A new icc profile prints to dark (about 2 stops) but softproofing is fine

[GWGill]

Doesn’t it seem a little odd that they can write a separate utility that works, and yet can’t put the same concept inside PS so it also works?

Adobe's states reason was that they wanted a separate utility so that they could release fixes at a faster pace than Photoshop and their other products. (Photoshop needs a lot more QA before release, because people yell and scream if things get broken.)

[digitaldog]

And so if Adobe, with all their resources and clout can't get this straightened out, the very much smaller with no pull at all with apple color management vendors are supposed to do it ?

Yes! Other than printing targets for a profile, please tell us why anyone using Photoshop would need to send data out without color management?
I have one, it's not at all a critical function, you want to send out an image on one page using a profile to test two rendering intents. But it's again, a function the vast majority of PS users would need to do AND they can do it with ACPU.

[GWGill]

Yes! Other than printing targets for a profile, please tell us why anyone using Photoshop would need to send data out without color management?

That is reason enough. There is no point in using Photoshop if your prints look terrible because no-one can profile the printer, because there is no way to print without color management.

It's about as sensible as a car manufacturer saying "no user will change the oil in the engine, so we'll omit the drain plug, oil filler and dip stick", or an MP3 player with no way of loading songs on to it "because 99% of the time people only play, not record".

[Schewe]

And so if Adobe, with all their resources and clout can't get this straightened out, the very much smaller with no pull at all with apple color management vendors are supposed to do it ?

X-Rite can print using No Color Management and other CM companies as well. Again, you forget that Apple is in control of the Mac OSX print pipeline...

[GWGill]

Again, you forget that Apple is in control of the Mac OSX print pipeline...

Given the years it took to sort out the color problems between Adobe and Apple, I don't thing "in control" is an appropriate term...

[Schewe]

Given the years it took to sort out the color problems between Adobe and Apple, I don't "think" "in control" is an appropriate term...

I don't "think" you understand the relationship between; the OS level print pipeline, the print driver & the print application. It's a very complex relationship. If Apple dictates a certain behavior, both the print driver (Epson or Canon) and the application must play along. Apple has dictated that the print driver and the application cease allowing a behavior that allows a No Color Management behavior. The applications that are dedicated to creating printer ICC profiles get a pass, for several reasons, most notably the needs of the user base. But not general apps.

But for mainline apps, the No Color Management option became unsustainable. Hence the removal of that option from the print delog of Photoshop under Mac. Note, this is NOT an issue under Windows because in this case. MSFT doesn't impose this requirement.

It's ironic that in this case, MSFT is more "free" than Mac, but there you have it. It sucks (in this small case) to be using the Mac OS.

[Mark D Segal]

........... It sucks (in this small case) to be using the Mac OS.

Does it really Jeff? - ever since we've had ACPU we've at least been able to generate our profiling targets correctly, and I'm finding the print pipeline works rather seamlessly on OSX 10.x, especially printing from LR, but even in PS; one would wish for a more user-friendly layout of the driver settings, but something we get accustomed to sooner or later.

[howardm]

OSX's ColorSync Utility has similar functionality..........

[digitaldog]

That is reason enough. There is no point in using Photoshop if your prints look terrible because no-one can profile the printer, because there is no way to print without color management.

I'm not following you. You're suggesting no one can produce a good print in Photoshop because they don't have profiles because Photoshop can't print an untagged target?

It's about as sensible as a car manufacturer saying "no user will change the oil in the engine, so we'll omit the drain plug, oil filler and dip stick", or an MP3 player with no way of loading songs on to it "because 99% of the time people only play, not record".

The analogy doesn't wish IMHO. We do need to change our oil. I asked you to produce a scenario other than printing an untagged target for a profile the Photoshop user would need. I even provided one, albeit something few people would ever do. There are dozens of products that can print an untagged target for a profile, many of them the products that created the target in the first place as those products SHOULD provide. So short of that, can you tell us why Photoshop needs to supply a non color managed path for untagged data, especially when they proved a free cross platform utility to do so, aiding folks (no names) who's products must output untagged profile targets.

