Printing and color management

I have an old all-in-one HP printer and decided to print a few pictures. Unfortunately the printouts look washout compared to what I have on the screen. I thus went into colorsynch utility and tried to figure out how to set my printer for prints that look like my screen... Did not work out well. I am using Adobe Illustrator...
Could someone tell me how colorsynch works and how to get, in general, printouts that look like my screen? Is this linked or separated from Adobe suite?

Have a look at this posting and in particular the responses from Kurt Lang. It should answer your question.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5181894&#5181894

Similar Messages

Photo Printing and color management

Using a Epson Stylus Photo 2200 printer on 10.5.1. Looking how to turn
of color management. Getting a pink hue on my prints. Past experience is color management is getting in the way in the driver. Looking through the epson online docs, what I see on screen does not match with the window menu picks for the epson utility. Checked printers in system preferences/drivers nothing to turn off there. Any thoughts on turning this off?
Thanks,
The new guy with his first MAC.

Having turned off the Epson colour management, you need to ensure you have selected the correct colour profile in CS3. It helps to calibrate your monitor correctly and use a profile designed for your printer / paper / ink combination to ensure what you see on the screen is what feeds out the printer. Paper brand can make a startling difference. There are companies that offer a profiling service. You print out a pecific photo / pattern from their provided file and send them the print on the ink / paper you use and they email a profile.. Google will find these companies for you.

Attempts to wrap my head around printing and color management.

So, I've been meaning to get (more) serious about printing my shots. It's the summer and I now have some time.
I know I've got the first piece of the puzzle in place. I have an i1 Display 2 that I use to calibrate my monitor - my MB + one of 2 Dells using either or TN or P-MVA panel. I try to use the latter more.
I've viewed the image with different monitors and lowered the brightness when 'soft proofing' with Canon's profile. It's the best I can do being that I don't own a spectrometer.
Anyway the result on my screen was so incredibly different. The black was grey. I lost shadow detail. And it just looked flat. I tweaked it a bit but it didn't help.
I decided to test print using the Canon Photo Plus Glossy paper I had. I set the ColorSync Profile box to the profile I soft proofed with. The result was horrible!!!! Incredibly dark and ugly. It however wasn't grey or very flat - though it was so dark.
I tried again with the colorsync profile set to system managed. This produced a result darker than the screen, but not grey like the profile. Sort of an average between the screen and profile. Much better but still not great.
Then I ran out of paper and couldn't try anything else.
So here's the technical info if it matters:
I'm using a canon ip5200 with 3 fresh inks. The other 2 are fairly recent and not used too much.
The paper was Canon Photo paper plus glossy
The photo was a sports shot with a heavy dark vignette I think a more even shot would be easier to work with. However, the dark vignette with blonde flying hair looked great. (Who says sports can't be artistic?- I love the vignette to for some shots!)
So what exactly is the ColorSync Profile menu in the print window for?
What am I doing wrong?
PS: Sorry if this is a repeat, but the search function is down.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there are some seriously weird stuff going on with printing with Aperture and 10.5 I would not have believed it had a number of my clients and friends not experienced the same kind of issues that I personally walked through and witnessed.
I can give some general advise in terms of helping to resolve your issues. By all means update to 10.5.4 do a repair permissions on your drive, make sure that you reinstall the latest greatest printer drivers for Leopard downloaded from Canon, and wave some chicken bones over your system.
You may also want to trash your Aperture prefs and Printer presets and start from scratch. (if you do not know how to do this hit me back)
Then give it another try - make sure that you turn off color mgt in the printer prefs dialog, select the appropriate paper and then select the corresponding profile in the aperture print dialog. (Have heard reports that if you do not turn the color mgt off in the driver the option becomes unavailable after you select the paper profile in Aperture but does not turn it off - cannot confirm)
Hope this helps.
RB

Vista 64 bit and CS4 and color management

This is a question about Vista 64 bit and CS4 and color management. I scan 4x5 film and sometimes end up with up to or even bigger than 1 GB files. Obviously that needs as much memory as possible. Windows XP is limited in this regard and I am in the market for a new speedy computer which won't force me to stay at a snail's pace. In this month's Shutterbug, David Brooks in his Q&A column says to avoid Vista for color management reasons, but offers no explanation or support for his opinion. He implies one should wait for Windows 7 for some unstated reason. With a calibrated monitor and printer and Photoshop controlling color files sent to the printer, why would Vista be any different or worse than XP? Is he on to something or just pontificating? Does anyone know any reliable info about Windows 7 that would make it worth waiting for?
Thanks.

