Lightroom and printing

Zerodog

This past weekend I eagerly setup my new Epson R2880 on my brand new monster computer running Windows 7 and printed a picture from Lightroom. The color was less than spectacular compared to what I saw on the monitor. The color was muted and unsaturated. So I tried picking another paper in the menu. This was better. At least for the hummingbird I was trying to print.

Next was a portrait. In lightroom the color is great. When you press print an intermediate epson print preview screen pops up and shows how it should look. I found it is very accurate to what comes out of the printer. This screen showed skin tones that were red to pink. And that is exactly what came out of the printer.

So I tried going back to the printer controlled color profile. The one that was not so hot with the bird. This produced skin tones that were very unsaturated and cool. People look kind of sick or dead. Not at all what lightroom is showing. So I try many paper profiles to see how it effects it and found one that is close. But not quite there. So now this has me thinking that I need to buy a calibration device for my monitor. And that my photos and editing have been producing bad color for printing.

So for the hell of it I wanted to see the new Windows 7 printer utility. It was easy and .............it worked right. I just picked glossy photo paper and it was perfect. What the preview screen showed, was exactly how the photo looked in lightroom and my windows browser. And this was exactly how it printed. PERFECT!!

WTF?? I want to print from lightroom. Not from windows. How do I find that color/ paper profile I used from windows? Or how do I find more profiles online? I am using Kirkland glossy photo paper from Costco. And reading reviews on it, I don't think the paper is an issue. It sounds like lots of people love it.

digidrone

I found that I have to change my setting in the print module, down in the color management section. I have to use the setting that is my monitor.
This gets me the print I see on-screen. Sometimes I do have to bump up the exposure or brightness though.
My machine isn't calibrated so this was my solution to get what I see on-screen.
Hope it helps!

LiquidAir

When I print from Lightroom I set the paper type, but I turn off all color management in the printer driver. The I set up Lightroom to use the appropriate color profile for the paper I am using. It took me a little while to find all the appropriate settings, but it works great.

Miguel Delinquento

Lightroom is color managed, I don't know if the Windows 7 application you liked using was.
One question: is your monitor calibrated using a hardware tool?

M

arodney

Zerodog wrote:

So for the hell of it I wanted to see the new Windows 7 printer utility. It was easy and .............it worked right. I just picked glossy photo paper and it was perfect. What the preview screen showed, was exactly how the photo looked in lightroom and my windows browser. And this was exactly how it printed. PERFECT!!

Leads me to believe you lucked out because the likelihood that your browser (unless its Safari or the latest FireFox with color management enabled) and that print utility are not properly color managed. Lightroom is. That doesn't mean the prints are coming out to your satisfaction of course but it implies you've got some issues with color management including having a display that may not be properly calibrated and profiled, poor printer profiles (which Lightroom would access) etc. IOW, when properly configured, Lightroom like other color aware applications provide proper print to display matching and produce good output.

Zerodog

The print utility in 7 is much like it is in XP. So no browsers are involved. But like you said. It is probably not color managed at all.

So I think the printer is trying to manage color and lightroom is too. So it gets doubled up? That is my new theory. So I will try turning off all color management for the printer and see what that does. This in theory will let lightroom do its thing. I did find a color profile for my kirkland paper that I need to try too.

Zerodog

I tried turning off the color management in the print driver and no luck. PINK.

I tried the kirkland color profile PINK.

Damn! This looks like it will be a project.

What do you guys think of the Huey? Is it good or junk? For the $$ it might be worth a shot.

arodney

huey is better than eyeball calibration but not so hot. I'd go EyeOne Display-2.

Pink might be due to the paper profile OR if its really pick and light, double color management (applied profile in driver and Photoshop/LR). Check all settings carefully.

Zerodog

digidrone wrote:

I found that I have to change my setting in the print module, down in the color management section. I have to use the setting that is my monitor.
This gets me the print I see on-screen. Sometimes I do have to bump up the exposure or brightness though.
My machine isn't calibrated so this was my solution to get what I see on-screen.
Hope it helps!

