Sometimes you need to start all over...

[mikling]

I started getting some issues with the Image Specialists recommended colors for the Canon CLI-221 cartridges. Upon investigation, profiling helped but the profile always needed to be tweaked. Furthermore, with certain shades, the rendering intent would throw off the balance. Something was weird.

So I threw out all their recommendations and started all over and decided to use the colors I thought would do it. This meant blending different shades of colors to get similar colors to that of Canon. This is not an easy process, put too much of a certain shade in and the result you get is not what you think you'd get. It takes a lot of time and patience when you are not equipped with the equipment the ink manufacturers have. Each iteration requires flushing of the cartridges and printing and waiting for drying and then measurement and test prints.

Well this was done over the Xmas holidays. The result was the following. The test prints are all done with identical printer settings profiles and paper. This totally resolves the issues I found on the CLI-221 family. What do you think. Is it good enough or do I need to polish it further?

Someone told me if it was closer Canon might come after me!

 

[qwertydude]

Just a quick look I notice that the shadows in the reds go darker faster on the top but less saturated like the reddish cliff and the strawberries. I notice the skin tones are more saturated on the bottom. Strange indeed. But it is close, don't know which is the OEM Canon, but another anomaly is the neutral gray image in the middle. The bottom is a pleasing golden tint, but a tad too warm. The top I find a slightly more off putting grayish green.

 

[martin0reg]

I agree with qwertydude.
The warm tone of the bottom sample seems to indicate it is canon ink.

Perhaps the aim of mixing a new ink should not be similarity to canon but neutral colors, especially greys...
...but what about the paper?

 

[RMM]

Interesting. This may be a good solution for those who don't have the equipment or don't want to bother with profiling their printer.

You gonna start selling this stuff? ;-)

 

[mikling]

The scanner makes it warm. The paper is Kirkland Professional Glossy. That is all I can afford to use to print for testing.

The aim is generally to get OEM colors because that is what the printer RIP wants to get the best balance and all necessary profiles comes with the printer driver. I will also offer custom ICCs for this inkset as well so that even better performance can be expected.

Mixing for neutral greys is a lot more difficult than you would imagine. Shifts in grey are easily perceptible, 1% shifts in one color create perceptible shifts in the gray ramp.

I will begin to offer this stuff to replace the inkset that is recommended by Image Specialists. If anyone has bought the Image Specialists inkset for the CLI-221 from me before, I plan to offer a special deal so that they can replace that inkset with much improved colors immediately. I was disappointed with the inkset and was compelled to improve it. It took a while but it is essentially here now.

When I get adequate supplies of the individual components I will offer the special price to previous customers to upgrade the CMY if they were displeased with the initial inkset.

As to profiling to fix color problems. Sometimes it simply doesn't work well. That is what prompted me to start over. Profiling did not properly fix the problems with the initial color depending on how critical you are and many users simply do not want to bother with profiling.

 

[martin0reg]

main question: which is canon, on top or bottom?

And what about a third scan to compare with images specialists?
Perhaps it was a bad portion of ink?

I have canon IP4000/BCI and IP4500/CLI-8 (no 4700/CLI-221) and I am using IS ink - do you notice this color issue of IS ink also for the older models?

 

[mikling]

The CLI-221 and I think CL-521 inkset recommended by IS has some issues for more critical printing. For general casual printing it will suffice. For photographers who want more accuracy with extreme colors there are issues. IS recommended inksets for prior generations did not exhibit this. It is only for the newest generation of Canon colors which appear to be markedly different with their own tendencies. So for the CLI-8 and backwards the IS recommended inksets are very good but then Canon did something in their newest colors........ and that is why I had to start over.

Canon is bottom on the first set, and right on the grainger rainbow. The grainger rainbow is a really a really tough print test that will show gamut holes and inconsistencies.

After maybe a couple hundred purges...something has happened to my printer chip and I have to pause. Seeing that I am leaving for a trip this Saturday and have not prepared, my wife has commanded me to get ready and put away for a while. Just when I had one or more tweaks. When I get back maybe I will tweak a bit more and then start profiling.

 

[mikling]

My last tweaks has the reds pretty much identical now. Fleshtones are phenomenally very very very similar as well. Woo Hoo! The only differences are slight gamma differences. Normal users will not be bothered by this. More exacting users will likely resort to profiles in which case, the issue is totally resolved.

 

[meimnothere]

"All colors exactly match the original producing predictable consistent colors"

Precision Colours might want to change the wording here before one of the OEM's notice.