{"id":4135,"date":"2025-07-17T14:18:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T21:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=4135"},"modified":"2026-02-28T10:16:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T18:16:49","slug":"not-printing-colors-that-the-press-can-print","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=4135","title":{"rendered":"Not printing colors that the press can print"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> Landa recently announced a new version of their press, the S11P. The most significant difference is speed. Where the presses I have tested print 6,250 two-sided impressions per hour, the new Landa press can print at twice that speed. This puts the S11P squarely in competition with most B1-size offset presses (28 x 40 inch). Other benefits accrue as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the second in a series of posts about the Landa S10P press and its capabilities. To read the first post, please click here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the previous post I explained how I was attempting to profile the color capabilities of a Landa S10P press, using its seven-color gamut on an excellent coated paper (same paper used when profiling for GRACoL in the U.S.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the X-Rite Isis 2 XL spectrophotometer reading the patches from a sheet printed on the Landa S10P press at Brodnax 21C Printers in Dallas, Texas. The process is relatively fast, taking just minutes to make all the readings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had the printer, Brodnax 21C, in Dallas, Texas, print two different press sheets on their machine. One is populated by RGB source files, the other primarily with CMYK images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s discussion is about profiling the Landa S10P, and specifically about making an ICC profile for that press printing from both an RGB test target set, and one in CMYK, both generated by X-Rite\u2019s i1 Profiler<\/em> software. The RGB target is a \u201cstandard\u201d 2033-patch set with the colors designated as RGB values. I have run this target many times, on many devices, all ink-jet printing machines that expect RGB as source files. The CMYK target is an ECI target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While teaching in Germany in 2021-22, I used a Landa press to make a similar test sheet, then I visited the labs at FOGRA, Germany\u2019s printing industry research organization, to measure the results and make the profile. I declared it a \u201cfailure\u201d because the profile was almost identical to sRGB<\/em>, which is the second-smallest color gamut in the industry. I was convinced by that experience that it was my error, and that I had not prepared something correctly, I had not used the correct target, or had made some other error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite my profiling \u201cfailure\u201d in Munich in 2021, the rest of my test sheet revealed several important things, one of which was that the color space we had chosen to use \u2013 ProPhoto RGB<\/em> \u2013 was not acceptable, because the Landa machine, and its Fiery front-end, did not manage the color in that space correctly. It made our photos look muddy, We switched, mid-project, to Adobe RGB,<\/em> which is a less voluminous color space, and which has many fewer potential colors inside its envelope. That one discovery saved our project, preventing a disastrous printing job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s test was similar. I put a standard i1 Profiler<\/em> target set of 2,033 patches on the RGB sheet, and sent the file to Brodnax. The visual impact of that target set is lovely. It looks great. The CMYK test target set is similarly nice, though it doesn\u2019t look as beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also had a benchmark for this year\u2019s test sheet \u2013 a reproduction of that same 2,033-patch target set printed on another ink-jet machine with more than four colors of ink. This machine is the Epson P9000, which prints with CMYK, Orange and Green (it also has \u201clight magenta,\u201d light cyan and two \u201clight blacks\u201d). The profile that my students made from that target set is glorious. It shows what an expanded-gamut printer can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When in Germany, I had nothing against which to compare the performance of the Landa S10P press. This time it would be different. Both are ink-jet machines, both use water-based inks, and both are printing on a premium paper (the Epson paper is glossier, but still a comparable medium). If anything, the absence of a blue ink on the Epson should give the Landa an advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My testing process is common: run the test sheet, then read the sheet with a spectrophotometer (an X-Rite Isis 2 XL<\/em>), then use i1 Profiler<\/em> to calculate and create the profile, using ICC v4 standards for the calculations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I run my analyses in ColorThink Pro 4<\/em> from Chromix. That software is the latest version for color profile analysis and editing. It is capable of making visual comparisons in CIELab<\/em> color, CIEYxy, LUV,<\/em> and two other less common color spaces. I used both Yxy and Lab for these analyses. The data are the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
