Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 14, 2009, 12:47:11 pm

Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 14, 2009, 12:47:11 pm
Printing Targets Without Colour Management

The Eric Chan Workaround With Canon Printers – A Report


I have now found some time to test Eric Chan’s devious(!) workaround for printing colour profiling test targets without colour management.

My system configuration is Mac OSX 10.4.11 (Tiger), Photoshop CS4, Canon printers Pro9000 and iP4500 (with latest drivers).

I have used a print from Photoshop CS2 without Colour Management as a benchmark.

I am sorry to report that Eric’s workaround does not work in the above set-up.  The resulting target patches are too light.  I tried substituting the ProPhoto RGB Colour Space for Adobe RGB and the patches are printed lighter still, which is contrary to the suggestion that changing the colour space will make no difference to the printed output (something which I find hard to credit).  Previewing the workaround prints in CS4 displays clipping of some patches which would appear to suggest that colour management is indeed taking place.

The results of my testing can be seen in the attached file.

There are scans of four tests:
Photoshop CS2 – No Colour Management (benchmark)
Photoshop CS4 – No Colour Management
Photoshop CS4 – Eric Chan Workaround
Photoshop CS4 – Eric Chan Workaround (ProPhoto RGB)

I am really sorry Eric …

I recall that a similar suggestion was made to me by Tom Attix of Adobe, but using the Generic RGB colour space.  Sadly this did not work either.

There are here enough variables to start endless speculations and I suspect a blizzard of postings will follow !

I have to say that I am not convinced that the printer drivers are contributing to the problem, but this is my opinion based on supposition only.

Given that Mark Dubovoy checked the targets he printed (using the workaround) against his reference targets (printed earlier without using CS4 and Snow Leopard), and that they were near enough identical, this would seem to suggest that there is something different about the way Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) handles colour management compared to OSX 10.4 (Tiger).  As for Leopard (10.5), I can’t say.
Perhaps Mark could verify  this ?

In the meantime my personal, and strong, recommendation is not to rely on targets printed from CS4 to profile output devices such as printers; but to use an earlier version of Photoshop and Mac OS – one which is known from previous experience to produce accurate targets.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on November 14, 2009, 01:33:39 pm
I can tell you with SL, Canon iPF drivers for SL, and PSCS4 that they do work correctly.

The biggest factor is all this is with applications that use Apple's new printing path. At least with 10.5 and 10.6 if the drivers are written properly then you will get No Correction in the driver. If they are not written properly for the new printing path then you will get ColorSync in the drivers which will CM the print. I suspect with PSCS4 and Tiger you could get all kinds of different behaviors in the drivers.

But then again things happen like what we see with LR3 Beta where the old behavior of forcing ColorSync in the driver is back. Still can figure out why Adobe screwed that up.

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Rhossydd on November 15, 2009, 05:02:34 am
Quote from: SimonS
I have now found some time to test Eric Chan’s devious(!) workaround for printing colour profiling test targets without colour management.
My system configuration is Mac OSX 10.4.11 (Tiger)......
You've rather missed the point that the problem this workround addresses only happens with Leopard and later, NOT Tiger.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: digitaldog on November 15, 2009, 01:14:48 pm
Did you try Preview 5 in Snow Leopard?
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: madmanchan on November 15, 2009, 02:38:53 pm
Thanks for your report, Simon.

Very surprising.

Follow-up question: Let's say you printed profile targets in CS2 (i.e., your reference). You have custom profiles built.

Are you able to successfully print images from CS4 using these custom profiles? (i.e., via Photoshop Manages Colors, etc.)

If so, do they match the results when printing the same test images -- also using the same custom profiles -- from CS2?
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 16, 2009, 05:32:04 am
Hi Eric.

In an earlier post I reported only slight (probably negligible) differences between tests images printed from CS2 and CS4 as you have suggested.

I will, however, make a new series of tests - also incorporating some control prints - and hope to report back later this week.

Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: madmanchan on November 16, 2009, 01:02:57 pm
Hi Simon, thanks. The reason I asked those specific questions is because there really ought to be no difference between

(1) printing profile targets from CS4 using my proposed workaround, and
(2) printing regular images from CS4 using the common "Photoshop Manages Color" workflow

Both go through the exact same code path in CS4 (i.e., the "Photoshop Manages Colors" path), which in turn sets up the exact same output path to feed into the OS (and then the driver).
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 17, 2009, 01:51:26 pm
The Eric Chan Workaround

Follow-up Report


Hi Eric.  Greetings from across The Pond.

I have done some more printing tests and, in answering your questions, here is what I have found.  I used a test print which encompasses some out-of-gamut colours as well as in-gamut colours to test the out-of-gamut rendering as well as the colour accuracy.

I used one custom profile for each of my two printers (but with two different papers) and a manufacturer’s profile.

There are no visual differences between prints produced in Photoshop CS4 and CS2.

Test Details
All the prints were made from Photoshop CS2 and CS4 using the Relative Intent and Black Point Compensation.
Print 1 – Canon Pro 9000 Ilford Smooth Gloss / Manufacturer’s Profile
Print 2 – Canon Pro 9000 Epson Glossy Premium Photo / Custom Profile
Print 3 – Canon iP4500 Kirkland / Custom Profile

To answer your questions:
Q1:  Are you able to successfully print images from CS4 using these custom profiles? (i.e., via Photoshop Manages Colors, etc.).
A1:  Yes.  There is a high degree of accuracy to the image produced on my monitor (usual caveats applying).
Q2:  If so, do they match the results when printing the same test images -- also using the same custom profiles -- from CS2?
A2:  Yes, they match.

I am happy to upload scans of the prints but since they all look near enough identical this won’t tell anyone very much.

Some More Information
[blockquote]1.     For me this situation first arose when I attempted to get some profiles made using CS4 for the first time with a new printer.  The service I was using identified the overly dark prints of the targets as a possible problem but made the profiles anyway.  The resulting prints using these profiles were awful.
2.   In addition I tried your workaround using PS CS2 and, (trumpet fanfare) it works as advertised ![/blockquote]

I need to reflect for a while on what conclusions can be drawn.

However, I believe that it would not be wise to trust targets printed from PS CS4 for the time being – certainly under Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5).  It would be good to get the results of some more testing under Snow Leopard (10.6), with different printers and set-ups, to corroborate your first successful results.

I can’t help wondering whether there might be a few software engineers in Apple and Adobe who know the answers to our speculations.  I wish they could speak-out and put us out of our misery !
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on November 17, 2009, 06:41:50 pm
In the iPF series Canon driver, when software is function properly in the printer driver under Color Matching both selections are grayed out but ColorSync is checked then in the Main option of the driver under Color Mode, No Correction is is the only selection and it is grayed out. This happens in PSCS4 when both PS Manages Color and when No CM is selected. When there is a problem with the Application (like Print with LRMC in LR3 Beta, ColorSync is still grayed out under Color Matching but under Main/Color Mode ColorSync is the only selection and grayed out.

