have found to be a successful combination. I use photoshop elements 3 to adjust photos and print them. I use the paper setting at Glossy Photo paper, the manual setting for color, and occasionally adjust the magenta a bit lower if skin tones are too red in the print.

About the OEM carts and refilling - with any carts it is best to not get to the low ink warning stage but to refill when the carts are about 3/4 empty in the reservoir area. I have used MIS virgin carts and also have a set of hobbicolor empty carts that I have not yet refilled but heard good things about. Several people use other carts, including Alotofthings Arrow carts, and refill them with Formulabs inks when they get low. Lots of info here on inks and carts, pro and con, and techniques like sealing the fill holes, etc.
 

Nifty

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Mickey, welcome to the forum, and thanks to fotofreek for spreading the good news!

I echo what foto said, everyone has something to contribute, even if it simply reinforces what others have posted.
 

Mickey

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Thanks guys for the nice response.

Didn't get a confirmation if Foto is Burt but assume that he is.

I also have and use PSE and used it almost exclusively until recently when I stared using Canon's easy print which I find does a great job for me on "snap shot" type prints. You can do better when you have full control but easy print get me there at least 80% of the way. For most prints, one never really knows what the REAL color and/or intensity was so if the results are pleasing isn't that good enough for most people and most prints?

Was wondering if someone like Foto or someone else that is real familiar with PSE on how to make the most when printing. Do you always use color and brightness/contrast functions? Is that a good practice if monitor hasn't been profiled? How about settings for printing. I know Foto uses manual control and usually reduces saturation a little but how about and if using ICM? Could make for a good discussion. I know if not properly used one can end up using multiple color corrections and end up with less than desireable prints and has a heck of a time trying to figure out why and how to correct.
 

fotofreek

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Hi Mickey - Get onto the adobe.phtoshop.elements newsgroup. In addition to going through the threads for information you can ask questions, just as you did on the printer newsgroup.

PSE comes with adobe gamma, a program for calibrating the monitor. It does a very basic calibration which is good enough for me. I set PSE to no color control and the same with the printer. People who are more sophisticated with calibration purchase software that permits calibration of the monitor, printer, and scanner. I think there is also a way to access the information in the photo image file from a digital camera so that all the equipment is working in sinc.

One of the most valuable corrections for me is "levels", listed under brightness/contrast. I use it for almost every picture. It can correct a white balance, adjust the lightest and darkest areas of the photo, and adjust the midtones to your liking. I rarely use the brightness/contrast. Another valuable one for photos that have faces with shadows is the fill flash. Some color correction can occur with the levels screen as well as the color correction section. If you are new to PSE there are several good books, some of which lay out a sequence of corrections to use as a routine with most photos. Having done years of B&W darkroom work I enjoy the versatility of PSE and didn't enjoy using Canon Easy Print as it gave me less control. I can do routine prints very quickly in PSE. As I correct an image and send it to the printer I then move on to the next file while the printer is printing the first one. If exposures are good and there is little to do but crop and do minor adjustments I am editing far ahead of the printer output for 4x6 prints. That's around 30 sec per print.

Bottom line on calibration, adjustements, and software used - if your result is pleasing to you and to the people to whom you give your prints, then you have done it all right!

And yes, Fotofreek is Burt. It says so in my profile that you can bring up by clicking on my sign-in name. I don't know why my foremost critic on the printer newsgroup made such a big deal about it as it has never been a secret.
 

cjm

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Take a look at Qimage printing software from Digital Domain, www.ddisoftware.com . It will use an icm file, Canon's EasyPrint ignores them. Qimage allows easy resizing of photos, upsizing as necessary. I have used it for many years. Photoshop is for editing image files. It's printing functions are, in my opinion, lacking. Digital Domain also makes Profile Prism, an excellent profiler for printers, scanners, and cameras. No connection to the company except as a satisfied customer. HTH, John
 

Mickey

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Since I posted yesterday I've done a lot of work on getting the colors & instensity right. Had a setting (both PSE & printer) that was a lot better than what EPP dishes up. Then I found another forum on Canon products and found mention of the Canon ICC profile guide. From this I made a nother change that in the end is even better. It got down to having to look at the test picture under a magnifying glass as these old eyes aren't what they used to be. With things set as near as you can from the guide instructions and applying them to PSE, I think I've found what I'm going to settle with.

I have an LCD display and it offers an sRGB setting which I'm using. With PSE on the print preview screen I've set the print space to: Canon i860 PR2/perceptual/no blk compensation. In PSE I've got the color management set to manual and enabled ICM.

Refering to the Gettyimage pic, the gray scale I can all 32 shades when looking real close under the magnifying glass. All the skin tones look very neutral and the pic is def not over saturated. The blue satin material the med instruments are on shows the shadow detail and highlights. Comparing the pic to the monitor, they are very close to one another. Without an obsolute reference source one never knows if either one is really dead on.

Since I've got a few spare copies of this pic I'm going to expose it to some sun light and see what happens. Have lots of trees around the house so there is little direct exposure to the sun but we'll see what happens in a few weeks. I'm interested in seeing what this ink/paper combination does for permenence. We'll see how faded the image gets.
 

fotofreek

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Mickey - Can you post the link for anyone who would like to read about the icc guide?
 

Mickey

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Being a newbie here I made a bad assumption that this doc was know to the forum. I think my assumption was drawn by fact that the forum and thread where I found it had a post or two from Granddad35.

Hope you don't mind me giving the forum and thread where I found the guide info as it does have some good posts on the topic.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?s=2f8280acb6a2f9ec454f5aea7d8fa2b8&t=29530

Keep in mind the guide was written with PS in mind as the graphics software.
 

fotofreek

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Mickey - thanks for posting the link. Granddad has done some great work on profiles for specific ink/paper/printer combinations. The Canon profile guide this link points to is a good starting place for several of us (including me) to get the basic idea about profiles. Frankly, I've just muddled through and used the Canon glossy photo paper setting with Kirkland paper and MIS ink and It has fortunately worked out well.
 
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