Picture Styles (Canon EOS)

Printing can be an art form all in itself. I have the best luck like Stu when I have Lightroom or PS3 (don't have 4) manage the colors and I use the ICC profile for the paper. If I have the printer control the colors I get the same ugly colors you describe. Blues are really ugly.

For the gory details you can checkout this Adobe article. You've probably seen it but just in case here's a video of the printing setup in CS4

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/?id=vid0015

Cheers,

Steve

Hi Steve

Yeah, I agree. Never ever let the printer control the colors, you don't know what palette it's pulling the look up tables from. A closed loop printing workflow is ideal. Letting the printer select colours will nullify all your calibration settings, from screen to paper.

Stu

@Andre

 

I guess it doesn't matter in my workflow so it'll just stay in Adobe RGB, you never know if someone requests a quick download and just wants a JPG.

 

@ Otara

 

I'm curious at your settings, working from a colour managed workflow, using a calibrated monitor and proper paper profile, I took a ProPhoto RGB image and printed on my HP Photosmart B8850 printer. Settings to the driver were "Application Managed Colors" and on the PS side, I use "Photoshop Manages Color", select the proper paper profile, Rendering was "Relative Colormetric" and "Black Point Compression" is checked. Comparison to the same image done in sRGB was indistinguishable with this printer, I didn't have photo paper loaded on my big printer so didn't test it but there would have been more subtle detail with a larger gamut machine.

 

Regards

 

Stu

Hi Stu,

thanks for that.

Did all of those other than the paper profile which shouldn't result in the differences I saw, as there wasnt one for either. I do have a calibrated monitor, as I said it works fine when Im using sRGB for predicting output.

I sure its possible if not probable I did miss something Stu, buts your answer really supports my point - as you've said yourself if the end result is visually the same once you finally get it right, why are you doing it? Changing colour spaces can take a bit bug hunting, and the benefits can really be pretty meaningless on lower end gear, if not result in worse output given gamut checking etc. For many people advising this is going to cause more headaches than benefits.

As I said if people want to fiddle for the sake of learning thats one thing, but I think for your average (ie A4 or lower end A3 printers) person this could cause more trouble than it helps because so many printers are assuming sRGB as the workflow now. On the other hand anyone trying this is going for that little extra I guess, so as I said go for it, but make sure you know what your original settings were before doing it.

Otara

Edit: As a followup, Ive been tryiing all sorts of things and I can reliably get sRGB and AdobeRGB to work (as in match what see on the monitor closely), nothing else, by letting the printer control the output and be set to those profiles. Using CS4 and application control just results in very dark or faded output no matter what I do.

Given the driver for Vista is a more generic one and it was originally an XP focussed printer, Im starting to think this is probably more a printer/driver/OS issue than a colour management thing as such. It just doesnt seem to handle things well when you try to give control to the application for printing.

For now Im sticking with what works and Ill mess with things again when I get a new printer.

Hi Otara

Paper profiles make a big difference in my experience. Depending on the printer drivers, I've had a photo turn yellow when I used the wrong profile, became OK after I picked the right one.

I did the Pro Photo RGB just as an experiment based on your post. Again, I used my lower quality printer. My main machine has near Adobe RGB capability so that's why I retain that colour space. Most printer drivers automatically recognize the the colour space and convert to their working space. BTW, all Printers are actually CMYK machines, not RGB so you are already doing a conversion to that colour space, however, it's not recommended that you work in a CMYK colour space unless you've got the specialized equipment as used by big printing houses. There is a reason why many top photographers out there recommend using at least the Adobe RGB colour space

But, as you said, if you're happy with your workflow, then that's what works for you.

Regards

Stu

Well my printer was supposed to be pretty good for colour, and blowed if I can see any difference between even sRGB and Adobe RGB, so Im highly dubious ProPhoto would be an improvement, even if I could get it working. But maybe its a bit old and I would see it with a newer one. Or maybe its fibbing and doing sRGB for everything even when it says its doing Adobe RGB, hardware manufacturers can do so very naughty things at times.

Paper profiles would mean they'd all be stuffed, it works fine when the printer is converting, and the paper profiles are only in one place.

I realise CMYK is the end product, but dont really see the relevance, given the problem is obviously somewhere in the conversion process between the app and the printer. One pathway works, the other doesnt, and ProPhoto is only available on the one that doesnt. Maybe the paper profiling is only working on one pathway? Its a possibility but cant see how Id know either way, and HP is a real pain about making ICC profiles available for their paper, leaving only the printer profile options for Vista. FWIW HP recommends 'perceptual' when doing printing by application.

I think we're talking past each other at this point, thanks for trying to help though. My point was that things can get pretty complicated once you leave what the printer is set up for in defaults, and Id say this process has supported that.

Otara