How does this compare with your Canon drivers?

What happens in your drivers if you open a unmanaged target and print with Printer Manages Color and under the Color Matching option choose Vendor Matching can you select No Correction in Main/Color?

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: madmanchan on November 18, 2009, 09:15:25 pm
Thanks for your detailed report, Simon. They match my expectations, and yet I am confused. Since the proposed workaround (for printing profile targets) involves using the exact same method as when printing your real images -- i.e., Photoshop Manages Colors in CS4's print box, and the Canon driver settings remain the same in both cases -- I cannot understand why printing real images in CS4 works fine, but printing the profile target via the workaround does not.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 19, 2009, 12:14:57 pm
Hi Eric.

It puzzles me too.  However, I have a theory.

With both your workaround, and printing with colour management (allegedly) turned-off, the file seems to be subject to some form of 'colour management' - even though the results are quite different.

I asked myself, therefore, what might be the same about both these cases.  I believe the answer may lie in the metadata which accompanies the image (and this is where I am out of my depth and is pure speculation on my part).  In both cases CS4 could be saying 'I am not doing anything to this image, I have not colour managed this document, no colour transform is taking place'[1] so when it hands the file over to the Mac OS the OS (ColorSync ?) is saying 'OK then, I'll colour manage this file', and does.
In the case of the untagged file the OS is perhaps tagging the file in some way[2] (perhaps also making a transformation and/or perhaps telling the printer to colour manage it ?)[3].
In the case your workaround it is either transforming the data into the printer's default profile[4] or doing something else ?  (was something similar not the case with some Epson printers ?)

*  NOTES
1.   I am reliably informed that in the case of your workaround Photoshop may interpret printing to the same colour space as the file’s tagged profile (both Adobe RGB) as a “null transform” and so do nothing.
2.   It is possible that tagging does take place since we know that Apple’s new APIs require every image to have a profile attached to it.
3.   There is some slight evidence for this since the result is a much darker print which can be a symptom of ‘double’ colour management.
4.   This could explain the much lighter print ?

In the case of a Photoshop colour managed print, made from a tagged image file, Photoshop is making the transformation into the printer’s profiled colour space, and is ‘telling’ the OS that it is doing the colour management and has completed the transformation; and from the metadata the OS presumably says ‘OK I’ll do nothing’ and hands it over to the printer driver, which knows also from the metadata to print without colour management (and is pre-selected in the driver anyway) and does nothing also.  So this works as advertised and everyone’s happy.

Finally, and of course, we know that the reason why your workaround works in CS2 is because it using the ‘old’ Apple APIs.  And in Snow Leopard it would appear that Apple have changed something.

Sorry, this is a bit speculative really;  and I can imagine the software engineers at Apple and Adobe tittering into their hands at my ignorance.
Any further thoughts and informed speculation gratefully received.

However, the bottom line is that Apple, Adobe, and/or the printer manufacturers need to get this fixed.  They’ve known about this since at least April 2009, and probably from the end of 2008.  Nearly a year has passed and we’ve yet to hear an ‘official’ peep out any of them on this matter.

Eric, thanks for all your hard work and continuing interest in this issue.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 19, 2009, 12:23:16 pm
Quote from: DYP
In the iPF series Canon driver, when software is function properly in the printer driver under Color Matching both selections are grayed out but ColorSync is checked then in the Main option of the driver under Color Mode, No Correction is is the only selection and it is grayed out. This happens in PSCS4 when both PS Manages Color and when No CM is selected. When there is a problem with the Application (like Print with LRMC in LR3 Beta, ColorSync is still grayed out under Color Matching but under Main/Color Mode ColorSync is the only selection and grayed out.

How does this compare with your Canon drivers?

What happens in your drivers if you open a unmanaged target and print with Printer Manages Color and under the Color Matching option choose Vendor Matching can you select No Correction in Main/Color?

Doyle

Hi Doyle.

My drivers work as expected with all the correct colour management options greyed-out in the driver -- depending on what Photoshop is being told to do.  So Photoshop and the driver appear to be correctly communicating with each other.

Thank you, I like your suggestion for printing an un-tagged target and will try it over the weekend.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: madmanchan on November 19, 2009, 03:25:33 pm
Simon, you're very much on the right track. Basically, Photoshop's "Photoshop Manages Colors" does tag the document before handing it over to the OS. It tags it with whatever is selected in the Printer Profile popup in the Print dialog box.

Which reminds me of something ...

When you tried my workaround to print RGB profile targets from CS4, did you by any chance accidentally choose "Working Space - Adobe RGB (1998)" from the Printer Profile popup menu in CS4's Print box? If you've assigned Adobe RGB (1998) to the image, it's very important to choose "Adobe RGB (1998)" from the Printer Profile popup in the Print box, and not "Working Space - Adobe RGB (1998)"

Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 19, 2009, 07:30:25 pm
It sounds like we caught Apple's attention, and things will get fixed soon. The following was posted on several developer lists today.
I particularly like the fact that printing charts will now become a use-case for testing of future drivers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Nov 15, 2009, at 2:07 PM, edmund ronald wrote:
...
Then, please Michael, can you tell us how to get CS4 and Preview to
print untagged (targets etc) *reliably* on pro Epsons *today* ? Or
could you release a simple fix that would allow us to do that?
Many of us save print files for a given printer in untagged  -eg.I
save  composite images created to compare various gamut mappings-
directly to untagged, and print there.
...

Apologies for the delay in responding, but I wanted to make sure I had all of my information straight.

First, here is an article that started serious investigations within Apple:

    http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/solving.shtml (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/solving.shtml)

This article includes a workaround for the problem, which is a combination of CS4 and Epson driver bugs that also show up on Leopard (10.5) if you use the latest Epson driver there.  The workaround (use AdobeRGB as a working space and the ColorSync profile in the print dialog) will also work in Preview, although there you just tweak the profile in the print dialog.

In any case, we are working with both vendors to get an actual fix for this and are looking at ways to "idiot-proof" this color path so that we don't get this problem again.  We're also adding this particular use case to our standard testing so we can better catch target printing problems before releasing new drivers via Software Update.

___________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer


Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: JBM on November 19, 2009, 09:02:11 pm
Simon Simpson (SimonS?) appears to have alerted BJP as well...

Adobe addresses Photoshop CS4 printing issues, 19 November 2009 (http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=871276)

Quote
Contacted by BJP, Adobe has confirmed the issue. 'We are aware that it has been challenging for our customers to print accurate targets for profiling printers from Photoshop CS4 (impacting Mac OSX -10.4, 10.5 and 10.6.),' says Adobe. 'In the meantime, we have provided the community with a work-around for this issue. We are currently addressing the overarching issue of driver/OS changes to ensure our customers have a better experience, moving forward. Stay tuned for further updates from us around this, as we are working on a better solution.'
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 20, 2009, 10:32:38 am
Quote from: madmanchan
When you tried my workaround to print RGB profile targets from CS4, did you by any chance accidentally choose "Working Space - Adobe RGB (1998)" from the Printer Profile popup menu in CS4's Print box? If you've assigned Adobe RGB (1998) to the image, it's very important to choose "Adobe RGB (1998)" from the Printer Profile popup in the Print box, and not "Working Space - Adobe RGB (1998)"


Hi Eric.