Zeno Bokor wrote:
Photoshop has direct access to max 3.2gb
On Mac OS X, PS CS4 can use up to 8 GB of RAM, but only directly accesses up to 3.5 GB. (Figures quoted from kb404440.) In using PS CS4 on Mac OS, though, direct Memory Usage maxes out at 3 GB even. If you set usage to 100% (3 GB), then plug-ins (including Camera Raw and filters), as well as actions and scripts, can access RAM above that 3 GB to between about 512 MB and about 768 MB total (seems to vary depending on which filters et al that you are using), leaving the rest up to 4 GB for the Mac OS. If you have more than 4 GB, then the amount of RAM above 4 GB is used by PS as a scratch disk. This increases performance significantly for most things because writing to and reading from the hard drive is much slower than doing so with RAM.
I haven't done the testing for actual RAM usage and such for PS CS4 on Vista 64, and Adobe's documentation is very much lacking in detail, but, based on the statement "If you use files large enough to need more than 4 GB of RAM, and you have enough RAM, all the processing you perform on your large images can be done in RAM, instead of swapping out to the hard disk." from kb404439, it seems that PS would be using RAM in very much the same way as I described above for Mac OS, except that the scratch disk usage in RAM wouldn't be limited to 8 GB (instead to how much you have installed). Has anyone done any performance/load testing to know for sure? I didn't see any such studies published, but I am curious if one has been done.
I will agree that there is a definite performance advantage when using PS CS4 (64-bit) on Vista 64, which I've experienced, especially when working very large compositions.
My initial recommendation to the OP to use Mac was based upon reading those articles about bad color management. As I stated before, I have never experienced that problem, and clearly the views of all that have posted here so far indicate that the problem may not be a real issue. (Perhaps this David Brooks fellow and Steve Upton both like to mess with their computers and broke something in Windows?)

