Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Down

Author Topic: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!  (Read 8160 times)

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« on: April 10, 2017, 12:24:11 pm »

(This may as well be better suited in some other forum such as the Image Processing or the Color Management forums.)

I am in the process of moving my all Photoshop stuff from an old computer to a new computer.  I am finding that the prints from the new computer prints are lighter than those from the old computer.


Particulars:


Old Computer = Windows 7 (64) Laptop; New Computer =  Windows 10 Laptop

Photoshop CC: 2014 V 14.2.1 x64, identical on both computers; Bridge CC:  V 6.2.0.179 x64, identical on both computers.

Sync facility used to get all the preferences, actions, etc on the new computer.  Other non-syncable items such as Curves presets, Workspaces, etc manually copied from back-up of the old computer.


Printer = HP B9180

Printer driver software downloaded fresh from HP and installed on the new computer.  All icc profiles copied from old computer to proper folders on the new computer.

Printing is done from Photoshop Print function with Photoshop Managed Colors and with Print Settings selected thru the HP plug-in that comes with the driver. 

In both cases, all parameters like icc profiles, rendering intent, black point comp etc are identical.  I went thru each and every option on both Photoshop Print panel as well as HP plug-in panel and made sure both computers matched exactly.

Files being printed are the same on both computers.  Scanned examples are attached. The first one is a comparison of prints of a small color chart (left = old, right = new) and the second one is that of a 21-step tablet (top = old, bottom = new).  These images were printed on the HP Advanced Photo Glossy paper.  Clearly, the prints from the new computer are lighter.  Looking at the step tablet results it looks to me that the 0% and 100% are printing same level (supported by sampling measurements in Photoshop) signifying that it is the gamma that is affected somehow.  Identical results are obtained when printed on Ilford Fiber Silk as well as Canson Photo Rag – the two papers I use most for my prints.


I am flummoxed.  What could be happening?  Is there something in the gut of Windows 10 that is adding or subtracting from the image file before sending to the printer? 

Anyone seen this type of behavior before?  Any ideas to figure out what is going on will be greatly appreciated.  Probably/Hopefully something simple.

Thanks!

P.S.  I seem to not be able to post with the attachments of the files referenced above.  So may be I have to first figure out how to post with attachments.  The files are around 500KB each.  When I post with the files, the site just hangs up.  I tried Firefox as well as Chrome, several times.  Please clue me in with this one first.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2017, 12:29:07 pm by nirpat89 »
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2017, 12:38:28 pm »

OK.  I made the files way smaller. Let's see if this goes.
Logged

TonyW

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 643
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2017, 01:57:37 pm »

I think you have done pretty well to get so close on two different systems.

Based on what you have said there is one glaring omission.  That is colour management relating to monitor profiling.

You need to be calibrating and profiling your system and to expect two systems with even the same specification to match exactly is asking a lot. 

Photoshop and Lightroom both colour managed and expect to use your monitor profile to display 'correct' colour.  There are bound to be small discrepancies between two systems graphics pipeline that need to be accounted for and which a good profile will do

You may find that if you printed through a non colour managed Windows application such as Photos letting printer manage colour that the images would match more closely
« Last Edit: April 10, 2017, 02:06:04 pm by TonyW »
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2017, 02:36:15 pm »

I think you have done pretty well to get so close on two different systems.

Based on what you have said there is one glaring omission.  That is colour management relating to monitor profiling.

You need to be calibrating and profiling your system and to expect two systems with even the same specification to match exactly is asking a lot. 

Photoshop and Lightroom both colour managed and expect to use your monitor profile to display 'correct' colour.  There are bound to be small discrepancies between two systems graphics pipeline that need to be accounted for and which a good profile will do

You may find that if you printed through a non colour managed Windows application such as Photos letting printer manage colour that the images would match more closely

Thanks, Tony.