I found the display profile option in LR and tried it. It worked very well. I tried it with the printer management off and photo enhance. The photo enhance is slightly brighter and nicer. So for now. I think I got it. It just took a while to find it.


Thanks everyone!

arodney

Zerodog wrote:

I found the display profile option in LR and tried it. It worked very well. I tried it with the printer management off and photo enhance. The photo enhance is slightly brighter and nicer. So for now. I think I got it. It just took a while to find it.

You should not be selecting a display profile here for the printer profile. You should be selecting the printer profile.

Miguel Delinquento

This is not color management
Color management has a fairly prescribed workflow. This is not it. I'm glad that it works for you right now, but without an correctly calibrated monitor you don't have a documented baseline for making informed decisions about the quality of your color output.

M

Zerodog wrote:

I found the display profile option in LR and tried it. It worked very well. I tried it with the printer management off and photo enhance. The photo enhance is slightly brighter and nicer. So for now. I think I got it. It just took a while to find it.


Thanks everyone!

Zerodog

I figured I was cheating. So what is the most cost effective way to calibrate? The Huey is pretty cheap but does it perform? How about the Color Munki? That thing analysis prints too? But it is $$$

arodney

Zerodog wrote:

I figured I was cheating. So what is the most cost effective way to calibrate? The Huey is pretty cheap but does it perform? How about the Color Munki? That thing analysis prints too? But it is $$$

Skip huey. ColorMunki is quite good and would allow you to also create custom printer profiles. If all you need to handle is the display, an EyeOne Display-2 is less expensive than the ColorMunki.

Zerodog

arodney wrote:

Skip huey. ColorMunki is quite good and would allow you to also create custom printer profiles. If all you need to handle is the display, an EyeOne Display-2 is less expensive than the ColorMunki.

I think the display is only part of the problem. The printer should be calibrated too. I think I will just go with the munki. I just need to save up my pennies. There is a $50 rebate on them until the end of Sept. So I guess I need to do it by then.

arodney

The R2880 has some decent canned profiles for Epson papers. Not trying to suggest you don't roll your own. But if you have some Prem luster, Glossy etc, try their profiles (the ones installed by the driver). You might be pleased.

Bigmitch

arodney wrote:

The R2880 has some decent canned profiles for Epson papers. Not trying to suggest you don't roll your own. But if you have some Prem luster, Glossy etc, try their profiles (the ones installed by the driver). You might be pleased.

Im having major problems with Lightroom too. If I print using the Canon Easyprint Utility its fine, if I use Photoshop CS3 its fine, however when I use Lightroom2 it is much darker and less colourful. As far as Im aware they all use the printers own profile so why is Lightroom different?

Miguel Delinquento

There are too many variables in one's workflow. You need to articulate what printer you are using, if your monitor is properly calibrated, and if you follow a color-managed workflow.

I've been using Lightroom for two years with three different printers producing B&W and color prints for gallery exhibition. After the first week I've never had a printing-related problem.

Usually too-dark prints are the sympton associated with a monitor turned up too brightly.

M

Bigmitch wrote:

Im having major problems with Lightroom too. If I print using the Canon Easyprint Utility its fine, if I use Photoshop CS3 its fine, however when I use Lightroom2 it is much darker and less colourful. As far as Im aware they all use the printers own profile so why is Lightroom different?

pathfinder

Miguel Delinquento wrote:

Usually too-dark prints are the sympton associated with a monitor turned up too brightly.

Michael,

I know that is the usual explanation, but one also needs to look at the print under a proper light source that is bright enough as well.

My prints look "too dark" in the room I edit in ( it is kept dim of course!), UNTIL I look at them under a proper light for examining prints, like a Solux light or an Ott light, or a formal print evaluation light table.

I wonder how many of the complaints about dark prints do not use appropriate lights to examine their prints?