Need help understanding profiles and color management

I made the big leap from inexpensive inkjets to:
1 Epson 3800 Standard
2 Spyder3Studio
I have a Mac Pro Quad, Aperture, PS3, etc.
I have a steep learning curve ahead, here's what I've done:
1 Read a lot of books, watched tutorials, etc.
2 Calibrated the monitor
3 Calibrated the printer several times and created .icc profiles
What I've found:
1 The sample print produced by Spyder3Print, using the profile I created with color management turned off in the print dialog, looks very good.
2 When I get into Aperture, and apply the .icc profile I created in the proofing profile with onscreen proofing, the onscreen image does not change appreciably compared with the no proof setting. It gets slightly darker
3 When I select File>Print image, select the profile I created, turn off color management and look a the resulting preview image it looks much lighter and washed out than the onscreen image with onscreen proofing turned on.
4 When I print the image, it looks the same as was shown in the print preview...light and washed out, which is much different than what is shown in edit mode.
5 When I open PS3 with onscreen soft-proofing, the onscreen image is light and washed out...just like displayed in PS3 preview. If I re-edit the image to look OK onscreen, and print with the profile and color management turned off, the printed image looks OK.
So, why am I confused?
1 In the back of my simplistic and naive mind, I anticipated that in creating a custom printer profile I would only need to edit a photo once, so it looks good on the calibrated screen, and then a custom printer profile will handle the work to print a good looking photo. Different profiles do different translations for different printers/papers. However, judging by the PS work, it appears I need to re-edit a photo for each printer/paper I encounter...just doesn't seem right.
2 In Aperture, I'm confused by the onscreen proofing does not present the same image as what I see in the print preview. I'm selecting the same .icc profile in both locations.
I tried visiting with Spyder support, but am not able to explain myself well enough to help them understand what I'm doing wrong.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Calibrated the printer several times and created .icc profiles
You have understand that maintaining the colour is done by morphing the colourants, and you have understood that matching the digital graphic display (which is emissive) to the print from the digital graphic printer (which is reflective) presupposes a studio lighting situation that simulates the conditions presupposed in the mathematical illuminant model for media independent matching. Basically, for a display-to-print match you need to calibrate and characterise the display to something like 5000-55000 kelvin. There are all sorts of arguments surrounding this, and you will find your way through them in time, but you now have the gist of the thing.
So far so good, but what of the problem posed by the digital graphic printer? If you are a professional photographer, you are dependent on your printer for contract proofing. Your prints you can pass to clients and to printers, but your display you cannot. So this is critical.
The ICC Specification was published at DRUPA Druck und Papier in Düsseldorf in May 1995 and ColorSync 2 Golden Master is on the WWDC CD for May 1995. Between 1995 and 2000 die reine Lehre said to render your colour patch chart in the raw condition of the colour device.
The problem with this is that in a separation the reflectance of the paper (which is how you get to see the colours of the colourants laid down on top of the paper) and the amount of colourant (solid and combinations of tints) gives you the gamut.
By this argument, you would want to render the colour patch chart with the most colourant, but what if the most colourant produces artifacts? A safer solution is to have primary ink limiting as part of the calibration process prior to rendering of the colour patch chart.
You can see the progression e.g. in the BEST RIP which since 2002 has been owned by EFI Electronics for Imaging. BEST started by allowing access to the raw colour device, with pooling problems and whatnot, but then introduced a primary ink limiting and linearisation.
The next thing you need to know is what colour test chart to send to the colour device, depending on whether the colour device is considered an RGB device or a CMYK device. By convention, if the device is not driven by a PostScript RIP it is considered an RGB device.
The colour patch chart is not tagged, meaning that it is deviceColor and neither CIEBased colour or ICCBased colour. You need to keep your colour patch chart deviceColor or you will have a colour characterisation of a colour managed conversion. Which is not what you want.
If the operating system is colour managed through and through, how do you render a colour test chart without automatically assigning a source ICC profile for the colourant model (Generic RGB Profile for three component, Generic CMYK Profile for four component)?
The convention is that no colour conversion occurs if the source ICC device profile and the destination ICC device profile are identical. So if you are targetting your inkjet in RGB mode, you open an RGB colourant patch chart, set the source ICC profile for the working space to the same as the destination ICC profile for the device, and render as deviceColor.
You then leave the rendered colourant test chart to dry for one hour. If you measure a colourant test chart every ten minutes through the first hour, you may find that the soluble inkjet inks in drying change colour. If you wait, you avoid this cause of error in your characterisation.
As you will mainly want to work with loose photographs, and not with photographs placed in pages, when you produce a contract proof using Absolute Colorimetric rendering from the ICC profile for the printing condition to the ICC profile for your studio printer, here's a tip.
Your eyes, the eyes of your client, and the eyes of the prepress production manager will see the white white of the surrounding unprinted margins of the paper, and will judge the printed area of the paper relative to that.
If, therefore, your untrimmed contract proof and the contract proof from Adobe InDesign or QuarkPress, or a EFI or other proofing RIP, are placed side by side in the viewing box your untrimmed contract proof will work as the visual reference for the media white.
The measured reference for the media white is in the ICC profile for the printing condition, to be precise in the WTPT White Point tag that you can see by doubleclicking the ICC profile in the Apple ColorSync Utility. This is the lightness and tint laid down on proof prints.
You, your client and your chosen printer will get on well if you remember to set up your studio lighting, and trim the blank borders of your proof prints. (Another tip: set your Finder to neutral gray and avoid a clutter of white windows, icons and so forth in the Finder when viewing.)
So far, so good. This leaves the nittygritty of specific ICC profiling packages and specific ICC-enabled applications. As for Aperture, do not apply a gamma correction to your colourant patch chart, or to colour managed printing.
As for Adobe applications, which you say you will be comparing with, you should probably be aware that Adobe InDesign CS3 has problems. When targetting an RGB printing device, the prints are not correctly colour managed, but basically bypass colour management.
There's been a discussion on the Apple ColorSync Users List and on Adobe's fora, see the two threads below.
Hope this helps,
Henrik Holmegaard
technical writer
References:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.59b52c9b/0
http://lists.apple.com/archives/colorsync-users/2007/Nov/msg00143.html

Cs6- need to enable printer's color management in Print settings dialogue box

I have been printing successfully for months to my Epson R2400. Suddenly, I am getting a Caution Triangle with a note that says "Remember to enable the printer's color management in the print settings dialog box. I have selected Color Handling: Printer manages in the Photoshop Print Settings box. Where else would I make this change.

Just select Photoshop Manages Color, and the printer driver color options should be disabled.