I did not mention anything about the monitor since I thought the monitor profile does not play a role in how a certain set of RGB data is sent over to the printer (although my assumption could be wrong.)  I did do the monitor calibration on the new computer using the X-rite ColorMunki Display with identical parameters as I did the old one.  They both look close enough so far as I can expect from a pair of monitors with completely different technologies 7 years apart. 

I will try your suggestion of sending the file from a non-Photoshop application with Printer-managed printing.  Or I can also repeat the same thing as before but by deliberately changing the monitor profile to the default to see if that changes anything.
Logged

TonyW

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 643
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2017, 03:09:15 pm »

...
I did not mention anything about the monitor since I thought the monitor profile does not play a role in how a certain set of RGB data is sent over to the printer (although my assumption could be wrong.)  I did do the monitor calibration on the new computer using the X-rite ColorMunki Display with identical parameters as I did the old one.  They both look close enough so far as I can expect from a pair of monitors with completely different technologies 7 years apart.
The fact that the monitors are different technologies and your graphics card is probably more up to date coupled with your monitor profile reflecting the actual state of display for colour savvy applications to display correctly I think is the crux of the issue you are experiencing.   Looking close enough is very different from being an exact match which is what you would need to get the same print - this is probably expecting too much without a lot of fine system tuning

Quote
I will try your suggestion of sending the file from a non-Photoshop application with Printer-managed printing.  Or I can also repeat the same thing as before but by deliberately changing the monitor profile to the default to see if that changes anything.
My suggestion is to send the image from a non colour managed application of which Photo in Windows is just one.  The reasoning behind sending to a non colour savvy app is that it will make no adjustments to the image data to account for the monitor profile.  So I am expecting a match as the data will not be altered - of course I could be wrong  :o

EDIT: I think that going through PS and selecting Printer manages colour will achieve the same thing as going through another app as the data has not gone through the PS colour managed pipeline  :-[
« Last Edit: April 10, 2017, 03:26:32 pm by TonyW »
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2017, 05:44:26 pm »

The fact that the monitors are different technologies and your graphics card is probably more up to date coupled with your monitor profile reflecting the actual state of display for colour savvy applications to display correctly I think is the crux of the issue you are experiencing.   Looking close enough is very different from being an exact match which is what you would need to get the same print - this is probably expecting too much without a lot of fine system tuning
My suggestion is to send the image from a non colour managed application of which Photo in Windows is just one.  The reasoning behind sending to a non colour savvy app is that it will make no adjustments to the image data to account for the monitor profile.  So I am expecting a match as the data will not be altered - of course I could be wrong  :o

EDIT: I think that going through PS and selecting Printer manages colour will achieve the same thing as going through another app as the data has not gone through the PS colour managed pipeline  :-[

I am still having trouble understanding why a monitor profile would interfere when you are printing an image file, identical in both cases.  Monitor profile is used to display a color corrected file on the monitor.  If I understand it correctly, Photoshop does not change the file before it applies the print icc profile as it is readying to send to the computer.  That would be double profiling.  My problem is not that the print does not look like the monitor (that could be tackled separately.) The problem is two prints from the same printer sent from two different computers with all else (as far as I can tell) remaining the same. 

In any case, here are results from prints made with different conditions: 

The first attachment is the comparison between old vs new sent from Microsoft Paint.  Same difference as before, i.e. new = lighter.

The second attachment is comparison of Photoshop managed vs Printer managed in both cases.  No effect of what management used intra-computer.  Again lighter printing in case of new computer.

Mystery Continues....

« Last Edit: April 10, 2017, 05:57:38 pm by nirpat89 »
Logged

rasworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 473
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2017, 05:55:46 pm »

I moved from a Windows 7 computer to a Windows 10 system, with no differences in print colors.  I would suggest you compare the two using only the HP driver, leave the plug-in out of the path, use the Photoshop print setup.  I have no prior knowledge, just trying to simplify the process, believe that one should minimize the use of printer manufacturer software.

And yes, the monitor profile should have no influence, assuming the color management settings are correct.

