Printing with profiles

[les]

I would like to hear from anyone who is actually using custom

profiles for his printer (either self-made, or from some lab etc).

 

Please describe the following:

1) Type of the printer

2) where does the profile come from

3) Editing software used (Photoshop or other)

4) the result (good, bad)

5) If bad, what is the problem (couple of words only)

 

I do not think that printers work very well when print space defined

by the user is other than Printer Color Management.

Please do not flame me for this statement: this is my experience with

Canon i965 which has a total disregard for any profile I care to

specify, so I would like to know your experience, particularly with

printing portrait type pictures.

[eric_perlberg]

Leszek

 

I use custom profiles for my Canon S900 (my favourite paper is Ilford Classic Pearl). I made the profile myself (I do this for a living). I use Photoshop CS and the results are excellent.

 

As to your statement about using the Printer Colour Management instead of Photoshop/OS CM (if that is what you meant) that is not my experience at all. I wonder if your experience is tested on a broad enough sample to make such a generalisation. There are a lot of people who use the standard proceedure who don't have the problems you have.

 

I work in Photoshop in Adobe RGB and set that for my document space in print preview and use my custom profile description for soft proofing and for printing space. I turn off colour management in the printer management dialog box, set the print quality manually to Fine and use glossy pro as the paper description and I'm very pleased with the match from my monitor (which is also hardware profiled) to my prints. (I assume that you've hardware profiled your monitor? If you haven't, you have to.)

 

Setting aside intensity issues of monitor emitted light versus print reflected light, I'm very pleased with the accuracy of colour management on my Mac using OS X 10.3.2. What I see *IS* what I get.

 

There is a canon printer listserve which might be helpful. They're at www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/Canon-printers

[richard_s_beverson]

I do use ICC profile when using my printer.

 

1. Epson 7600

2. I use the profiles by Atkins from the Epson site. I have also

built my own profiles for specialty papers.

3. I use the Gretag Macbeth i1Color photo package & PS 7/8.

4. I think the results are excellent.

 

I use many different papers, photo glossy, premium luster, matte, 2 different canvases.

 

Building a profile is tedious, but when you've done it correctly, the results are worth it. I've printed photos from my D30 and 10D from 8x10 to 24x36 and they all look great.

 

Dick

[beauh44]

Hi Leszek, I use and Epson 2200 and either my own or George Lepp's profiles. I couldn't get a decent print until I did, and now they're excellent. I use Photoshop CS or PS7. Best wishes . . .

[carl_harsch]

I'm using a Canon i960 and Red River papers. I use the color profiles privided by Red River. I am using Photoshop CS. I have been pleased with the results which are very close to what I am seeing on my monitor which is calibrated with the ColorVision Spyder and Optical.

[les]

Thanks for all responses !

Eric,

Glad to hear from someone who is using Canon printer.

I have my monitor calibrated with the Spyder device (ColorVision) and I also use their PrintFix.

I have tried 6 different papers with identical (poor) results.

While I am not an expert at color management, I believe that I understand things correctly and that I am not doing anything wrong.

 

My issue at the moment is not with the PrintFix, though: I realize that one can't expect too much from a $250 device, but here is what is happening:

 

1) I use Adobe RGB as the default workspace.

2) Soft preview using the created profile is looking OK

3) Setting the source to Document and print space to Printer Color Management I get a preview which is identical to the soft proof in PS. The print matches the soft proof. So far so good.

4) When the print space is changed to the paper profile, the preview looks horrible with lots of pink cast. My guess is that the preview does not know how handle the profile (to confirm this, I converted the Document to paper profile and soft proofed with WindowsRGB: the soft proof looks exactly like the preview with original Document as a source and paper profile as the print space).

When I soft proof the converted Document with the paper profile, the soft proof is OK again (as it should be, I guess).

5) Printing with original document as the source and the paper profile as the print space again results in lots of pink, quite unlike the soft proof.

 

Since I am not doing anything wrong (quality of the profile aside), my only conclusion is that the printer does not allow custom profiles to be correctly used. Of course I disable any options in the printer's driver (unless there is something I missed, but I do not think so).

 

If your mail box is large enough (about 10Mb) I can send a Word document where all is described with details and screen grabs.

[eric_perlberg]

Leszek, a few questions. What do you have the intent set at in your print preview dialog box. Also, in the proof setup box, do you have preserve numbers checked or unchecked?

<p><p>

 

<i>1) I use Adobe RGB as the default workspace. 2) Soft preview using the created profile is looking OK 3) Setting the source to Document and print space to Printer Color Management I get a preview which is identical to the soft proof in PS. The print matches the soft proof.</i><p>

 

Thinking about this is confusing me. You have the Printer driver set to Not Colour Manage (I think this is in the advanced settings on a PC?) So the work space is Adobe RGB the soft preview shows the paper profile and the print space is set to let the printer manage the file but the printer colour management is off? And then you get a good print? That would imply that the Adobe RGB tag is the one going to the printer. You speak of pinkish overtones which sounds like a colour shift from a wide gamut to a smaller one. (hence my questions about preserve numbers and the Intent you've selected.)

<p><p>

I looked through the canon printer list archives. As you can imagine a goodly amount of discussion is about printer profiles and colour management but there are no people writing in about the i950, i900 i965, i850 s900 or s9000 with problems getting the profile to work correctly with the printer driver.

<p><p>

I don't think my ISP will accept a 10meg attachment. Could you break this down into sections or save the images as small jpegs?

<p><p>

I'll keep looking through some of my resources to see if I can find something about your problem. I don't deny your experience about the profiles not seeming to work or not work but I still don't think its likely that the printer driver can't cope with any of a series of different profiles. In my experience computer professionals regularly come across seemingly intractable problems similar to this where something doesn't work the way it should only to find some minor detail overlooked which sets a series of events to happen which create the problem. My gut sense says there is some tiny detail somewhere which is causing the profile problems your having.

[les]

Eric,

thanks for the offer of help. I will edit the document and send it to you.

 

As regards the intent - it is set to Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric.

The Preserve Numbers box is off, otherwise I would effectively be disabling color management.

 

I will send you all the details in couple of hours.

Cheers !

[erudolph]

<<Richard S Beverson , jan 17, 2004; 08:23 a.m. wrote:>>

 

<<I use the Gretag Macbeth i1Color photo package & PS 7/8. 4. I think the results

are excellent....

Building a profile is tedious, but when you've done it correctly, the results are worth

it. I've printed photos from my D30 and 10D from 8x10 to 24x36 and they all look

great.>>

 

Dick, can you give an idea of how long it takes you, and how long it might take a

beginner, to build a profile with the Gretag MacBeth system?

 

Thanks

Ed