You know what, I'm not sure.  I'll try the test again making sure I don't pick the 'working space Adobe RGB'.
Just to make sure I've understood the first part of this workaround: when assigning the Adobe RGB profile to the file I should pick 'Adobe RGB (1998)' and not the Adobe RGB working colour space ?

However, that said, I did not get an accurate target print using ProPhoto RGB (not the working space) - so I'm not sure this will help.  But it's certainly worth a try.

What's this "we" Adobe are talking about with the workaround you created ... ?!
And who are the 'idiots'[sic] here, that Apple are having to "... get an actual fix for this and are looking at ways to "idiot-proof" this color path" ?

Grins.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on November 20, 2009, 10:44:16 am
Idiot Proofing!

As I see it this is exactly why we are in the trouble we are in right now. Instead of using the workflow idea of Apple's old printing path where one had complete control of all printer driver settings, the new printing path tries to make things default in the driver. As it is now implemented (in the new path) when application manages color is selected if the driver behaves correctly it should turn off colormanagement. But when something is wrong in the whole printflow it defaults to ColorSync. Witness LR3 Beta compared to LR2. Somebody screwed up there. But release LR3 with that behavior and watch the blame game heat up again.

As for me, give me all the control back and quit trying to idiot proof this. If people want to get correct prints let them learn how to do it. As it is now we are all chasing a moving target and with every new release it needs tested on none main work partitions to see if some new screw up has been implemented. I don't believe that a lot of software designers really understand CM and that also contributes to this problem. For example a canned profile if linked to the media setting in colorsync may print just fine when chosen in the application even though it is double profiling, but of course print correcly because it is doing it with the same profile. But just try that with a custom profile. If people don't realize what is going on they start chasing all kinds of ideas which is what these forums are mostly filed with.

Bottom line is if one little thing in this forced workflow is not talking properly with the other then double profiling occurs. A perfect example of this is the LR3 Beta release compared with LR 2 and PSCS4. Blame who you want but in this scenario only Abode changed things.

"The bad thing about idiot proofing something, it only works until they produce a better idiot"

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 20, 2009, 01:26:55 pm
Eric.
I have reprinted the target, this time assigning Adobe RGB (1998) as the profile and printed, as per the instructions posted by Mark; but ensuring I have selected Adobe RGB (1998) in the printer dialogue (NOT the working space profile !).
Sorry.  The results are the same - a print which is too light.

Doyle.
I have tried two versions of your suggestion, letting the 'Printer Manage Colors' and then turning-off colour management in the printer driver.  One attempt used an untagged target, and one a target tagged (profile 'assigned') with Adobe RGB (1998).
An interesting but contradictory result this.  First, the two prints are identical.  Second, the overall, print density is (visually) the same as the reference prints (PS CS2) but some of the colour patches with different colour values have printed without discrimination.  By this I mean that they have printed visually the same, but are printed visually differently on the reference print (I hope I have made this clear).  I would still not trust these prints to make profile.

As Doyle has already pointed-out we are going round and round in circles here.  At this point I think I have to stop (paper and ink are running out !) and wait to see what Adobe and Apple come up with.  Come on chaps get to it !

Good wishes to all and have great weekend.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Desmond on November 23, 2009, 11:59:21 am
Simon,

What is the woking space setting in your CS4 when testing Eric's work around?
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Simon J.A. Simpson on November 23, 2009, 12:12:48 pm
Quote from: Desmond
Simon,

What is the woking space setting in your CS4 when testing Eric's work around?

Adobe RGB (1998)
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: digitaldog on November 23, 2009, 12:25:54 pm
Quote from: SimonS
Adobe RGB (1998)


Shouldn’t matter. As long as both color space selections are the same (and you can’t use the “Working Space: whatever color space”). You have to specifically pick the profiles.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Desmond on November 24, 2009, 12:42:29 am
I agree that if the asigned profile, working space and output profile are the same there shall be no change in RGB value in the null conversion. But the working space play a part in the middle, if gamut of the working space is some how different from the asigned/ output profile, some clipping will occur near the mismatch.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 24, 2009, 02:40:09 am
Quote from: Desmond
I agree that if the asigned profile, working space and output profile are the same there shall be no change in RGB value in the null conversion. But the working space play a part in the middle, if gamut of the working space is some how different from the asigned/ output profile, some clipping will occur near the mismatch.

AFAIK Photoshop doesn't really have an internal working space ***while Lightroom does***, for RGB it just continues to work in whatever RGB space is being assigned to the file or whatever space you convert to when you load the file. It also assigns the default working space space to new files. The terminology of this stuff is confusing but then "current computational referential for colors"  might make immediate sense to someone with science training but not mean much to an artist.

Lightroom does have some default space; I think it's Prophoto RGB with linear gamma, but I cannot be bothered to go and check.

I'm sure Andrew will come in and correct me if necessary - btw he's written a very nice book about this stuff, although it may need a new edition.

Edmund

Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on November 24, 2009, 07:20:04 am
Quote from: Desmond
I agree that if the asigned profile, working space and output profile are the same there shall be no change in RGB value in the null conversion. But the working space play a part in the middle, if gamut of the working space is some how different from the asigned/ output profile, some clipping will occur near the mismatch.

All this assumes that ColorSync is not getting involved and applying a profile in the driver. Given what we all know about drivers not working correctly and defaulting to ColorSync instead on No Colormanagement that is a pretty big assumption.

Doyle

Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Desmond on November 24, 2009, 08:35:25 am
Quote from: eronald
AFAIK Photoshop doesn't really have an internal working space ***while Lightroom does***, for RGB it just continues to work in whatever RGB space is being assigned to the file or whatever space you convert to when you load the file. It also assigns the default working space space to new files. The terminology of this stuff is confusing but then "current computational referential for colors"  might make immediate sense to someone with science training but not mean much to an artist.

Lightroom does have some default space; I think it's Prophoto RGB with linear gamma, but I cannot be bothered to go and check.

I'm sure Andrew will come in and correct me if necessary - btw he's written a very nice book about this stuff, although it may need a new edition.

Edmund

Thanks Edmund, thats why I love this Forum, there is a lot to be learnt.


Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Ernst Dinkla on November 25, 2009, 04:09:59 am
Quote from: eronald
AFAIK Photoshop doesn't really have an internal working space ***
Edmund


That doesn't say Photoshop isn't interpreting untagged files differently. In the past I have tried to check RGB number changes to see the influence of RGB-device printer profiles on images but I was never able to block Photoshop's CM in that process.  Picture Window Pro, Qimage, both with CM switched off and applications without CM showed identical numbers, PS didn't.



met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 25, 2009, 04:23:01 am
Ernst,

 Describe your experiment more fully, please.