Richard Southworth
Logged

TonyW

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 643
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2017, 06:54:23 pm »

...
In any case, here are results from prints made with different conditions: 

The first attachment is the comparison between old vs new sent from Microsoft Paint.  Same difference as before, i.e. new = lighter.

The second attachment is comparison of Photoshop managed vs Printer managed in both cases.  No effect of what management used intra-computer.  Again lighter printing in case of new computer.
...
Lets now then assume that the colour management settings are correct in both cases

So a non colour managed application also shows a similar disparity in printing between the old and new systems. 

The only thing left that I can think of is the printer driver and if this has changed which I suspect is the case between two systems.  Checking the HP website reveals a change from Windows 7 to Windows 10 drivers.

Operating Systems: Windows 7 (64-bit)
Release date: Oct 20, 2009
File name:
PS_BSIZE_CDA_B9100_Net_Full_Win_WW_130_140.exe (170.2 MB)


Operating Systems:  Windows 10 (64-bit)
Release date: Aug 25, 2014
File name:
PS_BSIZE_CDA_B9100_Net_Full_Win_WW_140_404-4.exe (127.4 MB)

From what you have said I now suspect that the driver you are using on the new computer is the latest Windows 10 from August 2014 and your old Win 7 system used the driver dated October 2009.  Difference in drivers may well account for the small changes you are seeing. 

If you really need to prove that this is the case then you would need to remove the new drivers and substitute the old Windows 7 to equal the playing field, however there is no guarantee that they would work.
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2017, 07:41:43 pm »

Tony, I really appreciate your spending time on this...you are right I did download the Windows 10 version.  I didn't even think about it.  I figured they couldn't have updated the driver for this old old printer.  I am on to it.  Will let know if that works...fingers crossed...:Niranjan.
Logged

rasworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 473
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2017, 07:44:15 pm »

Tony,

I have to respectfully disagree with you wrt driver differences, with certain assumptions.  If the drivers are truly operating in all color management off mode, then they are delivering the RGB values of each pixel unmodified to the printer, therefore there should be no difference.  I'm assuming also that the printer didn't change, i.e. no new firmware.

Richard Southworth
Logged

Wayne Fox

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4237
    • waynefox.com
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #10 on: April 10, 2017, 07:54:22 pm »

I think you have done pretty well to get so close on two different systems.

Based on what you have said there is one glaring omission.  That is colour management relating to monitor profiling.

You need to be calibrating and profiling your system and to expect two systems with even the same specification to match exactly is asking a lot. 

this is true if he is having trouble getting the displayed image to match. The issue is the printing pipeline not delivering identical results, which should not be affected at all by the "monitor profile".  Sending the file from the computer to the printer should deliver identical results, even if it is sent from 10 different machines, as long as color management is setup correctly.

I'm not a windows user, but when this happens on a mac it is either a driver installation issue, or a setting in one of the driver dialog boxes that is usually to blame. On windows I believe there are some other issues to get the OS from interfering.

Based on the information so far however I can't determine which of the two machines is delivering "accurate" color.  It is quite possible that incorrect settings on the original machine produced a print that was then compensated for by the display profile and luminance calibration, and the new machine is producing "accurate color".

I didn't read all the replies (sorry, really slammed), but the first thing to do is download a known standard reference file such as bill atkinsons (there's a recent thread that provides a link to his file) or the one at outbackphoto.com and print that.  That shouldn't print light, if it does then something is amiss (and I leave that to the windows users), but I assume typical things like double checking all settings in windows color managment, maybe reinstalling the printer drivers, etc.
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2017, 08:34:13 pm »

Tony, I really appreciate your spending time on this...you are right I did download the Windows 10 version.  I didn't even think about it.  I figured they couldn't have updated the driver for this old old printer.  I am on to it.  Will let know if that works...fingers crossed...:Niranjan.

