Affinity Photo - new at ICC Profiles and soft-proofing

[Canon5D6D7D]

Hi all. I hope someone can help me please with this issue as I am somewhat stumped. Although I've been doing photography for some time I have never ventured to print anything before. I recently learned about ICC Profiles and how to set them up on my Mac. I also learned how to do soft proofing (a Robin Whalley video). My issue is that when printing I still have quite a dramatic shift in colours. The image I'm testing is of my grandson, shooting into the house with patio doors open, so the lighting is natural light only. I checked the image with auto color (collar cast test etc) and nothing changed. 

Here's my data: my printer is an Epson R1900. The image colorspace=sRGB. The papers ICC profile=1FS_PSP290_R1900-Epson_Generic.icc (Fotospeed photo smooth Pearl 290). I chose Relative colorimetric for this paper profile because, when selecting the gamut check, it left me with very little 'grey areas' (out of gamut colours). So I adjusted accordingly. When comparing the image on screen and toggling on/off the soft proof adjustment I had very little difference. So I proceeded to print. I've stopped here because I am stumped at what to do next; I'm not sure what to adjust next.

Regarding the image, what I have done since is to show key elements of the image (hair colour, eyes, lips, t-shirt colour etc) as blocks of colour adjusted to show RGB representations of both sampled colours from the image and printed colours (approximate). To give an indication of this visually, I've included here a screenshot. I am willing to provide the file as an afphoto file too if someone can genuinely help me sort this out. I hope I have been able to explain myself clearly enough and wish to thank anyone in advance for any assistance they can give me .

regards

Garry 

[RichardMH]

Is your monitor calibrated?

[Canon5D6D7D]

at this stage no the monitor hasn't been calibrated yet, but prior to processing this image I ran a test on a sample calibration image (provided by Fotospeed), I performed all the soft-proofing tasks, printed the image etc and the printed version was very, very close to the image on screen. So, "hopefully" there shouldn't be too much of an issue (I hope). 

[RichardMH]

What colour space is your image in AP? Its in the context toolbar above the image.

[Canon5D6D7D]

the image colourspace is sRGB 

[h_d]

Might be worth watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxxqN_5mNo0&t=2s (Obtaining optimum colour on your Epson printer). It's nine years old and goes on for more than an hour, but it's an experienced Epson engineer explaining how to get the best out of your printer, at a very technical and detailed level.

 

[Canon5D6D7D]

Well now, this is very, very interesting. I've read several articles and listened to some videos all referring to using Affinity Photo for the colour management and not the printer. Well, I have discovered the complete opposite! If you look at the settings in these screenshots, I used a configuration where the printer settings
colour management/control is set to Epson (not off) and used instead of AP.  The results I am getting now, after some tweaks during soft proofing the image, are very acceptable. I welcome any further comments from users if you think I have missed anything.   

 

cheers

Garry

[Robin Whalley]

You may have got to the bottom of your problem but in case you haven't...

The setting you share for your "Color Matching" diaog show the colour handling is being passed to the printer AND that it's set to the EPSON Colour Controls. This ignores the colour profiles and hands everything over to the printer. I suspect the reason that you achieve a good result with this is that the Fotospeed Pearl paper doesn't require much of a change in softproofing.

My best guess at what's causing your problem when using the Generic ICC profile is that the profile is wrong. I did some testing of Fotospeed papers a while back and found several of their generic profiles were wrong. I reported this with my evidence and they corrected them. I suspect what happens is tht people have custom profiles made but don't follow the test print instructions properly. The resulting profile is then used more widely as a generic profile and so you end up with an incorrect profile and a colour shift.

I really would encourage you to have a custom paper profile made using the free custom profiling service on the Fotospeed website. It's very quick and easy and if you follow the instructions in the pack you will know the results will the accurate. I suspect it will fix your problem but if not, it rules out one probably cause.