How to disable the printer's color management in Photoshop CS5 with Mavericks?

Hi there, does anyone know how to disable the printer's color management in Photoshop CS5 with Mavericks? There doesn't seem to be an option. Could you help? Many thanks

Just select Photoshop Manages Color, and the printer driver color options should be disabled.

So, CAN I turn off the printer's color management? Pixma Pro-100.

So, I am trying to turn off the color management function for the Pro-100...
On my Windows desktop, I use Photoshop to print with Canson Rag 210, color profile installed, allow photoshop to manage colors and print a beautiful, perfect print with the Mark 9000. Now, I have the Pixma Pro-100 and using the exact same settings, I print wirelessly with my laptop, and I get these dark, red/orange hued prints that are atrocious.
I should mention the same exact photograph printed between setups ALWAYS prints better with the Mark 9000 and my desktop. However, when using my laptop and the Mark 9000... Crap. Laptop and Pixma Pro-100... Crap. What is my MAC doing that my desktop is not?! How can identical settings print such drastic results? Photoshop does warn me (newer version on my MAC vs. Windows) to turn off the printer's color management in the printer's settings, but I do not see that option. Maybe I'm missing it? How do I do that? I'm thinking it may help!

Have you tried printing from the MacBook using Canon Print Studio Pro or letting printer manage colors? I know this doesn't specifically answer your question, but PSP is designed to handle the PS/printer interface.
Download PSP 1.3.5 from the Canon support site.
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/printers_multifunction/pixma_pro_series/pixma_pro_100...
John Hoffman
Conway, NH
1D Mark IV, Rebel T5i, Pixma PRO-100, MX472

How do I print without color management in CS6?

EVery time I print a test target for color profiling, I open CS4 so that I can print with no color management. I can't figure out how to do it in CS6. I must be missing something obvious, but I just can't find the option to print without color management anywhere in the CS6 driver.

As someone who prints Digital Negatives (there are quite a few of us out there now), the ability to print without color management is a huge liability. Why would you take that out of Photoshop and create a completely seperate application to do this? From inside photoshop, I can print with registration marks (necessary for multi-negative prints).
So now there's Lightroom to manage the locations, open up Photoshop to apply curves and then figure a way to add registration marks to the file itself, the print from another app altogether.
Even just the ability to add profiles (AdobeRGB tagged file, then print with photoshop manage color, AdobeRGB profile) works in this situation.. but for some reason.. you've decided to pick and choose which profiles we can and can't use.
... unhappy with CS6
jim

EXR and RPF rules for alpha and color management?

How can I change the interpretation rules so that EXRs always import with straight alphas? They always import with Premulti now.
Also, I want to always turn off color management (Preserve RGB) for RPFs. (I use RPFs for my motion vector passes and color management always throws off the blur with ReelSmart)

How can I change the interpretation rules so that EXRs always import with straight alphas? They always import with Premulti now.
AE is just obeying the original EXR spec, which suggests all colors are premultiplied. If the Alpha channel is not specifically tagged as unpremultiplied, that's what AE will use.
Also, I want to always turn off color management (Preserve RGB) for RPFs. (I use RPFs for my motion vector passes and color management always throws off the blur with ReelSmart)
Similar to the previous, I'd say. The fault is probably with the program not creating a linear motion vector pass in the first place and thus the pass having a Gamma bias or else you wouldn't see those shifts. And I wouldn't use RPF... If you render your RGB to EXR, you can do so for the motion pass as well. EXRs per spec store colors linearly, which might also help to avoid your issues.
Anyway, I'm not aware of globally changing any of that from the AE end. As I was trying to explain, the program is more or less behaving correctly based on assuming the files you feed it comply with certain standards....
Mylenium