[GWGill]

I don't "think" you understand the relationship between; the OS level print pipeline, the print driver & the print application. It's a very complex relationship.

Having implemented several such workflows and pipelines, I think I have a better understanding of it than most people, and some insights that Apple don't appear to have.

But for mainline apps, the No Color Management option became unsustainable.

"Unsustainable" - what on earth does that mean ? It's using too many electrons ?

There are elegant ways of handling a calibration workflow, but Apple have chosen to do it badly, and disenfranchise anyone who wants to have a robust path to achieve accurate color.

It's ironic that in this case, MSFT is more "free" than Mac, but there you have it. It sucks (in this small case) to be using the Mac OS.

It seems you have brought yourself to terms with it, but as a "Maker", it just seems completely asinine to me.

[GWGill]

There are dozens of products that can print an untagged target for a profile, many of them the products that created the target in the first place as those products SHOULD provide.

No doubt there are workarounds. But since you have to switch to a different application to print the test chart, how do you know that the processing is the same, i.e. that the profile thus generated, will work as intended with PhotoShop ? The answer is you don't - you either take it on trust (and we know how often color goes wrong because there are too many cooks, and because it's seen as the "right thing" to hide everything from the user), or you need to check it in some way.

One upon a time, Photoshop was the tool you would use to do these checks, because you could see exactly what was going on. You knew which colorspace your raster file was in, and you knew what processing (if any) was going to be applied when you printed it.

[digitaldog]

"Unsustainable" - what on earth does that mean ?

I think it means it got very expensive to support a 'feature' so few needed after the back and forth bug fixing and then reintroduction of new bugs between Apple and Adobe.
Clearly Adobe can print without color management. They did it in the past, they coded ACPU (scaling bugs not withstanding). They saw an expensive proposition keeping a 'feature' so few needed and felt I believe, as I do, printing untagged data for the creation of profiling was the task for others. So they said, screw it. I can't blame them. X-rite has a current product that prints targets without color management. The CS utility can do it. While I haven't checked in years and years, presumably DataColor can do this with their Spyder-whatever product. QTR-Print-Tool can do this task too.

[digitaldog]

No doubt there are workarounds. But since you have to switch to a different application to print the test chart, how do you know that the processing is the same, i.e. that the profile thus generated, will work as intended with PhotoShop ?

Me personally? I test it. Measure both targets from each products, load the measurement data into ColorThink and produce a dE report.
I've seen no difference in recent versions of i1Profiler, the Copra app and ACPU in printing targets and I've seen zero issues using the generated profile in Lightroom or Photoshop. As we've seen in the past, that could change. But in no way do we have to print the profile targets IN Photoshop! Unless you have some additional data points I'm not aware of, multiple products that say they can print an untagged target do so correctly and consistently and the generated profile works in all the product I and my clients use when printing with the generated profile. Again, that could change, but it's been bankable for a number of years now. So I see no problem here.

[Mark D Segal]

I agree - my own profiling using ACPU for printing the targets has achieved very satisfactory results.

[Legolas]

I received a new icc profile for the Epson PGPP paper. I can report that the issue is resolved. The prints from LR6 are now very good (colors are much better now compared to the standard epson icc profile) and the 2 stop darker problem as gone. I conclude that i have made a mistake in generating the target file using ACPU. Likely i forgot to set Media Type correctly.

I would like to thank you for all your help, very much appreciated!

Alexander

[Mark D Segal]

Very good! Glad to see it resolved.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

X-Rite can print using No Color Management and other CM companies as well.

Just for the sake of clarity this is not entirely true with X-Rite’s ColorMunki software.  On the Mac you get a choice of either accurate printer profiles (software v1.2.1) or accurate display profiles (software v1.1.1) – but not both with either software versions.  See ColorMunki postings in this forum.

[digitaldog]

Just for the sake of clarity this is not entirely true with X-Rite’s ColorMunki software.  On the Mac you get a choice of either accurate printer profiles (software v1.2.1) or accurate display profiles (software v1.1.1) – but not both with either software versions.  See ColorMunki postings in this forum.

I'm sure Jeff's point is, all the X-rite bugs aside, the product is supposed to provide both functionality.