Edmund

Quote from: Ernst Dinkla
That doesn't say Photoshop isn't interpreting untagged files differently. In the past I have tried to check RGB number changes to see the influence of RGB-device printer profiles on images but I was never able to block Photoshop's CM in that process.  Picture Window Pro, Qimage, both with CM switched off and applications without CM showed identical numbers, PS didn't.



met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Ernst Dinkla on November 25, 2009, 07:15:46 am
Quote from: eronald
Ernst,

 Describe your experiment more fully, please.

Edmund


There were problems with QTR B&W profiles used in Qimage, both the RGB and B&W versions. To check what the conversions did on the images I used Print to File of Qimage with said profiles and checked the changes in several programs with CM off. In several ways: untagged, both assigned with the same color space the unprocessed image had, etc. I couldn't get identical numbers from Photoshop while they matched in the other programs with CM off. That was Photoshop CS in Windows. I was told then that it is difficult to check values in Photoshop as CM is never really off.

http://helgaas.com/photo/DigitalBlackandWh...05/02/0488.html (http://helgaas.com/photo/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/2005/02/0488.html)


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 25, 2009, 08:56:33 am
Ernst,

 All of this is too complex for me - I don't have CS anymore - don't use Windows etc.

 What one can test is writing RGB values programatically into a tiff, and then checking the values displayed in various pieces of software, or picking a single color point and dumping it out numerically after the file has been spooled out and back in. There is, I think a raw format in PS which should allow anyone to do this by hand and inspect the values, although there is something funny about the coding of values , but it's documented.  I have software to do this somewhere, and did it a lot.

 I think you can find images with known values on Bruce Lindbloom's site.

Edmund

Quote from: Ernst Dinkla
There were problems with QTR B&W profiles used in Qimage, both the RGB and B&W versions. To check what the conversions did on the images I used Print to File of Qimage with said profiles and checked the changes in several programs with CM off. In several ways: untagged, both assigned with the same color space the unprocessed image had, etc. I couldn't get identical numbers from Photoshop while they matched in the other programs with CM off. That was Photoshop CS in Windows. I was told then that it is difficult to check values in Photoshop as CM is never really off.

http://helgaas.com/photo/DigitalBlackandWh...05/02/0488.html (http://helgaas.com/photo/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/2005/02/0488.html)


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: digitaldog on November 25, 2009, 09:11:22 am
Quote from: Ernst Dinkla
That doesn't say Photoshop isn't interpreting untagged files differently.

Photoshop has always interpreted untagged documents as being in the working space for each color model in the color settings, at least for previews. The print path is a separate issue.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 25, 2009, 09:20:18 am
Quote from: digitaldog
Photoshop has always interpreted untagged documents as being in the working space for each color model in the color settings, at least for previews. The print path is a separate issue.

Who cares about the preview of an untagged image anyway? It's totally meaningless. I would assume that Ernst knows enough to pull up the Info panel,  and inspect the RGB values.  I would certainly hope that these are raw data

I used to do everything with my own software, generating synthetic images, so I never checked.

Edmund
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 25, 2009, 09:25:47 am
Quote from: digitaldog
Photoshop has always interpreted untagged documents as being in the working space for each color model in the color settings, at least for previews. The print path is a separate issue.

Who cares about the preview of an untagged image anyway? It's totally meaningless. I would assume that Ernst knows enough to pull up the Info panel,  and inspect the RGB values.

Edmund
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: digitaldog on November 25, 2009, 09:29:40 am
Quote from: eronald
Who cares about the preview of an untagged image anyway? It's totally meaningless. =

Anyone who’s ever been provided an untagged document should care. Its RGB or CMYK mystery meat. The only way to begin color managing it is making a big guess and that’s all based on the preview. Its also the assumption of the numbers as far as Photoshop is concerned so if you’re doing any conversions, its kind of important. But other than that, its totally meaningless.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 25, 2009, 09:54:20 am
Quote from: digitaldog
Anyone who’s ever been provided an untagged document should care. Its RGB or CMYK mystery meat. The only way to begin color managing it is making a big guess and that’s all based on the preview. Its also the assumption of the numbers as far as Photoshop is concerned so if you’re doing any conversions, its kind of important. But other than that, its totally meaningless.


Yeah, well if it's untagged, as far as I'm concerned, it's meaningless. Pull up the "assign" profile list, assign something to it, that looks halfway ok, now it has some meaning.

I can understand that the Photoshop authors wanted their software to have a default behavior with untagged imagery, but this has got us into the situation where people now expect *their* defaults to be significant on other machines, in other countries etc.

The idea that untagged is something other than meaningless, that one can and should make some  assumption about it, is also what has landed us in such a mess with web imagery. Of course, the fact that one company wanted the world to assume that there was only one web browser may have helped that along

But I'm preaching to the choir, am I not?
No one else is listening but us chickens

Edmund
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: digitaldog on November 25, 2009, 10:17:50 am
Quote from: eronald
Yeah, well if it's untagged, as far as I'm concerned, it's meaningless. Pull up the "assign" profile list, assign something to it, that looks halfway ok, now it has some meaning.

Must be nice not to have to live in a real world where people send you untagged documents....

Yes, pull up the Assign list and start guessing. End result, no more untagged doc.

Quote
I can understand that the Photoshop authors wanted their software to have a default behavior with untagged imagery, but this has got us into the situation where people now expect *their* defaults to be significant on other machines, in other countries etc.

No, the user has to take some responsibly for setting the color settings so Photoshop can make a guess to the untagged data. In one environment (say a web designer), it makes sense to select sRGB as this assumption, for others, nothing could be worse. So Adobe allows someone who understands how the application operates to not only direct the assumption for all untagged data, it can also warn you which is kind of useful.

Its real, real easy: Tag files good. Untagged files, bad. Now how do we go about fixing the bad situation?

Quote
The idea that untagged is something other than meaningless, that one can and should make some  assumption about it, is also what has landed us in such a mess with web imagery. Of course, the fact that one company wanted the world to assume that there was only one web browser may have helped that along

Until untagged documents never appear again, which isn’t likely, we need a mechanism for defining the scale of the numbers. So the statement “Who cares about the preview of an untagged image anyway? It's totally meaningless.“ is kind of silly don’t you think?

Quote
But I'm preaching to the choir, am I not?
No one else is listening but us chickens

I wouldn’t make such an assumption considering the audience.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Schewe on November 25, 2009, 04:12:21 pm
Quote from: eronald
Yeah, well if it's untagged, as far as I'm concerned, it's meaningless. Pull up the "assign" profile list, assign something to it, that looks halfway ok, now it has some meaning.

As it relates to RGB and gamma encoded greyscale files, agreed. But, intentionally untagging CMYK files for delivery to prepress and printers is, actually a much safer (albeit backwards) procedure...