Printing with HP B9180 and Photoshop Elements 8 and Color Management

I've got a bit of confusion about certain settings in the printing process and I've posted a rather long discussion of my 'issues' and confusion. I hope someone can give me some guidance here. I've seen a lot of these issues addressed in many places but I can't seem to find an integrated response. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read and respond.
Color Management Questions
My problems started when I was getting pictures that were too dark from my HP 9180 printer after having gotten very nice prints for a long time. I had obviously started to do something differently inadvertently. The only thing I think that is different is that I got a new 23 inch monitor, which does produce much brighter on-screen images. So, I started to do some research and know just enough about color management to be slightly confused and have some questions that I hope someone can give me some help with.
Equipment Background
I use both a Canon 20D and a Canon PowerShot SD600 camera. Both have the default color space as sRGB, although the 20D can be also set as RGB.
I also use Photoshop Elements 8, where there are a variety of settings possible for printing.
My monitor is an HP S2331, whose color space is sRGB and cannot be reset to RGB (I think) except for temperature; the default is 6500K.
My printer is an HP Photosmart Pro B9180 Printer, where there are also a variety of settings possible.
I’m running XP-Pro.
Here’s Where I Get Confused
Everything I have read about color management (various web sites, forums, books, etc) says to have the image, monitor, and printer all in the same color space.
Everything I read about PSE 8 (same sources) says to set PSE 8 to ‘Always Optimize for Printing’ under Edit>Color Settings in order to get the best prints. This displays photos based on the Adobe RGB color space.
I am taking pictures in sRGB, and telling PSE 8 to process them in RGB by selecting ‘Always Optimize for Printing’. Is this something I should be concerned about? Should I reset my camera for RGB?
Further, by selecting ‘Always Optimize for Printing’, I am setting PSE 8 for RGB while my monitor displays sRGB. Is this an important issue or is it also much ado about technicalities that an amateur should not worry about? It does violate the ‘keep them in the same color space’ rule.
Next, when I go to File>Print and get the Print window and then do the Page Setup and Select Printer, I then go to More Options in the lower left of the window. Under the More Options window, I select Color management and select Photoshop Elements Manages Colors. Next, there is Image Space, which is fixed and not subject to selection from a drop down menu.
I understand that this is the image space of the image I took with my camera and that information is embedded in the image. Correct?
Next, there is Printer Profile. But, from what I have read, this is where the IEC profile of the paper being printed on is supposed to be selected, isn’t it?
Shouldn’t this more appropriately be called Paper Profile, or Printing Media Profile? Further, this drop down menu appears to be somewhat erratic, sometimes showing all of the paper profiles I believe are loaded, sometimes not. It also shows listings such as Working RGB-Adobe RGB (1988), Adobe RGB 1988, Dot Gain 10%, 15%.... along with a lot of paper profiles. Aren’t those profiles unnecessary here?
I’ve used both Relative Colorimetric and Perceptual Rendering and am happy with either one.
Next, when I go to Printer Preferences, in order to “…disable color management in the printer preferences dialog”, under the Color Tab, I select Application Managed Colors from the Color management drop down menu, and also have the option of selecting ColorSmart/sRGB and Adobe RGB (1988).
Is there any time when I should use either ColorSmart/sRGB or Adobe RGB (1988)? If I were staying with my camera’s sRGB setting, given the fact that the monitor is sRGB, would the appropriate selections be ‘Printer Manages Colors’ and ‘ColorSmart/sRGB’?
Finally, under the Features Tab, I go to look for the same paper I selected under Printer Profile (Question 4 above). If it is one of the pre-loaded (by HP) profiles, it is there, but if it is a profile I downloaded, say for an Ilford paper, it isn’t listed, and I need to guess at an equivalent type of paper to select.
Is there any way to get that listing to appear under the Paper Type drop down menu?
I know that this is a long post, but it helped me to clarify my ‘issues’. Thank you for any and all suggestions, answers, guidance and help.

RIK,
Some printers have long names, esp. HP printers, and PSE gets ":confused." In control panel>devices and printers, right click on the default printer, go to printer properties, and rename the default printer to something short, e.g. "Our Printer." That may fix it..

Color and Color Management boxes in Print Settings greyed out. Using PS CS5.1 with Mac OSX 10.9.5.

For some reason, the above boxes are now greyed out when I go to Print Settings and I am getting prints that are badly distorted. Was working perfectly a few days ago and can't understand why this has suddenly happened ? Am now confused as to what settings I should have in the Color Management dialogue box in order to get back to the correct operation.

I've also been having this problem. My computer now consistently shuts down between 10 seconds and 2 minutes of startup. This only happens if my computer is not plugged in. (my battery has been between 70-90% the entire time.) If I keep it plugged in...no problems.
13-inch, Mid 2013 MacBook Air
1.3 Ghz Intel Core i5, 8 GB 1600 Mhz DDr3).

