Monitor Calibration and Photoshop Color Profile Question

Travis

Hey y'all,

I use Colorvision's Spyder2 to calibrate my monitor; however, when I send prints to my Canon printer, they are darker than the screen version. I've disabled the printer driver color management and let Photoshop determine the colors. I've read quite a bit about color management lately and everyone recommends setting the color space in Photoshop to Adobe RGB; however, I'm wondering if I should be setting it to the Profile created by the Spyder2 calibration in the color management preferences. I can't find anything that specifically states that I should or shouldn't. Any thoughts? TIA,

arodney

Travis wrote:

Hey y'all,

I use Colorvision's Spyder2 to calibrate my monitor; however, when I send prints to my Canon printer, they are darker than the screen version. I've disabled the printer driver color management and let Photoshop determine the colors. I've read quite a bit about color management lately and everyone recommends setting the color space in Photoshop to Adobe RGB; however, I'm wondering if I should be setting it to the Profile created by the Spyder2 calibration in the color management preferences. I can't find anything that specifically states that I should or shouldn't. Any thoughts? TIA,

It's not an Adobe RGB (1998) issue per say. The gamut of that color space exceeds your display (unless you have a very expensive Adobe RGB (1998) device and you'd know it). It could be the display profile, it could be the printer profile, it could be the viewing conditions. Do NOT set the profile built by Spyder as the working space in Photoshop! That's a no-no. At the very least, you can try increasing the luminance target calibration on the display since you say its darker than the prints (or examine how you're viewing the prints, the amount and type of lighting). You're going to have to put on a detective hat here and see where the failure is happening. Does this show up when you use different printer profiles for example? If not, that would lead us to examine the one printer profile. If so, I'd look at the display area to see if that's off.

Travis

arodney wrote:

It's not an Adobe RGB (1998) issue per say. The gamut of that color space exceeds your display (unless you have a very expensive Adobe RGB (1998) device and you'd know it). It could be the display profile, it could be the printer profile, it could be the viewing conditions. Do NOT set the profile built by Spyder as the working space in Photoshop! That's a no-no. At the very least, you can try increasing the luminance target calibration on the display since you say its darker than the prints (or examine how you're viewing the prints, the amount and type of lighting). You're going to have to put on a detective hat here and see where the failure is happening. Does this show up when you use different printer profiles for example? If not, that would lead us to examine the one printer profile. If so, I'd look at the display area to see if that's off.

Thanks for info Andrew. I had a feeling that was wrong but I wasn't sure. I've just started reading Photoshop CS3 Essential Skills color management and printing section. It is fairly detailed and informative. I'm going to experiment down that path to see if I can make improvements. I appreciate the input.

claudermilk

So far I agree with Andrew.

You're 2/3 of the way there & have run into the issue of not getting the last third set up. It's a printer/paper/ink profile issue. You need to get the proper profile for the paper/ink on that printer to have PS use; I have generated profiles for what I run through my Canon printer & it matches as exactly as you can expect a screen & printer to do so.

Travis

claudermilk wrote:

So far I agree with Andrew.

You're 2/3 of the way there & have run into the issue of not getting the last third set up. It's a printer/paper/ink profile issue. You need to get the proper profile for the paper/ink on that printer to have PS use; I have generated profiles for what I run through my Canon printer & it matches as exactly as you can expect a screen & printer to do so.

That is good to know that you were able to establish the proper profiles. It gives me hope!

pathfinder

What paper and printer/paper profile are you using?

What printer are you using?

Travis

pathfinder wrote:

What paper and printer/paper profile are you using?

What printer are you using?

I'm using a Canon IP6600D and I'm now running into the issue of not being able to locate where to turn off the color management in the printer driver. This is a lower end Canon and may not provide that feature. I use Canon Photo Plus and Kodak Ultimate Premium papers.

I've also loaded PrintFix Plus printer calibration by Colorvision only to find that it doesn't support the Canon IP6600D.