Miguel Delinquento

Yes, you have a very valid point. I do the same thing, but we’re also getting into issues of color accuracy, and white balance here as well as the context of viewing the print.
<o:p> </o:p>
Some folks new to photography and digital photography have a tough go transitioning their eyes from the reflective nature of a monitor viewing experience to the absorptive nature of printed output. To compound matters further, many folks have imprinted on the “Flickr aesthetic” which is much more challenging to print out, especially on pigment-based machines.
<o:p> </o:p>
The question to me is whether to print an image that looks good under my controlled lighting, or whether to tailor the image attributes to look good under the fixtures of the gallery, or even the potential purchaser’s home of incandescent soft-white bulbs? So what's "proper?"

M

pathfinder wrote:

Michael,

I know that is the usual explanation, but one also needs to look at the print under a proper light source that is bright enough as well.

My prints look "too dark" in the room I edit in ( it is kept dim of course!), UNTIL I look at them under a proper light for examining prints, like a Solux light or an Ott light, or a formal print evaluation light table.

I wonder how many of the complaints about dark prints do not use appropriate lights to examine their prints?

pathfinder

Bigmitch

I appreciate what you are saying with regards to monitor calibration, and if all three programs were producing pics I was unhappy with, fair enough. However Im happy with the way the Canon software and CS3 print, its just Lightroom that appears to be way off.

arodney

Bigmitch wrote:

Im having major problems with Lightroom too.

But you're selecting Let Application Manage color and selecting the paper profile in LR?

Zerodog

So I got the Color Munki. And it seems to have worked. But not as I thought it would. I did a profile for my monitor and did a profile for my kirkland paper. This was really easy to do following the screen prompts. The monitor color profile only takes a minute. Printing takes a bit due to dry time. In the end I am not sure how much my monitor was off. But if anything, it looks better now.

If I use LR for color management I get prints that are either too red. Or too washed out. This was the case with and without the custom profiles.

So what I did was let the printer manage the color. In the driver I picked my custom paper profile and made sure my monitor profile was set right and voila! Perfect color. At least to me. These are by far the best prints yet.

So what the hell? Lightroom does something weird with the red? Even with my custom profile. And almost every epson paper profile is very over saturated too. I suppose all of this could be due to me running Windows 7? Or maybe having a relativly new to the market R2880? Or the combination of both?

arodney

Zerodog wrote:

If I use LR for color management I get prints that are either too red. Or too washed out. This was the case with and without the custom profiles.

Works identically in LR and Photoshop on this end (but I'm on a Mac). Be sure you select the identical print driver settings in both Photoshop and LR. LR can "save" in its template, driver settings so instead of "Print One", click the Print... button to call up the driver UI and make sure its correctly configured.

Miguel Delinquento

Windows 7 could have something to do with it--I don't know the extent of color management capabilities in an unreleased OS. Also, what color space are you using for the images?

M

Zerodog wrote:

So I got the Color Munki. And it seems to have worked. But not as I thought it would. I did a profile for my monitor and did a profile for my kirkland paper. This was really easy to do following the screen prompts. The monitor color profile only takes a minute. Printing takes a bit due to dry time. In the end I am not sure how much my monitor was off. But if anything, it looks better now.

If I use LR for color management I get prints that are either too red. Or too washed out. This was the case with and without the custom profiles.

So what I did was let the printer manage the color. In the driver I picked my custom paper profile and made sure my monitor profile was set right and voila! Perfect color. At least to me. These are by far the best prints yet.

So what the hell? Lightroom does something weird with the red? Even with my custom profile. And almost every epson paper profile is very over saturated too. I suppose all of this could be due to me running Windows 7? Or maybe having a relativly new to the market R2880? Or the combination of both?

Zerodog

Miguel Delinquento wrote:

Windows 7 could have something to do with it--I don't know the extent of color management capabilities in an unreleased OS. Also, what color space are you using for the images?

M

I am using RGBs.