Printing borderless and color management

I have some printing woes within Aperture, but forgive me because I am a former Qimage user who is used to perfection in every aspect of the printing process. (Maybe parallels is in my future.)
1. Borderless
I have my printer settings set to 4x6 (sheet feeder - borderless) and "best fit" as the orientation. I have scale set to "fill entire page." My 4x6 prints come out with a white border on the left and bottom. The preview gives no indication of this problem. Can someone give me some help getting a true borderless print?
2. Color management
I have my monitor calibrated using a Gretag MacBeth Eye One Display 2. I use a paper printer profile. I have turned off color management in the printer driver.
My prints are dark. If I increase the gamma setting in the dialog box, they get better.
What might be my problem? Why coming out dark?
Thanks in advance for any help!

I have my printer settings set to 4x6 (sheet feeder -
borderless) and "best fit" as the orientation. I
have scale set to "fill entire page." My 4x6 prints
come out with a white border on the left and bottom.
The preview gives no indication of this problem.
Is there a "borderless printing" setting within your printer's print dialog?
My prints are dark. If I increase the gamma setting
in the dialog box, they get better.
I'm just trying to learn about this myself, but one quesion might be whether your calibration system is tuning your monitor to a gamma of 1.8 or 2.2. Everybody seems to agree that it should be 2.2 these days. This makes the screen look lighter (at least on my system). So I guess this would be going the wrong direction (if it turned out you were calibrating to 1.8).
How sure are you that you have the right ICC profile for your printer and paper? Even as I ask that, though, I'm finding that I dislike the results my "correct" profile gives. This stuff is hard.

[FIX] Darker prints and color shifts when printing from Lightroom 2

Hi,
The problem :
When printing RAW or TIFF files from LR2, you get a printer output that
is much darker than it should be and that presents various color shifts.
I'm using an Epson Stylus Pro 3800 with the latest Windows driver
(6.50 - which is rather old by the way). The workaround described below
works for me under Windows XP SP3. It should also probably work with
other systems/printers/drivers. Use at your own (minor) risk.
The "official" procedure for printing from LR is as follows:
1. Do not let the printer manage colors and select "Other..." from the
profile dropdown list and select the ICC/ICM paper/printer profile that
you want to use.
2. Click on Print... in LR which opens the Print Settings dialog.
3. Select the options you need and the paper you're using.
4. **Disable the color management from the driver's side** (in Epson's
drivers, "Mode | Custom | No Color Adjustments").
5. Print
Unfortunately, **this doesn't work** for many of us and this produces a
print that is dark and has color shifts as mentioned above. Note that
the same image prints correctly from QImage or Photoshop CS3 (that is,
the printer output corresponds to what you see on your calibrated
display).
Apparently, although color management has been (allegedly) disabled in
the driver, there's something wrong between LR and the driver which
makes that *both* LR and the driver are still trying to manage colors.
In other words, the "No Color Adjustements" option of the driver doesn't
seem to work with LR.
The workaround (found after hours of hair pulling and paper and
expensive ink wasting):
In step #4,
1. Instead of selecting "No Color Adjustments", set Mode to "Custom |
ICM
2. Click Advanced...
3. Check "Show all profiles".
4. Select Driver ICM (Advanced)"
5. Set **both** the "Input profile" and the "Printer profile" fields to
the very same profile that you specified in LR.
That is, if you specified Pro38 PGPP (Premium Glossy Photo Paper) in LR,
then also select Pro38 PGPP in both "Input Profile" and "Printer
Profile". This has actually the same effect has disabling color
management in the driver (what "No Color Adjustements" should normally
take care of).
That's it. When printing, you'll get exactly the same color results as
when printing from QImage or Photoshop. No more dark prints. No more
color shifts.
One might think that the bug is in the Epson driver but in that case,
QImage would have the very same problem. So I tend to think that the bug
is on the Lightroom side.
Note: Although Photoshop CS3 produces a correct printer output, it
demonstrates the same problem as LR when using the "Match Print Color"
option for soft proofing. But in that case, only the preview colors are
wrong. The printer output is ok. Which also tends to demonstrate that
Adobe has the problem, not Epson. Or maybe both... :-) .
Don't ask me why some users have the problem and other don't.
Hope this helps.
Patrick Philippot
MainSoft Consulting Services
www.mainsoft.fr