If I let the printer manage the color, the contrast is greatly reduced in the prints. It is especially noticeable in the whites which appear as very light gray. Adjusting the lightness in the Canon driver only washes out the print.

claudermilk

You should be able to set color management options. My Canon is the i950--one of the lower end models from a few years ago.

I've found the Kodak paper really sucks on my i950--I avoid it now. Canon's paper ovbiously works great, as does some of the Ilford Gallerie and the Pictorico papers.

OffTopic

Ditto on the Kodak paper and Canon printer problem. I have a Canon S9000 and have tried various Kodak Professional papers, and I've talked to others with various Canon printers...they just hate Kodak paper. It doesn't matter if you have the correct printer/paper profile, it looks horrible.


Canon printers love Canon paper, but that really limits your choices. Another paper I've had good success with is Epson Premium Luster.

Travis

I would like to blame it on the Kodak paper but the images are almost exact matches to the Canon Photo Plus paper. Sadly, while I can manage colors within the printer driver, I can't cutoff the print driver color management.

Interestingly enough, I just got done reading an article in Pop Photo that talked about issues with printing directly from Photoshop. Their recommnedation is to use Canons EZ-Print software. I guess tonight I'll be installing EZ_Print and seeing if it makes a difference. If not, then it looks like an Epson may be in my future.

Thanks again for all of the great input!

claudermilk

If that doesn't work--or even if it does--take a look at QImage. Excellent software.

OffTopic

Travis wrote:

... Sadly, while I can manage colors within the printer driver, I can't cutoff the print driver color management.

Are you using Print with Preview Travis? Canon does a really lousy job of documenting the use of ICC profiles with their printers, and it's a fairly convoluted process to set it up. I have a Canon pdf that someone was able to obtain directly from Canon that will walk you step-by-step through the process, but it's too large for me to attach here. You should be able to access it through this link, but if not send me a pm with your e-mail addy and I'll send it to you directly.

When using a specific dedicated ICC profile, the barebones consist of using Print with Preview, Show more options, Source Space AdobeRGB (or sRGB), Print Space is the desired ICC profile. In your printer driver (should be in the "general" tab) check manual color adjustment, select "Set", set "none" for print type and do not enable ICM. There are some more finer points, that's why I thought you might be interested in seeing the entire document.

Hopefully that will help?

OffTopic

Ooops - that document really applies to PSCS and older, not CS2 or CS3 which has slightly different Color Management options in the Print with Preview Screen.

But the instructions for turning off color management in the printer driver remains the same, which I believe is the part you are having a problem with?

Travis

Thanks for the document Lori. My initial tests using the settings are far better than what I was getting before.

I really appreciate everyone's help. I was getting ready to pull my hair out! Y'all are awesome.

cabbey

I'll third (fourth?) the negative comments on Kodak papers in Canon printers, especially ones that use the 8 tank dye based ink system like my Pixma Pro 9000 and (I'm pretty sure) your IP6600D. When I can find profiles for that specific combination of printer and paper, then the results are wonderful. When I can't, well, they range from horrible to disgusting. The profiles I found online for Kodak papers made the images worse. Sadly their paper is readily available around here. I'm tempted to free-cycle the remainder of what I have.


Lori, that document is a gold mine!! Page 6 explains something even Canon customer support couldn't! (namely what the names ICC profiles they installed actually mean.)

claudermilk

cabbey wrote:

Lori, that document is a gold mine!! Page 6 explains something even Canon customer support couldn't! (namely what the names ICC profiles they installed actually mean.)

Agreed. Thanks! It might even get me to start looking at playing with aRGB for my in-house prints (que Andrew smiling smugly...).

OffTopic

I'm so glad that other Canon printer users are finding it helpful. It just amazes me that Canon makes this information so difficult to find!

Since the date on that document was 2003, I just went to Canon's site to see if I could track down any updated information. After clicking through various links, I was finally able locate the doc and this is still the current version. I have update the link in my post to Canon's website, rather than that of the gentlemen who was kind enough to track it down and post it on his own site a few years ago.