This is the gamut chart posted on the Landa web site. It shows the colors of CMYK offset, RGB and their S10P press superimposed on the CIELab color space (but reversed left-to-right). I have flopped it here so the color space matches my analyses, below.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Landa\u2019s web site they show a CIELab graph of the color of their press, claiming 86 percent coverage of the Pantone library. I have no reason to doubt their claim, and was hoping that my profiling would prove their claim to be correct. (Note: in October, 2024 I profiled a BenQ <\/em>RGB display that claims 98 percent coverage of Adobe RGB.<\/em> I was skeptical, but found that their display is slightly better <\/em>than they claim!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The graph used on the Landa site is shown in CIELab<\/em> color (but, oddly, flipped horizontally). I have flipped their chart here so that the colors in my analyses are represented in approximately the same coordinates, and along the axes commonly used in color analysis (red at the top with 0\u00b0 hue angle, green 120\u00b0 counter-clockwise, and blue 240\u00b0 counter-clockwise from red. This also aligns with the CIELab<\/em> charts in ColorThink Pro,<\/em> in i1 Profiler,<\/em> Adobe Photoshop,<\/em> and others).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
This chart shows how the Landa press prints colors from RGB source files, compared to the color gamut the Epson P9000 ink-jet printer. Those are superimposed on the sRGB color space, which is the second-smallest common color space in the industry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I made a profile of the seven-color output on the Landa press, taken from the RGB test patch set of 2,033 color patches. Then I made a profile of the CMYK target (printed with all seven colors) using the ECI 2002 CMYK random<\/em> patch set. In both cases, I measured the output with an X-Rite Isis2 XL<\/em> spectrophotometer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the profiles were made, I opened each for analysis in ColorThink Pro 4,<\/em> the most recent analysis tool from Chromix. Using the CIELab color space for these tests, I compared the RGB results to those I got from an earlier test of our Epson P9000 ink-jet printer on Epson glossy photo paper. This paper is glossier than the C2S SAPPI paper used to print my test sheets on the Landa press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Curiouser: The gamut of colors printed by the Landa S10P is very similar to the gamut of an offset press on a C2S sheet. The gamut of colors is very slightly smaller than GRACoL, despite there being more potential on this press.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The gamut of colors of the Landa S10P seems to be limited to, or very closely aligned<\/em> with the sRGB color space, which is disappointing, because sRGB is the second-smallest common RGB color space in the industry. This is exactly what I experienced at FOGRA in Munich in 2021; then I assumed that I was at-fault, that I had chosen the wrong RGB target patch set, or that I had handled the target file incorrectly, converting it accidentally to sRGB (default on most installations of Adobe Photoshop). It turns out that the same target patch set printed on the Epson P9000 generates a dramatically larger color gamut. This proves that it\u2019s the management of the color on the Landa prepress system (a Fiery) and not my handling of the file, that caused this constraint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CMYK color patch set, the ECI 2002,<\/em> produced a much different<\/em> result: it aligns almost exactly with the GRACoL color gamut, that used for measuring and certifying the output of offset presses in the United States. I will test this against one of the FOGRA 37 and 39 CMYK color gamuts in another blog post..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here is the mystery of this experience, so far:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
This chart shows colors that are exclusive to the RGB and CMYK gamuts of the S10P press. The mystery here is that there are colors that can be printed using CMYK source image that are outside the gamut<\/em> of colors printed on the same machine and paper. The machine can print those colors, so why is it not printing those colors? It seems to me that the press should be able to print all of the colors on this chart (which is certainly can do), yet it does not seem to do that.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With such a potentially huge color gamut (as promised by Landa), what is preventing the S10P from printing colors outside the gamut of sRGB on the RGB front, and outside of GRACoL on the CMYK front?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a closing thought, I made a chart of exclusive colors<\/em> on both sheets \u2013 remember these are printed on the same machine, using the same seven colors of ink, at the same time on the same paper \u2013 there are patches of color that are exclusive<\/em> to each color space, but ironically inside<\/em> the opposite color space. These are colors that can be printed with CMYK, and colors that can be printed by RGB (converted to CMYK-Red-Green-Blue in the Fiery) that cannot be printed by CMYK colors (and also processed by the Fiery to the gamut of colors on the Landa). This is illogical, since they obviously can be printed by the machine on that substrate at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why would a printing press have colors that it can<\/em> print not<\/em> print?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll leave that for us to ponder until the next post.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: Landa recently announced a new version of their press, the S11P. The most significant difference is speed. Where the presses I have tested print 6,250 two-sided impressions per hour, the new Landa press can print at twice that speed. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15,844,9,10,27,24,30],"tags":[63,64,80,1075,1074,1073,108],"class_list":["post-4135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-color-management","category-graphic-arts-people","category-new-technology","category-photography","category-photoshop-techniques","category-printing-and-printing-processes","category-technology","tag-blognosticator","tag-brian-lawler","tag-cal-poly","tag-color-profiling-a-landa-press","tag-landa-nanographic-printing-technology","tag-landa-s10p-press","tag-the-blognosticator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4135"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4347,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4135\/revisions\/4347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}