If you send a CMYK file with no profile, the odds are REAL GOOD the printer won't do a thing with it and just print it. However, if the printer gets a CMYK image with a profile, only one course of action will result in the proper results assuming that the printer has a press profile and knows how to use it–convert to profile using a CMYK>CMYK transform. But the odds of a printer knowing what they are doing is so low that this is prolly the LEAST likely option they would use...

That's the problem with at least the American graphic arts industry...almost nobody knows what they are doing...

:~(

Tag RGB and greyscale for sure...be VERY careful tagging CMYK files.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on November 26, 2009, 03:52:13 pm
I once handed in some RGB imagery to a fashion magazine. Tagged by the appropriate profiles. Later they told me: Your pictures are horrible, the colors are dreadful, you don't know how to work the models (AD was on set), the lighting is bad, we'll never work with you again, but tell us: Who did you steal those wonderful colorful portofolio pictures from, the ones you showed us to get the job?

Edmund



Quote from: Schewe
As it relates to RGB and gamma encoded greyscale files, agreed. But, intentionally untagging CMYK files for delivery to prepress and printers is, actually a much safer (albeit backwards) procedure...

If you send a CMYK file with no profile, the odds are REAL GOOD the printer won't do a thing with it and just print it. However, if the printer gets a CMYK image with a profile, only one course of action will result in the proper results assuming that the printer has a press profile and knows how to use it–convert to profile using a CMYK>CMYK transform. But the odds of a printer knowing what they are doing is so low that this is prolly the LEAST likely option they would use...

That's the problem with at least the American graphic arts industry...almost nobody knows what they are doing...

:~(

Tag RGB and greyscale for sure...be VERY careful tagging CMYK files.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: DonCone on December 06, 2009, 01:59:53 pm
Quote from: SimonS
Printing Targets Without Colour Management

The Eric Chan Workaround With Canon Printers – A Report


I have now found some time to test Eric Chan’s devious(!) workaround for printing colour profiling test targets without colour management.

My system configuration is Mac OSX 10.4.11 (Tiger), Photoshop CS4, Canon printers Pro9000 and iP4500 (with latest drivers).

I have used a print from Photoshop CS2 without Colour Management as a benchmark.

I am sorry to report that Eric’s workaround does not work in the above set-up.  The resulting target patches are too light.  I tried substituting the ProPhoto RGB Colour Space for Adobe RGB and the patches are printed lighter still, which is contrary to the suggestion that changing the colour space will make no difference to the printed output (something which I find hard to credit).  Previewing the workaround prints in CS4 displays clipping of some patches which would appear to suggest that colour management is indeed taking place.

The results of my testing can be seen in the attached file.

There are scans of four tests:
Photoshop CS2 – No Colour Management (benchmark)
Photoshop CS4 – No Colour Management
Photoshop CS4 – Eric Chan Workaround
Photoshop CS4 – Eric Chan Workaround (ProPhoto RGB)

I am really sorry Eric …

I recall that a similar suggestion was made to me by Tom Attix of Adobe, but using the Generic RGB colour space.  Sadly this did not work either.

There are here enough variables to start endless speculations and I suspect a blizzard of postings will follow !

I have to say that I am not convinced that the printer drivers are contributing to the problem, but this is my opinion based on supposition only.

Given that Mark Dubovoy checked the targets he printed (using the workaround) against his reference targets (printed earlier without using CS4 and Snow Leopard), and that they were near enough identical, this would seem to suggest that there is something different about the way Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) handles colour management compared to OSX 10.4 (Tiger).  As for Leopard (10.5), I can’t say.
Perhaps Mark could verify  this ?

In the meantime my personal, and strong, recommendation is not to rely on targets printed from CS4 to profile output devices such as printers; but to use an earlier version of Photoshop and Mac OS – one which is known from previous experience to produce accurate targets.


Simon for the past few days I have been chasing the Leopard/Snow Lwopard/CS4 and Epson printer profiling problem too. With Snow Leopard, Epson Pro3800 with v6.11, and CS4 I tried Eric's workaround and although it was an improvement the profile was not accurate. However, I did find a way to print from CS4 and maintain the integrity of the target file. It was really very simple. Although you are not using Snow Leopard, this may work for you in CS4 too.

Printing targets for Eye-One Match I open the original 72dpi untagged file in CS4. I set CS4 to not color manage the file. I hit Print and in the Adobe print dialog select "Printer Manages Color" instead of "No Color Management". In the Epson driver I select "No color management" and my normal printer settings and paper type.

This results in a perfect target print that matches previous targets from Tiger and earlier versions of CS. With color management turned off in the Adobe dialog Colorsync takes over if "No Color Management" is selected but it does not when "Printer Manages Color" is enabled.

Perhaps this may offer a clue to others that are having the problem.

Don


Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Schewe on December 06, 2009, 03:26:54 pm
Quote from: DonCone
With color management turned off in the Adobe dialog Colorsync takes over if "No Color Management" is selected but it does not when "Printer Manages Color" is enabled.


Actually, I don't think this is true...ColorSync in Leopard (and SL) is ALWAYS engaged regardless of the app/driver settings...your results only apply in the case where the paper you are making a target for has both an Epson media settings _AND_ and installed ICC profile for the paper. Even the No Color Management settings in the driver calls ColorSync and the media settings dictates the "default" profile for ColorSync. Which can STILL cause "issues" if you are trying to profile 3rd party papers...
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on December 06, 2009, 05:54:48 pm
Quote from: DonCone
Simon for the past few days I have been chasing the Leopard/Snow Lwopard/CS4 and Epson printer profiling problem too. With Snow Leopard, Epson Pro3800 with v6.11, and CS4 I tried Eric's workaround and although it was an improvement the profile was not accurate. However, I did find a way to print from CS4 and maintain the integrity of the target file. It was really very simple. Although you are not using Snow Leopard, this may work for you in CS4 too.

Printing targets for Eye-One Match I open the original 72dpi untagged file in CS4. I set CS4 to not color manage the file. I hit Print and in the Adobe print dialog select "Printer Manages Color" instead of "No Color Management". In the Epson driver I select "No color management" and my normal printer settings and paper type.

This results in a perfect target print that matches previous targets from Tiger and earlier versions of CS. With color management turned off in the Adobe dialog Colorsync takes over if "No Color Management" is selected but it does not when "Printer Manages Color" is enabled.

Perhaps this may offer a clue to others that are having the problem.

Don

That is exactly how it is supposed to work when "Printer Manages Color" is selected, you should have all controls available to you in the driver. Where Epson has messed up is when the "No Color Management" call is given from PS the driver should react the same way as when the "PS Manages Color" call is given. Defaults to ColorSync in Color Matching and then turns off CM in the driver.