Well...that didn't make a difference.  Removed the Win10 driver and installed the Win7 driver.  It did not install a lot of auxiliary junk but the driver installed alright.  Alas, the end result is identical to the one with Win10 driver.  Back to square one....
Logged

TonyW

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 643
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #12 on: April 11, 2017, 07:44:18 am »

Tony,

I have to respectfully disagree with you wrt driver differences, with certain assumptions.  If the drivers are truly operating in all color management off mode, then they are delivering the RGB values of each pixel unmodified to the printer, therefore there should be no difference.  I'm assuming also that the printer didn't change, i.e. no new firmware.

Richard Southworth
Richard,
No problem, disagreement and friendly discussion is good and I certainly do not disagree with the assumptions you are making about drivers operation and the delivery of data. 

However we are faced with a system (two actually) that we cannot personally dive into and get hands dirty,  with currently no obvious answer as to the whys and wherefores of what appears to be delivery of different data from the same image.

Between the two systems virtually everything is a variable and while certain things may seem highly improbable they cannot IMO be ruled out without first investigating.  It is also not unusual in any complex system to find more than one problem area that when combined produce a fault but on their own wont necessarily show.

...
I'm not a windows user, but when this happens on a mac it is either a driver installation issue, or a setting in one of the driver dialog boxes that is usually to blame. On windows I believe there are some other issues to get the OS from interfering.
Agreed, driver issues are just as likely to cause an unexpected problem with Windows the same as Mac.  Although I have an iMac on my desktop I have not bothered with colour management as it is not really suited to photo editing due to monitor issues.  As to Windows colour management there have been some improvements over the years with OS changes but also some seemingly backward steps.  Bottom line is that we cannot make assumptions and must check everything in a colour managed workflow if things appear to go wrong.

Quote
Based on the information so far however I can't determine which of the two machines is delivering "accurate" color.  It is quite possible that incorrect settings on the original machine produced a print that was then compensated for by the display profile and luminance calibration, and the new machine is producing "accurate color".
Spot on, which of the two systems produces the better or more accurate colour, and in this scenario we have come back to the differences in display profile. 

Quote
I didn't read all the replies (sorry, really slammed), but the first thing to do is download a known standard reference file such as bill atkinsons (there's a recent thread that provides a link to his file) or the one at outbackphoto.com and print that.  That shouldn't print light, if it does then something is amiss (and I leave that to the windows users), but I assume typical things like double checking all settings in windows color managment, maybe reinstalling the printer drivers, etc.
Interesting idea about printing a third party reference file, but you could argue that the images presented are actually reference files in themselves in as much as they contain an interpretation of the same data from two different systems.  Still it may prove a useful test if it confirms that one system prints darker than the other from the same data. 

Well...that didn't make a difference.  Removed the Win10 driver and installed the Win7 driver.  It did not install a lot of auxiliary junk but the driver installed alright.  Alas, the end result is identical to the one with Win10 driver.  Back to square one....
Niranjan, thats a shame as you say back to square one

Through all this I guess we all make some assumptions and one of mine is that the prints shown were made at the same time through both systems and that enough alternative images also compared that way and the difference is  darker images from the old system.  Further that the ink set and paper batch remained exactly the same throughout the tests.  Can you confirm this to be the case?
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #13 on: April 11, 2017, 08:53:48 am »

Through all this I guess we all make some assumptions and one of mine is that the prints shown were made at the same time through both systems and that enough alternative images also compared that way and the difference is  darker images from the old system.  Further that the ink set and paper batch remained exactly the same throughout the tests.  Can you confirm this to be the case?

All prints that I am showing were made successively by printing on one computer, swapping the USB cord and printing from the second computer on the same physical paper right next to the preceding image (do not trust my eyes unless they are next to each other!)  The images I am showing are not made by cut-and-pastes but merely crops from the rest of the sheet.  Yes, to your second question.  I printed some real world images as well and they follow the same pattern.  Attached is one such example.  Yes to the last question as well - no new inks installed in the mean time.

