Image quality on HD metal

[Digital Designs]

Hi guys, i have just printed a HD photo on to HD metal using sublimation but i am not totally convinced my color settings are correct or i am using the correct settings. I am using a Ricoh 3110 sub printer with sublet r cartridgesI use photoshop with the ricoh ICC profile installed on MacI kept the color mode to RGB modeFlattened layersI selected print and let photoshop manage colours, is this right?Do i keep the document in RGB mode or CMYK to print?Do i select photoshop manage colours or select the printer manages colours?

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Print options selected

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Image in RGB on screen

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Image pressed but colours not vibrant

[malkram]

maybe it's because of the dpi.. at how much dpi are you printing ?

[pisquee]

The Ricoh printer driver will expect RGB data, so stay in RGB for the whole workflow - the document settings your have in that print dialog show you are using a CMYK (US coated) document workspace profile, you should be using Adobe RGB 1998. This will affect your colours somewhat.
The other thing to note, is that if you haven't profiled your screen, then you have no way of knowing if the colours on your screen are true, and so equally no way of knowing what is going to come out of your printer, and whether it is printing correct.
I'm also assuming that your printer ICC is just the generic one from Sawgrass, and not one you've had made specifically for your printer - this will also help if you get it done.

[JMugs]

As a rule people have their monitors far to bright hence on images like this, the printed image looks dull, whilst the situation is that the print is correct and the monitor is wrong.
As Pisquee points out, unless you have your screen profiled then you will have no idea.
I don't work with a Mac but I do know the local art college swears at them (yes swears at them!) because the screens make colours "pop" and look all snazy, but that isn't the true image, hence they then have to explain to the students about profiling. The students are convinced they are lying and that their Mac has the best most accurate screen in the world, because that it what Apple/Mac said.

[Digital Designs]

The Ricoh printer driver will expect RGB data, so stay in RGB for the whole workflow - the document settings your have in that print dialog show you are using a CMYK (US coated) document workspace profile, you should be using Adobe RGB 1998. This will affect your colours somewhat.
The other thing to note, is that if you haven't profiled your screen, then you have no way of knowing if the colours on your screen are true, and so equally no way of knowing what is going to come out of your printer, and whether it is printing correct.
I'm also assuming that your printer ICC is just the generic one from Sawgrass, and not one you've had made specifically for your printer - this will also help if you get it done.

ok so I am staying in RGB mode and have changed to ADOBE RGB 1998 workspace. How do I go about profiling my Mac screen? I am using the generic ICC from sawgrass and don't know how to make it specific to my printer. I am very new to this kind of tweaking with colours and I am very nervous about wasting multiple sample items so any advice for a newbie would be greatly appreciated

[JMugs]

In order to profile your screen you will need a Spyder, Munki or something of this nature. They are colour profiling tools (as in physical equipment). Mac screens produce pretty and vivid colours as standard, alas they are not true colours.
Good example for you to do which is easy. Take a photograph of some grass, cut a piece of that grass. Now look at the photo on the screen and put the actual grass next to it, chances are you will see a massive difference in colour! There are a whole host of factors involved but it does to show the differences in a simplistic manner.

As for "I am very nervous about wasting multiple sample items", well if you want to produce the best images you can, this is essential. I and many others will have used boxes of items to refine things, just depends how fussy you want or need to be.

Mugs are.....well mugs, so the amount of money and blanks I used to refine those was not remotely close to the money I spent on large panels for photographers. But a mug that I charge £'s for is a different thing compared to a panel that I charge £££'s for. My clients expect a lot with regards to panels.

Hope that helps a bit with the perspective of cost.

Janners

[Paul]

image you picked for this project its truly beautiful for human eye. but... human eye spectrum is much higher then your printer and inks in your printer.
No matter if you use HD metal or super hyper HD metal. it just wont work.
Look in to your image bit closer. what can you see? LOADS of gradients and nice, vivid colours. your printer cannot mix 4 cmyk inks to achive them like your screen show them to you.
So now look on your screen shot of photoshop printing window.
can you see rendering intent set to perceptual?
right...
so this image that can bee seen by your printer (icc) like this:

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All greyed out area is shows colours that WILL not be able to reproduce the way you want it. simply as ink spectrum is much lower then human eyes and brain. so now here comes the rendering intent.
Perceptual intent will take ALL the colours from greyed out area and TRY to reproduce them to the closest match possible. in most cases it works really well. but in case of image like this your hd metal is best as it can be.

[Digital Designs]

Thanks for that Paul and very interesting indeed but I still may have a silly question, does this mean that we cannot reproduce HD images via sublimation? Or how do I get as close to it as possible? I sit on the edge of my chair every time waiting to see what's going to look wrong! I done a photo slate last night and the ladies gingerish hair came out orange.
this is the original image

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Then sublimated it to slate, it was ok but it cracked on cooling so I thought I'd up the colour a little but this happened.

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I just want to print high colour images onto various sublimated surfaces so please give me simple tips to save these errors. #printingnewbie

[Paul]

You clearly altered image so this is why is diferent on both slates. Also you need to stick to corect times and temps to be sure you not burning ink.