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on December 06, 2009, 05:59:35 pm
Quote from: Schewe
Actually, I don't think this is true...ColorSync in Leopard (and SL) is ALWAYS engaged regardless of the app/driver settings...your results only apply in the case where the paper you are making a target for has both an Epson media settings _AND_ and installed ICC profile for the paper. Even the No Color Management settings in the driver calls ColorSync and the media settings dictates the "default" profile for ColorSync. Which can STILL cause "issues" if you are trying to profile 3rd party papers...

You are misinformed there. When "Printer Manages Color" is selected you have full control of all driver settings (at least that is how it is supposed to work) so the user can decide if they want to use ColorSync, or Epson Color Color Control which will allow the user to set "No color management" in the driver.

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: DonCone on December 06, 2009, 06:34:43 pm
Quote from: Schewe
Actually, I don't think this is true...ColorSync in Leopard (and SL) is ALWAYS engaged regardless of the app/driver settings...your results only apply in the case where the paper you are making a target for has both an Epson media settings _AND_ and installed ICC profile for the paper. Even the No Color Management settings in the driver calls ColorSync and the media settings dictates the "default" profile for ColorSync. Which can STILL cause "issues" if you are trying to profile 3rd party papers...


My understanding of the process is limited. But, the bottom line is that I am able to print targets on 3rd party papers that result in very good screen matches using the method I suggested. I just tried the suggestion of printing from Preview 5 and that seems to work too. The target is a little to big but the colors match the references prints. I suspect the resulting profile would be a good screen match as well. It's difficult to pinpoint the root cause of the problem with so many variables. I'm just glad I can make a good profile again.

I hope Apple resolves this issue so developers can fix their stuff. It looks like ColorMunki is dead in the water at this time as there are no reasonable workarounds.

Don
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on December 06, 2009, 06:54:43 pm
Quote from: DonCone
I hope Apple resolves this issue so developers can fix their stuff. It looks like ColorMunki is dead in the water at this time as there are no reasonable workarounds.

Don

Why the continuing misinformation? It serves no useful purpose unless giving an excuse to the developers that cannot get their coding correct. And, what about all the developers who do get their coding correct? What do you expect them to do if Apple changes thing for the few who can't.

And here is what I found out on Colormunki with drivers that work correctly.

"Just for the heck of it I installed ColormunkiPhoto_1-1-1 software in 10.6.2. While I cannot activate ColorMunki Photo I can run Photo ColorPicker. In the print dialog from Photo ColorPicker I can choose Vendor Matching under Color matching and No Correction under Main. This would leave to believe that it is the printer drivers or PEBCAK.

I suppose that there could be a chance that ColorMunki Photo is coded different then Photo ColorPicker and forces the driver to No CM and the driver is not responding correctly."

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on December 06, 2009, 07:05:07 pm
Quote from: DYP
That is exactly how it is supposed to work when "Printer Manages Color" is selected, you should have all controls available to you in the driver. Where Epson has messed up is when the "No Color Management" call is given from PS the driver should react the same way as when the "PS Manages Color" call is given. Defaults to ColorSync in Color Matching and then turns off CM in the driver.

Doyle

Doyle,

 I'm sorry, but even though I have a PhD and have written color code myself, I simply am not able anymore to understand these descriptions of what's going on to a point where I feel I can print with confidence.  And at this point I suspect that there is not a single color-geek apart from you who has confidence in Snow Leopard's printing system.

 We need some method for normal humans to use the color management functionality with Epson printers. Maybe an effective short-term solution would be for some kindly RIP manufacturer to donate limited-time licenses for a replacement print system that is known to have solid color management policies?

Edmund
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on December 06, 2009, 08:20:37 pm
Quote from: eronald
Doyle,

 I'm sorry, but even though I have a PhD and have written color code myself, I simply am not able anymore to understand these descriptions of what's going on to a point where I feel I can print with confidence.  And at this point I suspect that there is not a single color-geek apart from you who has confidence in Snow Leopard's printing system.

 We need some method for normal humans to use the color management functionality with Epson printers. Maybe an effective short-term solution would be for some kindly RIP manufacturer to donate limited-time licenses for a replacement print system that is known to have solid color management policies?

Edmund

I am sorry that you and others have chosen software and printer vendors that can not get there act together. I don't particularly like that path (idiot proofing) that Apple has chosen for their new printing path. But it is what it is and the developers will just have to conform.

When LR came along and had to use this new printing path we discovered what was happening and had no option but to use the ColorSync Utility Workaround to get around the double profiling. I was in contact with Canon technical people about this issue as well as other issues. Being that they were willing to listen and bring this issue up in their meetings these things got fixed very early and we no longer were seeing the double profiling with drivers that were updated in the fall of 2008. I wish I could have had that kind of access with Apple even though I fired many many messages off to them over the Indesign and the monitor profile issue being introduced into the RGB printflow. Apparently they have finally fixed this in 10.6.2.

I have also fired off messages to Apple about idiot proofing the new printing path apparently to no avail. It has caused nothing but trouble when software has not been coded incorrectly for this new path and has forced ColorSync and a profile conversion in the driver instead of No Color Management. I have seen firsthand that it can be coded correctly and work correctly, and that is why I get so irritated at those who constantly blame Apple for this. What do you expect developers to do if Apple keeps changing things just so somebody's bad coding will work right.

Maybe an effective short-term solution would be to find out what software, printer drivers etc. work correctly with SL and use them. This would put the most pressure on those that don't want to conform since they generally are the ones that are not very approachable about correct their problems. As for Adobe we will see if the LR3 FR has the same bad print coding as the LR3 beta. I saw the same thing happen with LR2.3RC. I know none of them are immune from making mistakes but they need to be called on it , especially after making the same mistake over again.

As for printing unmanaged targets for profiling, any application that still use the old printing path should allow turning off CM in the printer drivers that do not conform to the new printing path. But IDCS3 & 4 before 10.6.2 will have the monitor profile applied in the RGB printflow unless you choose "Print as Bitmap" under advanced in the ID print dialog. And, of course the application will have to have the option of turning off CM.
Doyle

Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: eronald on December 07, 2009, 02:45:19 am
Doyle,

 At this point no one cares about blame or responsibility anymore. People want a way to get out of this mess. Telling them to ditch their $5K Epson or $10K printers in the future because they were idiots to buy them because they didn't know of future changes in the print path is not very constructive.  I would bet that if pushed most of these people will prefer swapping their Macs instead for something that works, and keeping the printer.

 Anyone smart will set up a PC (Windows or Hackintosh) or more simply acquire an old Mac with Leopard just for printing rather than attempt fixes that sometimes work. For those really stuck with a single machine, wishing to use canned Epson profiles, the simplest solutions might involve running a VM and some Microsoft OS in it, or maybe an older hacked Apple OS.

 Last, not least, maybe Epson could just bundle a RIP with every pro or prosumer printer it sells and bypass Apple's or Microsoft's print system altogether? They could also make a version available for a nominal price to their existing userbase. I think this might be a good idea for them.