Here is an another data point to chew on.  I printed from a third computer, a really low-end netbook with Win 8.2 installed on it.  It has a terrible display and there is no display calibration, hence running in the default mode.  I downloaded the HP driver (specific for the Win8.2 version) and used Microsoft Paint to print the color chart image next to the others and lo and behold, it matches the old computer.  So, so far the problem is isolated to the new machine.  Since Richard S. has seen no difference on his migration from 7 to 10, there should not be anything inherent in the 10 software that is the culprit. 

I understand your cynicism about not taking anything granted with these things.  Who knows where short circuit or leaky circuit (more appropriately leaky color) is in a thousand different way data gets manipulated before we see the print.

Currently I am stripping the driver from the new machine entirely and re-installing the appropriate Win10 HP software, double checking all color management entries in Windows and have a another go at it. 

Thanks again!
« Last Edit: April 11, 2017, 09:00:20 am by nirpat89 »
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2017, 11:51:14 am »

Currently I am stripping the driver from the new machine entirely and re-installing the appropriate Win10 HP software, double checking all color management entries in Windows and have a another go at it. 

No dice.  Same difference.
Logged

rasworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 473
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #15 on: April 11, 2017, 12:09:19 pm »

Grasping at straws, check your Color Management settings, as I remember same format for both W7 and W10, make sure "Use my settings for this device" is checked.

Richard Southworth

Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #16 on: April 11, 2017, 01:49:59 pm »

Grasping at straws, check your Color Management settings, as I remember same format for both W7 and W10, make sure "Use my settings for this device" is checked.

Well, that was a good find.  I did not have "use my setting" checked for the printer (I did have that checked for the display)  in both computers.  I was not aware you were supposed to do that.  In any case, I checked after checking and printed again for both computers.  Nothing changed.  No milkshake at the end of that straw! 
Logged

rasworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 473
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #17 on: April 11, 2017, 01:55:47 pm »

Did you try not using the HP plug-in, going directly from Photoshop into the printer driver?  And I assume you moved over the same icc profile?

Another thing that comes to mind is to make sure you are using the image embedded profile in both Photoshop instances, don't have color settings mis-matched.

Richard Southworth
Logged

jpegman

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 129
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #18 on: April 11, 2017, 01:58:33 pm »

Your statement (Reply #3 to TonyW) "I am still having trouble understanding why a monitor profile would interfere when you are printing an image file, identical in both cases.  Monitor profile is used to display a color corrected file on the monitor.  If I understand it correctly, Photoshop does not change the file before it applies the print icc profile as it is readying to send to the computer.  That would be double profiling.  My problem is not that the print does not look like the monitor (that could be tackled separately.) The problem is two prints from the same printer sent from two different computers with all else (as far as I can tell) remaining the same." tells me (Not to be taken as a putdown-but constructive criticism!) that you don't understand "Color Management" at all!
For more insight check out DigitalDog ColorManagement for photographersold but good- or CambridgeColor video 

In addition, as someone mentioned, the very first step with printer problems is to normalize everything and print a standard image on both and now see if the issue is the image (or color management profile) or the printer/driver!

Check out DigitalDog's standard image (http://digitaldog.net/files/Printer%20Test%20file.jpg) or Marrutt Colour Calibration Image (http://www.marrutt.com/inkjet-inks/calibration-image

Good luck
Jpegman
Logged

nirpat89

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 661
    • Photography by Niranjan Patel
Re: New Computer Woes....Prints Coming out Lighter. Need Help!
« Reply #19 on: April 11, 2017, 02:32:57 pm »

Did you try not using the HP plug-in, going directly from Photoshop into the printer driver?  And I assume you moved over the same icc profile?

Another thing that comes to mind is to make sure you are using the image embedded profile in both Photoshop instances, don't have color settings mis-matched.

Richard Southworth

Richard, I have already been using the Photoshop Print utility with "Photoshop Managed Colors" and then going into the HP Printer Settings from there to set other printer related parameters, as per attached.

« Last Edit: April 11, 2017, 02:36:04 pm by nirpat89 »
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Up