A sincere thank you for your reply, Michael. Sorry about the "it just doesn't make sense" shortcut. I have been trying to solve this issue since LR 1.1, spending dozens of hours on different trials and digesting everything written on this forum and the B9180 forum about color management and double profiling. My shortcut was a summation of my experience (and my frustration) but doesn't really advance the conversation. Here are some data that should be more useful in diagnosing the problem.
I am running Windows XP SP2. I calibrate my monitor monthly with the Spyder. The reason I suspect this may be an issue of double profiling is because the results (moderately strong magenta overlay plus an increase in contrast) match what more knowledgeable people than I on this forum describe when double profiling occurs. Perhaps I shouldn't presume it is double profiling, and follow Patrick Philippot's lead in naming the problem "color shifts." Patrick does refer in post #2 of this thread, however, to obvious double profiling.
I certainly do have a successful and consistent print method. With PS CS3, and either my Epson 1280 or my HP B9180, the output is almost always dead on. Here is how I do it. In PS from the print dialog box, under color handling I always choose "Photoshop manages colors." Then under printer profile I select the profile designated by the manufacturer for a particular paper/printer combination. Then in the printer driver I disable printer control of color. With the Epson I check the box "Off (No Color Adjustment)." With the B9180 I choose the option "Application Managed Colors." While I sometimes may tweak the final output, these procedures have served me well with PS for several years.
Contrasted with my positive PS experience, my experience with LR printing has been inconsistent. I regret having to be so imprecise but truly sometimes LR produces accurate results that match the calibrated monitor, but most of the time it does not. I use standard procedures with LR that parallel the PS ones described above. In LR's printing panel, under color management, I specify the correct profile, just as I did for PS. Then in the printer driver I use the same procedures I use with PS. Most of the time the prints have the magenta overlay and too much contrast.
BTW, the inconsistent LR printing only takes place with my HP B9180. I have never had any problem with off-color LR prints with my Epson 1280. Again, I emphasize that I have standard procedures that always work with PS (no matter which printer) and LR (but only with the Epson).
Unfortunately the LR printing problems are intermittent. Some of the time (perhaps 20%) LR produces fine prints in the B9180, indistinguishable from PS prints. When LR is printing well, it will continue to print fine until "something happens" and the output shows the color shift. This means I do not get a random sequence of good-bad-good-bad prints, but rather good-good-x factor-bad-bad-bad. Ths problem is that I do not know what this "x factor" is. Once, when LR was giving me accurate output, I simply changed the default printer (Control Panel-Printers and Faxes) from the B9180 to my Samsung 1430 laser; immediately afterwards the LR output colors shifted. Did LR react to this change in default printers? Another time I had good LR printing success with version 1.2 but ran into the problems described above when I upgraded to version 1.3.
Sorry for the long post. I am hoping that someone will see something that I am missing and provide a hint. I think, though, that Patrick is correct when he states, "I tend to think that the problem is with LR. After all, similar issues (obvious double profiling) are observed only in LR but with various printers."

Printing: ICC Color Managed -vs- Driver Managed

Hi,
I have a Dell U2410 monitor calibrated with a Datacolor Spyder4Express.
I have an inexpensive Canon 6220 (dye) and also a Canon 9550 Mark II printer (pigments).
I tried printing a test print from Picasa as well as from Adobe Elements and Lightroom.
We went through manh of the permuations of printing from each printer using the different print modes.
Observations:
0. all the prints look different. Some are passable some are not.
1. the Adobe ICC color managed prints from Lightroom and/or Elements don't look better (or closer to the U2410 calibrated monitor).
2. each print has strenghts and weakness (e.g. - too much red, blue is weak, etc.)
3. we viewed the prints in a variety of viewing environments.
Questions:
1. would printer profiling help at this juncture?
2. in reality are the actual printers different then the Canon ICC profiles?
3. do the printer profiling tools measure the distance (error) in the standard ICC profiles -vs- what was measured/computed?
Thanks in advance!

Too much Red (weak Blue) is a symptom of Double Profiling. I am guessing you are printing to profile in Lightroom and failing to turn off the Windows-based color management.
In your Canon Print Dialog (9550) Main tab, Color/Intensity setting. Click the Manual button and then the [Set…]
This takes you to the Manual Color Adjustment dialog. On the Matching tab, set Color Correction to None
Now go back to Lightroom and print using the Printer/Paper profile.

Printing and color management

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