Edmund
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on December 07, 2009, 06:39:02 am
Quote from: eronald
Last, not least, maybe Epson could just bundle a RIP with every pro or prosumer printer it sells and bypass Apple's or Microsoft's print system altogether? They could also make a version available for a nominal price to their existing userbase. I think this might be a good idea for them.

Edmund

Code their printer drivers correctly and they wouldn't have to.

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: DonCone on December 07, 2009, 09:48:43 am
Quote from: DYP
Why the continuing misinformation? It serves no useful purpose unless giving an excuse to the developers that cannot get their coding correct. And, what about all the developers who do get their coding correct? What do you expect them to do if Apple changes thing for the few who can't.

And here is what I found out on Colormunki with drivers that work correctly.

"Just for the heck of it I installed ColormunkiPhoto_1-1-1 software in 10.6.2. While I cannot activate ColorMunki Photo I can run Photo ColorPicker. In the print dialog from Photo ColorPicker I can choose Vendor Matching under Color matching and No Correction under Main. This would leave to believe that it is the printer drivers or PEBCAK.

I suppose that there could be a chance that ColorMunki Photo is coded different then Photo ColorPicker and forces the driver to No CM and the driver is not responding correctly."

Doyle

Doyle, it was not my intention to misinform. My experience with a friend's ColorMunki is what got me into this in the first place. He lost the ability to make a decent profile using the ColorMunki and Snow Leopard on an Epson Pro3800. Since one cant fix it by printing ColorMunki targets from another program, for all practical purposes ColorMunki is dead on a Mac with Snow Leopard printing to an Epson Pro3800. Yes, it is the developers job to fix it but it may take some help from Apple. This also applies to any profiling software that prints targets from inside the program. I can't print a valid target from Eye-One Match either. There is some work to be done here.

Don
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on December 07, 2009, 10:07:51 am
Quote from: DonCone
Doyle, it was not my intention to misinform. My experience with a friend's ColorMunki is what got me into this in the first place. He lost the ability to make a decent profile using the ColorMunki and Snow Leopard on an Epson Pro3800. Since one cant fix it by printing ColorMunki targets from another program, for all practical purposes ColorMunki is dead on a Mac with Snow Leopard printing to an Epson Pro3800. Yes, it is the developers job to fix it but it may take some help from Apple. This also applies to any profiling software that prints targets from inside the program. I can't print a valid target from Eye-One Match either. There is some work to be done here.

Don

Under Color Matching in driver for the Pro3800 dialog what can you select?

Are you also telling me that print targets form Eye-One Match does not allow full control of the printer driver settings? I am not seeing that.

Are you sure the printer driver are properly installed? Do they show up correctly in the ColorSync Utility?

If not, you need to uninstall them with the installer and delete the cache file, then install and add the printer back in as it is highly unlikely that the driver will work correctly if SN was installed as an upgrade if this is not done.

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: DonCone on December 07, 2009, 11:13:05 am
Quote from: DYP
Under Color Matching in driver for the Pro3800 dialog what can you select?

Are you also telling me that print targets form Eye-One Match does not allow full control of the printer driver settings? I am not seeing that.

Are you sure the printer driver are properly installed? Do they show up correctly in the ColorSync Utility?

If not, you need to uninstall them with the installer and delete the cache file, then install and add the printer back in as it is highly unlikely that the driver will work correctly if SN was installed as an upgrade if this is not done.

Doyle

Thanks for the info Doyle. I will check that out later today and see what I find. I'll report back as I think the more information we have on what works and what does not work will help clarify the problem for all of us.

Don
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: djoy on December 07, 2009, 01:28:51 pm
Quote from: DYP
Code their printer drivers correctly and they wouldn't have to.

That isn't helpful at all.

I'm sorry, but I've bitten my tongue long enough (along with everyone else I suspect), I'm going to have to speak up.

We have here a known problem, now acknowledged by the vendors involved ( Adobe public statements, Apple printing engineer postings on Dev forums ), tested and confirmed by the engineers working for those vendors ( Eric Chan of Adobe ) and by industry players of some "repute" ( Jeff Schewe, Andrew Rodney, Mark Dubovoy ) who have privileged access to information and people who are in a position to know more than anyone ( i.e. the engineers who have access to the actual code ). All of the above working to achieve a resolution to this problem as quickly as possible.

On the other hand we have "random internet forum dude" ( DYP ) who insists they are all wrong and he is right, provides no evidence to support his conclusions and clearly has an axe to grind with a particular vendor.

Doyle, for someone who (claims he) is not affected by this problem, you've made more posts on these threads than anyone else, many of which are in essence "well mine works, you just bought the wrong printer, VendorX is rubbish".

I think most of the people here are interested in resolving a problem which is affecting them and causing problems to their work and business, as opposed to providing an audience for your agenda.

Please try to be constructive...
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on December 07, 2009, 04:42:27 pm
Quote from: djoy
That isn't helpful at all.

I'm sorry, but I've bitten my tongue long enough (along with everyone else I suspect), I'm going to have to speak up.

We have here a known problem, now acknowledged by the vendors involved ( Adobe public statements, Apple printing engineer postings on Dev forums ), tested and confirmed by the engineers working for those vendors ( Eric Chan of Adobe ) and by industry players of some "repute" ( Jeff Schewe, Andrew Rodney, Mark Dubovoy ) who have privileged access to information and people who are in a position to know more than anyone ( i.e. the engineers who have access to the actual code ). All of the above working to achieve a resolution to this problem as quickly as possible.

On the other hand we have "random internet forum dude" ( DYP ) who insists they are all wrong and he is right, provides no evidence to support his conclusions and clearly has an axe to grind with a particular vendor.

Doyle, for someone who (claims he) is not affected by this problem, you've made more posts on these threads than anyone else, many of which are in essence "well mine works, you just bought the wrong printer, VendorX is rubbish".

I think most of the people here are interested in resolving a problem which is affecting them and causing problems to their work and business, as opposed to providing an audience for your agenda.

Please try to be constructive...

Talk about not being helpful or constructive.

So I have been printing color almost everyday of my life for the last 20 years. What I am talking about is real world stuff. The goal is to print accurate color for my clients. Whatever has to be done has to be done to achieve that and I have no room for excuses unlike many posters on here who seem to also have a political agenda. And, from this perspective I present the fact as I see them and I don't give a d__n whether you like it or not.

I have helped hundreds of people with these kinds of problems over the years and I not going to stop now because of whiners like you.

Doyle




Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Farmer on December 07, 2009, 08:37:38 pm
Don't feed the troll.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: DonCone on December 08, 2009, 12:14:40 pm
Printing profile targets on Macs running Snow Leopard and CS4 – A summary

For several days I have been testing various methods of printing profile targets on 2 Macintosh systems running Snow Leopard. This started when a frustrated friend showed me some very bad prints he made using profiles he had just created using ColorMunki. I took a look at what he was doing and did not see any obvious errors in his procedures. Calls to Xrite did not resolve the problem and he was told that there were issues with Snow Leopard.  A check of Xrite’s download page indicated there was an update for Snow Leopard so I installed v1.1.1.1 on his machine but the problem persisted.

