ICC profile conflicts when printing from Aperture?

Question

I have worked with Aperture now for two years, and I still have problems printing anything that is close enough to what I see on my calibrated screen. And believe me, I have done some reading on color management and ICC profiles. I suspect that Aperture pulls in ICC color profiles in a way that doesn't allow reproducing what I see on the screen. I wonder if these problems are related to the Registered ColorSync devices: opening ColorSync Utility under Devices reveals a bunch of default printers with a diversity of profiles, even if I have no access to these printers (in part these are network printers of my previous employment). I cannot figure out how I can delete these entries: I tried to find remaining printer profiles of these printers in my files, but could not find anything. How can I delete these entries, and can these entries cause color profile conflicts?
More specificially: I work with Aperture 2.1.3 and view my photos on a calibrated 23" Cinema display, run from a MBP with 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 10.5.6, and 2GB of memory. My monitor is calibrated with a Spyder for D65 and gamma of 2.2. I print with an Epson 3800 on Epson paper.
Here is my problem: despite calibrated monitor I don't get the prints to look even remotely close to what I get on my screen. Of course, I use the correct ICC profiles for my papers, and of course I have Aperture (and not the printer) run color management. It seems, however, that my prints resemble my monitor more if I use strange profiles such as "Wide Gamut RGB" or "ProPhoto RGB" as my monitor's profile instead of the calibrated D65, gamma 2.2.
In detail, here are my regular print settings in Aperture:
Print Mode: AccuPhoto HD
Color Mode: Off (No Color Management)
Output Resolution: SuperPhoto - 1440 dpi
Advanced Color Settings: Epson Driver Color Management is Off.
In the Aperture Print menu I use under Printer Selection:
ColorSync Profile: for example, Pro38 PGPP, when I use Epson Premium Photo Paper Glossy
Black Point Compensation checked.
Gamma: 1:00
Under Layout Options I use Print Resolution: Use Best DPI
With these settings the prints look significantly colder than what I see on the screen. Of course, a certain amount of the warmth of the screen colors comes from the calibration to D65 and gamma of 2.2, but shouldn't this give me the best correspondence between the calibrated screen and the print (using of course the color management of the application with ICC profiles, not the printer driver color management)?
I tried the same in CS4 and Lightroom, but no difference. Again, the problem is not that the prints are terrible: they are just not very close to what I see on the calibrated screen.
Where do I make a mistake? All suggestions are very welcome! This is driving me crazy. Many thanks for your help!
Best,
Kai

Answer 1

While the technical aspects of color management are complex, they are largely irrelevant for users.
The following steps have worked well for me:
Step One: Calibrate your monitor. I use the Datacolor Spyder. This produces a monitor profile. Use System Preferences to set your monitor to use this profile. Don't use this profile for anything else and give it a clear name so that you don't confuse it with a printer profile.
Step Two: Download and install the latest drivers for your printer. Buy a small box of photo paper (gloss, semi-gloss) from the manufacturer of your printer. Make sure that you have the correct ICC profiles for this paper and printer. You are trying to establish a baseline.
Step Three: Pick an image with a reasonable range of colors and exposures. (Don't start with a "difficult" image.) Turn soft proofing off and adjust the image as desired.
Step Four: Send this image to the printer. Load up the manufacturer's paper.
Step Five: In the "print" dialog, go to the "Printer Settings" sub menu and select the correct "Quality and Media" and the appropriate setting for "photo" quality. Make sure that all of the color options are neutral. Save.
Step Six: Back on the "Print" dialog select the correct ICC profile for your paper/printer. (Careful, DON'T use the calibrated monitor profile!) Adjust other settings as required. Save and name the preset.
Step Seven: Print and Pray. (And pray I haven't missed a step - sorry I'm not at my Mac. From your initial post, it sounds like you know how to do all of this.)
The results should be reasonably close. (That is why you should use the printer manufacturer's own paper and profiles as a starting point.)
If you are happy, great - get a beer. If not, try the following, making only one change at a time:
== Turn Soft Proofing on using the profile of the paper/printer. (Don't select the profile for your monitor, or any other.) Do the screen and print match now? If so, then you know to do your adjusting with soft proofing on. Remember, soft proofing is not exact - it is merely an attempt to make your screen look like the combination of paper and printer.
== If Soft Proofing makes your monitor look LESS like the print, then don't don't use Soft Proofing.
== If the results are close, you can make fine adjustments using the "Printer Settings" sub menu and saving presents. For example; I use a lot of CostCo paper in my Canon Pixma Pro9000. CostCo says that their paper mimics Canon's Photo Paper Pro, so I use the settings and profile for that paper, but I tweek the cyans and reds a bit in printer settings.
I have found that Red River profiles are a very good match for their papers.
Hope this helps. Good luck!