Print quality compared to Photoshop

Hi,
I'm taking a photography course.  The instructor wants us to print our photos.  I've been using iPhoto to organize my photos, so naturally I printed them with iPhoto, too.  Unfortunately, the prints are quite dark, and shadows are blocked, i.e., lacking in detail which is visible on my calibrated monitors.  The instructor has recommended using another product, perhaps Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  I downloaded an evualation copy of PSE, and the prints are indeed better.  They show a bit more detail in the shadows.  The strange thing is, though, PSE makes the best prints when I configure it to let the printer handle color matching, and when I set ColorSync (in the usual OS X print dialog) to Automatic, having made a profile built specifically for my printer the default profile.  I had been led to believe that it was the ability of Photoshop to do the color matching that made the difference; iPhoto, of course, always leaves color matching to the printer, or, more correctly, to the printer driver.
So my question is, has anybody compared the print quality of Aperture with that of Photoshop.  I understand that, in Aperture, the color matching can also be configured, similar to Photoshop.
Some background information:  I am printing on an HP OfficeJet 6500, for which I have had a profile made.  This is probably overkill, in the sense that HP never intended the printer to produce photo quality printers and all sorts of contortions were required to print the profiling targets without the driving doing any color matching.  I understand that printers which use several black or grey inks will handle shadow details better.  Nevertheless, I think the print quality is presently sufficient for the purpose of the course.
Regards,
Richard

Hi,
I'm taking a photography course.  The instructor wants us to print our photos.  I've been using iPhoto to organize my photos, so naturally I printed them with iPhoto, too.  Unfortunately, the prints are quite dark, and shadows are blocked, i.e., lacking in detail which is visible on my calibrated monitors.  The instructor has recommended using another product, perhaps Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  I downloaded an evualation copy of PSE, and the prints are indeed better.  They show a bit more detail in the shadows.  The strange thing is, though, PSE makes the best prints when I configure it to let the printer handle color matching, and when I set ColorSync (in the usual OS X print dialog) to Automatic, having made a profile built specifically for my printer the default profile.  I had been led to believe that it was the ability of Photoshop to do the color matching that made the difference; iPhoto, of course, always leaves color matching to the printer, or, more correctly, to the printer driver.
So my question is, has anybody compared the print quality of Aperture with that of Photoshop.  I understand that, in Aperture, the color matching can also be configured, similar to Photoshop.
Some background information:  I am printing on an HP OfficeJet 6500, for which I have had a profile made.  This is probably overkill, in the sense that HP never intended the printer to produce photo quality printers and all sorts of contortions were required to print the profiling targets without the driving doing any color matching.  I understand that printers which use several black or grey inks will handle shadow details better.  Nevertheless, I think the print quality is presently sufficient for the purpose of the course.
Regards,
Richard

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