I had not created any new profiles for my own Mac system for many months and never using Snow Leopard or CS4. When I tried printing a target using CS4 and the method I have used in the past the resulting target did not match my previous efforts. I found Mark Dubovoy’s article on Luminous Landscape and realized there was a problem. I tried Eric Chan’s workaround without success. I stumbled into a fix when I selected “Printer Manages Color” in the CS4 print dialog. I also tried other methods of printing the target and found that Andrew Rodney’s suggestion of printing from Preview 5 worked and I could also print from Eye-One Match when I remembered to change “Color Matching” in the Epaon print dialog from  the default “Colorsync” to “Epson color controls”.

For me, the key has been to get Colorsync out of the print path. The methods that worked all use “Epson controls color” in the Color Matching dialog.

Back to ColorMunki – that problem was resolved yesterday. My friend had removed the updated ColorMunki program from his computer and re-installed from the original DVD. He was able to create profiles with excellent screen match but they printed with a gray boarder. Profiles form the paper manufacture weren’t great but they printed correctly. I updated the software again and now everything is working properly.

I agree with Mark Dubovoy that this may be a complex problem and am glad he has brought it to the attention of all of the parties involved. What works for me may not work for others using different software and printers.

The test system:
Macintosh 2.66 GHz Quad-Core, 8GB RAM
OS X 10.6.2
Epson Pro 3800 with driver version 6.11
Adobe Photoshop  CS4 v11.0.1

Don
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Mac Mahon on May 15, 2010, 10:28:31 pm
Simon

A long time has passed since your post on this.  FWIW I too have tested the Eric Chan workaround.  I used SL 10.6.3, and PSCS5 driving a Canon Pro9000.

The short story is the workaround doesn't work for me either.  Targets are too light and resulting prints are way too dark: almost as if double profiled.  I too tried substituting ProPhoto at both points as per Mark Dubovoy's suggestion.  Same result.

Tim

Quote from: SimonS
Printing Targets Without Colour Management

The Eric Chan Workaround With Canon Printers – A Report


I have now found some time to test Eric Chan’s devious(!) workaround for printing colour profiling test targets without colour management.

My system configuration is Mac OSX 10.4.11 (Tiger), Photoshop CS4, Canon printers Pro9000 and iP4500 (with latest drivers).

I have used a print from Photoshop CS2 without Colour Management as a benchmark.

I am sorry to report that Eric’s workaround does not work in the above set-up.  The resulting target patches are too light.  I tried substituting the ProPhoto RGB Colour Space for Adobe RGB and the patches are printed lighter still, which is contrary to the suggestion that changing the colour space will make no difference to the printed output (something which I find hard to credit).  Previewing the workaround prints in CS4 displays clipping of some patches which would appear to suggest that colour management is indeed taking place.

The results of my testing can be seen in the attached file.

There are scans of four tests:
Photoshop CS2 – No Colour Management (benchmark)
Photoshop CS4 – No Colour Management
Photoshop CS4 – Eric Chan Workaround
Photoshop CS4 – Eric Chan Workaround (ProPhoto RGB)

I am really sorry Eric …

I recall that a similar suggestion was made to me by Tom Attix of Adobe, but using the Generic RGB colour space.  Sadly this did not work either.

There are here enough variables to start endless speculations and I suspect a blizzard of postings will follow !

I have to say that I am not convinced that the printer drivers are contributing to the problem, but this is my opinion based on supposition only.

Given that Mark Dubovoy checked the targets he printed (using the workaround) against his reference targets (printed earlier without using CS4 and Snow Leopard), and that they were near enough identical, this would seem to suggest that there is something different about the way Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) handles colour management compared to OSX 10.4 (Tiger).  As for Leopard (10.5), I can’t say.
Perhaps Mark could verify  this ?

In the meantime my personal, and strong, recommendation is not to rely on targets printed from CS4 to profile output devices such as printers; but to use an earlier version of Photoshop and Mac OS – one which is known from previous experience to produce accurate targets.
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Doyle Yoder on May 16, 2010, 07:36:23 am
Quote from: Mac Mahon
Simon

A long time has passed since your post on this.  FWIW I too have tested the Eric Chan workaround.  I used SL 10.6.3, and PSCS5 driving a Canon Pro9000.

The short story is the workaround doesn't work for me either.  Targets are too light and resulting prints are way too dark: almost as if double profiled.  I too tried substituting ProPhoto at both points as per Mark Dubovoy's suggestion.  Same result.

Tim

I don't know if this will help in your situation but here is a interesting thread describing how to set no CM in the smaller Canon printer drivers.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=34105159 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=34105159)

http://alturl.com/e43y (http://alturl.com/e43y)

Also have you looked at the Color Management Tool Pro Ver. 2.0.0a (Mac OS X 10.3/10.4/10.5/10.6)

http://alturl.com/23ia (http://alturl.com/23ia)

Doyle
Title: Printing Targets Without Colour Management
Post by: Mac Mahon on May 17, 2010, 05:23:53 am
Quote from: Doyle Yoder
I don't know if this will help in your situation but here is a interesting thread describing how to set no CM in the smaller Canon printer drivers.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=34105159 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=34105159)

http://alturl.com/e43y (http://alturl.com/e43y)

Also have you looked at the Color Management Tool Pro Ver. 2.0.0a (Mac OS X 10.3/10.4/10.5/10.6)

http://alturl.com/23ia (http://alturl.com/23ia)

Doyle

Doyle

Thanks.  The method described by David Millar of Datacolor, in the  post you referenced, is what I routinely do.  It generates good profiles for Ilford Gallerie Smooth Pearl on the Pro9000, but not great ones.

I tried the Eric Chan/Mark Dubovoy method for printing targets in the hope of improving my profile for this set up.  It definitely does not work at all for me (SL 10.6.3, Canon Pro9000)

David recommends selecting Generic RGB as the Colorsync profile in the printer driver, in the Spyder3 method.  FWIW I'm not convinced that Generic RGB is the profile that OS 10.6.3 attaches to untagged images.  After consuming very many hours, hundreds of sheets of printer paper, and gallons of ink in experimentation, I've discovered that choosing sRGB for the Colorsync profile in the driver produces good targets, which in turn give me a profile that produces excellent prints with the best screen-print match I've ever been able to achieve.  I do not know why this works (or even if it should).  I'm speculating that, as part of the SL change to try and make the process 'fool proof', Apple may have decided to have the OS attach sRGB to untagged files in the belief that most people who do not know, or do not want to, attach print profiles to their images, will send their photos to the web or to an online photo printer.  

Cheers


Tim

PS Color Management Tool Pro looks good.  However, Canon assumes that all profilers use Eye1.  Sadly, I could afford only the SpyderPrint set up and couldn't find a way of getting Canon's s/w to print Datacolor's target images!