PC Ink Intensity -15

[Tin Ho]

@mikling may know the answer to this question for my Pro-100.
Why must I set Intensity to -15 using Precision Colors' ink vs Canon?

In my opinion it is more like a simple ink incompatible issue. Nothing was changed but the ink. It does not make sense that it is a color management problem since nothing else but the ink is changed.

I am an amateur not a pro. I got my Pro-100 9 months ago and got my ink from Hobbicolors on ebay. I refilled my CL-42s without bothering to flush the carts. I can not be happier by the beautiful result I have got so far.

Try to make everything as simple as possible for troubleshooting. Are you sure nothing in the setup is changed? If no it has to be the ink that messed up.

 

[palombian]

Explain this:

@PalaDolphin

Seems to me the left side is darker over all.
Is this a scan or a photo ?

If - as I understand - you have profiles available for both inks (the Canon ones are installed with your printer), printing the same photo with both ink/profile combinations (after flushing enough ink between) should produce nearly the same output.

You printed as Canon wanted you to do until now.
Are you really shure you master the settings in the printer driver and printer software to use printer profiles ?
It is easy once you know, but you have to pay attention to it, settings are sometimes hidden in a corner and not the same in all programs.
I remember having quite some headaches before I had it right (see remarks about double profiling ...).

(and after that I had enough with puzzling between papers, inks and profiles that I got a Colormunki)

Success !

 

[The Hat]

PC ink is darker in the nozzle check.

This thread is getting bit ridiculous, it’s supposed to be about colour print problems with OEM versus PC inks, but instead your producing nozzle prints, and they have nothing whatsoever to do colour management.

The nozzle print is what it is, a nozzle check and regardless of which ink your using a nozzle print will always look the same, you can’t be judging colours on the strength of your nozzle prints.

I reckon you need to take a step back from everything and start your print testing once again, use the profiles provided for each ink and paper and print on 4 x6 paper to minimise wastage, let the printer handle colour, don't touch a thing..

Colour management is not as simple as you may think and your lack of experience is showing each time your print something and then try to justify this by saying the prints are completely different, my advice is to take a break before going any further...

 

[Tin Ho]

I agree. Why not go back and set to use Canon profiles and print. It will tell you if the PC ink you got has an issue. If it prints closely to Canon colors the ink is OK. You will have a color management issue to fix then. If not then obviously you have an ink problem.

If you no longer have the original Canon ink just see if your PC ink prints colors reasonably well. It should. PC has always claimed to be closely matching to Canon.

 

[mikling]

Just print out of a web browser and bypass all that color management stuff. If it prints ok out of the browser straight thru then you have a workflow issue.

Over ten thousand people are using this. So I'm done here.

 

[mikling]

Just to end this nonsense.
Read the sidebars
You have to be doing something really wrong to get bad images out of the PC42G inkset.
Even when double profiled, the errors between the native OEM and PC42G are small enough that even double profiling can sometimes go undetected especially IF you don't have a proper calibrated monitor.
How close, well the scans tell the story. You have the AUTO everything noob setting. The Canon ICM if you don't know how to use a custom profile. Then when you bring the intensity to -15 you get less saturation but hey most other inksets are far worse intensity when normal and I won't comment whose. Now you get to use the Canon ICM and it looks a little better than the noob and then finally the Proper ICM which looks more saturated a bit.

Thing to consider is this. If you have your monitor too bright, the -15 is what you see on the screen. If you properly calibrate your monitor then the proper ICM looks correct and the Canon ICM looks a bit undersaturated BUT for most people the Canon ICM will look correct because the standard monitors are searing your eyeballs.

In both cases the -15 intensity looks wrong. Even if you try hard and purposely double profile, your image still looks half decent. So I am finished with this now. The PC42G will stand tall amongst ALL other competing inksets allowing noobs to print nice images and with the proper workflow, printing pros can get nice saturation.

These are quickly scanned just for illustratibe purposes but it is best to run your own prints to see. Go get a Qimage trial to make things easy.

Small boys with big boy toys.....................can be lethal. Start with baby steps don't try and use pro tools from the get go. It can backfire.

Wait and see what the new year brings to the PC42?

 

[stratman]

Small boys with big boy toys

Really, dude? Bad form.

 

[PalaDolphin]

In my opinion it is more like a simple ink incompatible issue. Nothing was changed but the ink. It does not make sense that it is a color management problem since nothing else but the ink is changed.

Two things changed: the ink and the ICM file.

 

[PalaDolphin]

@mikling, No need to get defensive. I posted this because I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing the same problem. It's all a part of my detective work to figure out why PC ink is printing darker. No one has chimed in saying they've experienced the same thing. I take that information and add it to my process to print quality photographs.
For now, -15 Intensity seems to work perfectly. When I have time to experiment more, I will and post my results. But, I can print fine for now this way.
I've QA tested Norton Antivirus. I'm very systematic in my approach to testing.

A nozzle check bypasses any ICM profile. Shouldn't the fact that it prints darker say something?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Two things changed: the ink and the ICM file.

If the PC ink is assumed to perform identical to the original ink you only could prove/see that by printing both inks with the same profile, not another one. Your test may rather indicate that the profiles are different and not the inks.