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Author Topic: Adobe Color Printer Utility – New Problem ? (Mac OS El Capitan 10.11.6)  (Read 22866 times)

Mark D Segal

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Interesting - one wonders how a "Pro" printer, could be left unable to support the printing of profiling targets. It's not as if this is a new issue, so I'm thinking perhaps they've had very, very little traffic from users of this printer model for that capability. It is, however, good to learn that they are investigating what they can do about it - which doesn't help you much in the short term, but may in the coming weeks or so. 
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

Mark D Segal

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I should have added - you did say above that you can print acceptable targets from the Color Munki software, so perhaps that's your best option for now.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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I should have added - you did say above that you can print acceptable targets from the Color Munki software, so perhaps that's your best option for now.

Yes, I can; thankfully.  But I was also thinking about other folk who may not yet realise that there is a problem.  Be nice to get a fix.  I'm really not sure why the Pro 1 cannot use Print Studio Pro, but perhaps my contact at Canon can help.  He certainly seemed very willing.
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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In the service of further testing I tried creating a profile using the Canon Color Management Tool Pro.

It's complete rubbish (see the 3D projection from the ColorSync utility below).  Exactly the same as with Lion.  Bizarre.
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Mark D Segal

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Oh my goodness, and once in a blue moon I thought I generated the odd crappy profile whenever I saw little bits of unevenness on the edges. No, clearly that's a non-starter. Probably not worth wasting further time with. Best to use the profiling software until Canon produces a fix.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Rhossydd

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They are investigating to see how targets can be printed without colour management to the Canon Pro 1 printer.
Doess anyone know if this problem is confined to the Pro 1 or are other canon printers affected too ?
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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This appears to be only confined to the Pro 1.

First serving from Canon's technical support not helpful.  Waiting for more.

I have confirmed that the option to be able to turn-off colour management in Print Studio Pro is not available for the Pro 1.

As things currently stand there is no way of printing targets remotely supplied (i.e. not printed from within proprietary profiling software), without colour management, for a Pro 1.
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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Doess anyone know if this problem is confined to the Pro 1 or are other canon printers affected too ?

I should add that Mark’s recommendation is that from El Capitan and later Canon Print Studio Pro should be used to print targets for all Canon printers with which it is compatible.  ACPU and the ColorSync Utility will  no longer print accurate targets.

Pro 1 users languish ignored in Canon's backwaters of sloth.
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Rhossydd

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Pro 1 users languish ignored in Canon's backwaters of sloth.
From that table image it looks like Pro 10 & 100 series printers are also affected ?
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Mark D Segal

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Pro 1 users languish ignored in Canon's backwaters of sloth.

I would like to be clear that the above statement is yours, not mine. From my experience dealing with them, there are no "backwaters of sloth" in Canon's printing departments. Every decision they make has a background of supporting considerations that go through several levels of management internally. You or I may not necessarily agree with those considerations, but that is a different matter from "sloth". My sense is, on this particular one, that they probably didn't expect customers for certain models to want the capability to print profiling targets. What they provide depends heavily on their assessment of what the market asks for. I also know from first-hand experience that Canon is really serious about the printer market and they are very open to receiving customer suggestions - doesn't mean they will implement all of them, but at the very least, and as they can manage it, they will be carefully assessed. I believe you have already seen that in their response to you.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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Mark.  I think that the problem for Pro 1 users is that even though it is called a ‘professional’ printer it comes under their consumer rather their their commercial division (I read this in a review – was it on the Northlight website ?).

Thus, in your dealings with Canon in relation to your excellent reviews of the Pro1000 etc., no doubt you got good responses from their commercial team.  Also, you are on a different continent.  I'm here in the UK, shortly to excise itself from Europe.  It is also clear that Canon have spent a great deal of time and effort ensuring their new professional printers are well supported with software etc..  Well done to them.  Doesn’t really help us Pro 1 users though.

BTW, “Pro 1 users languish ignored in Canon's backwaters of sloth” = unsubtle attempt at humour.  Apologies.
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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Latest…

Canon support have escalated the issue to the product specialist team.
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Mark D Segal

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Latest…

Canon support have escalated the issue to the product specialist team.

Nice; they DO listen. Thanks for the info.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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MHMG

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Try using Apple's Colorsync Utility app. It's a free utility on the Mac.  Open an untagged tif file of the profiling target. Select the "print as color target" option in the main menu located near the bottom when the submenu on that page is set to "colorsync utility" (this is the default page when you begin to print the image. Then adjust all your other settings like media choice you will navigate to by selecting the other submenu items.

One quirk is that the print as target option is not sticky. If you go back out of the printer driver, and than back in, you will need to reset that choice. I'd also check your submenu items to be sure, but I seem to recall them as sticky. Another quirk is if you use a 16 bit tif file, the preview will look weird in ACU, but it prints fine.  I have successfully printed profiling targets using ACU for a Pro-1 and Pro-1000 and I'm currently on El Capitan as well. Once I figured out how to use ACU's print as color target feature, I rarely if ever use ACPU.

good luck,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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Rhossydd

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Try using Apple's Colorsync Utility app.
Reply #9 on the first page says that doesn't work either.
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MHMG

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Reply #9 on the first page says that doesn't work either.

I did read the whole thread quickly. Sorry I missed the fact you had tried ACU already.  Yet it's a strange result...  I build good ICC profiles using this utility, for both Canon Pro-1 and Pro-1000. No double profiling, no dull colors as if sRGB profile had gotten injected into the mix.  I'm using Mac OS10.11.6.  Not sure what else might be going on in your situation.

kind regards,
Mark
« Last Edit: April 22, 2017, 10:19:00 am by MHMG »
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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I did read the whole thread quickly. Sorry I missed the fact you had tried ACU already.  Yet it's a strange result...  I build good ICC profiles using this utility, for both Canon Pro-1 and Pro-1000. No double profiling, no dull colors as if sRGB profile had gotten injected into the mix.  I'm using Mac OS10.11.6.  Not sure what else might be going on in your situation.

kind regards,
Mark

I believe we have established fairly conclusively that there is indeed a problem printing accurate targets using ACPU under mac OS X El Capitan (and perhaps Sierra).  See post #8.  Mark Segal has undertaken detailed and exhaustive printer testing and I would trust his conclusions.  If you have made any profiles recently under El Capitan you might want to review and check them.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2017, 01:30:21 pm by Simon J.A. Simpson »
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MHMG

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I believe we have established fairly conclusively that there is indeed a problem printing accurate targets using ACPU under mac OS X El Capitan (and perhaps Sierra).  See post #8.  Mark Segal has undertaken detailed and exhaustive printer testing and I would trust his conclusions.  If you have made any profiles recently under El Capitan you might want to review and check them.

I was taking about Apple Colorsync Utility (ACU) not ACPU,  but just to make sure ACU is still able to print correctly to the Pro-1 driver in "print as color target" mode, I just performed the following steps.

1) Checked my Pro-1 Firmware. It is up to date.
2). Checked my Pro-1 driver version. It was 13.7.1.0, which was not the latest, so I just updated today. It is now latest version 16.11.0.0
3) Sent untagged TC918 color target to printer, using "print as color target" in ACU and made sure all other media settings were correct and sticky (i.e. not defaulting to something else).
4). I just looked at the print which finished a few minutes ago. It is a correctly printed untagged, non color managed output! What more can I say, other than the fact that I've been making ICC profiles for 25 years, and over that time I have learned to recognize instantly whether the chosen color target has printed with color management truly turned off.

Only advice I can give at this point is to make sure printer driver and firmware are up to date. Also, even if up to date, uninstall the driver in Mac system preferences "printers and scanners" menu, restart computer then reinstall the driver. This step alone can sometimes fix Mac printing problems.  Also take your target image into PS and recheck to make sure it is truly an untagged file.  If not, PS can unembed any embedded profile. Then give ACU "print as color target" feature another try.

good wishes,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

« Last Edit: April 22, 2017, 02:37:51 pm by MHMG »
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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I was taking about Apple Colorsync Utility (ACU) not ACPU,  but just to make sure ACU is still able to print correctly to the Pro-1 driver in "print as color target" mode, I just performed the following steps.

1) Checked my Pro-1 Firmware. It is up to date.
2). Checked my Pro-1 driver version. It was 13.7.1.0, which was not the latest, so I just updated today. It is now latest version 16.11.0.0
3) Sent untagged TC918 color target to printer, using "print as color target" in ACU and made sure all other media settings were correct and sticky (i.e. not defaulting to something else).
4). I just looked at the print which finished a few minutes ago. It is a correctly printed untagged, non color managed output! What more can I say, other than the fact that I've been making ICC profiles for 25 years, and over that time I have learned to recognize instantly whether the chosen color target has printed with color management truly turned off.

Only advice I can give at this point is to make sure printer driver and firmware are up to date. Also, even if up to date, uninstall the driver in Mac system preferences "printers and scanners" menu, restart computer then reinstall the driver. This step alone can sometimes fix Mac printing problems.  Also take your target image into PS and recheck to make sure it is truly an untagged file.  If not, PS can unembed any embedded profile. Then give ACU "print as color target" feature another try.

good wishes,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

Hi Mark H M-G. Thank you for your test and advice.

I tried another test.

Mac OSX 10.11.6
Untagged TIFF – double checked with PS and Preview.
Canon Pro 1 Firmware Version 2.110 (as per test page).
Canon CUPS driver 16.11.0.0.

I have made two prints following your instructions to the letter; one from my iMac and one from my MacBook Pro.

Both prints are not correct (expected symptoms); and are identical.  I double checked the all my settings.  All OK.

This is very puzzling.

Just out of interest, how does my test image print for you (posted earlier) ?  See #6 and #7.
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Mark D Segal

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I'm not puzzled. Unless one has highly unusual visual accuity and memory relative to normal human visual perception, we cannot confidently predict from simply looking at a profiling target, regardless of how many we have made and looked at, whether the profile made from such target will perform accurately. I've made and looked at enough of them, then tested their accuracy on all kinds of paper to be quite convinced of this. It would be interesting if Mark MCG could use his target that he says looks good for making a test print with known reference values that he can then measure with a spectrophotometer and tell us what the dE(76) readings are.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."
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