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Author Topic: Printer profiling - No colour Management  (Read 2194 times)

Nick Walker

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Printer profiling - No colour Management
« on: May 11, 2017, 07:34:11 am »

Is Adobe's Color Printer Utility still the only surefire way to print test patches without colour management issues for profiling?

Last year I changed from Epson to the Canon Pro 1000.

Is there any up to date information on printing test charts for using canon printers with the Adobe Color Print Utility? I seem to recall there were some issues printing test charts with Canon printers via the Adobe Color Printer Utility.

Thanks in advance

Mark D Segal

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2017, 07:46:17 am »

There's been a lot of discussion about this in this Forum as well as in my article on the Canon Pro-2000 printer. You should not use ACPU with the Canon Pro 1000 for printing profiling targets. Use Canon's Print Studio Pro and switch the colour controls option to No Color Controls.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Nick Walker

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2017, 08:18:22 am »

Hi mark,

Thanks for your reply and advice. If Canon can add a no colour management option, why on earth can't Adobe do the same. No doubt they will blame Apple.

I have spent several hours trying to Google about this problem, why does life have to be made so 'bloody frustrating' and difficult for such a simple end user task in this day and age!
« Last Edit: May 11, 2017, 09:26:29 am by N Walker »
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2017, 08:59:59 am »

Hi mark,

Thanks for your reply and advice. If Canon can add a no colour management option, why on earth can't Adobe do the same. No doubt thay will blame Apple.

I have spent several hours trying to Google about this problem, why does life have to be made so 'bloody frustrating' and difficult for such a simple end user task in this day and age!

There is a long pedigree to this issue which you can research in these pages. But I think you will discover it is not an Adobe issue. Adobe did what it could to resolve the problem when it issued the Adobe Color Print Utility to allow users to print unmanaged profiling targets. That has been working very well on all Epson printers I've tested it with (and so have a great many others) ever since it was released. The problem of using ACPU relates to the new series of Canon Pro x000 printers. No-one has come up with an explanation of why, but Canon has also fixed the issue with the latest version of Print Studio Pro (2.1.0) that allows for printing these targets correctly. So it has become a non-issue. You just need to know which software to use for which printers. You may also print profiling targets through i1Profiler and Apple Colorsync utility.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Doug Gray

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2017, 01:09:55 pm »

This situation where, from time to time,  something in the printer data path alters colors w/o color management even on things like ACPU is nuts.  It seems to me that the only way to detect this nonsense, absent careful measurements on different paths with a spectro, is capture the data stream going out to the USB or Ethernet port, decode it, and make sure it isn't getting altered.

This is certainly doable and some printer protocols are in the public domain and can be found in open source repositories but would be a considerable amount of work to sift through and document.

If I experienced this I would likely plunge into it but I haven't had the problem with my limited set of printers and Win OS.
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Nick Walker

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2017, 02:24:45 pm »

It's beyond me how Canon can produce plug-in software for Photoshop CC which enables a test print to be made with no colour management and yet Photosop CC can't achieve this by iteslf.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2017, 02:47:22 pm by N Walker »
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2017, 04:17:20 pm »

It's beyond me how Canon can produce plug-in software for Photoshop CC which enables a test print to be made with no colour management and yet Photosop CC can't achieve this by iteslf.

To start with, the issue isn't about making test prints. It's about printing unmanaged printer profiling targets. Secondly, ACPU is a FREE download for this very purpose from the Adobe website, so no plug-in needed. You just download it and use it stand-alone. Very easy.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Nick Walker

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2017, 04:41:57 pm »

To start with, the issue isn't about making test prints. It's about printing unmanaged printer profiling targets. Secondly, ACPU is a FREE download for this very purpose from the Adobe website, so no plug-in needed. You just download it and use it stand-alone. Very easy.

Hi Mark,

ACPU is very easy to use, I have been using it for several years with Epson printers to print unmanaged profiling targets, but not with the Canon Pro 1000. As you have kindly pointed out to me with the Canon Pro 1000 its best to use Print Studio Pro, Colorsync or i1Profiler (need to update software for my Gretag Macbeth spectro)

It was so much easier with Photoshop CS4 and before to print unmanaged profiling targets. Although using the latest Photoshop CC I stiil have CS4 - I suspect that El capitan will throw a spanner in the works and not permit printer targets to be printed unmanaged.

I am currently testing Colorsync and Canon's Print Studio Pro re unmanaged profile targets.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2017, 04:58:20 pm by N Walker »
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Farmer

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2017, 05:56:34 pm »

Adobe are following the paradigm specified by the OS colour management process and avoiding an immense amount of support calls relating to people accidentally (and unknowingly) not following the correct colour path.  The number of people who need to print in the way you do is extremely limited as a percentage of the total user base.  ACPU was developed and provided (and supported) for free for that very small segment.
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Phil Brown

henrikolsen

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Re: Printer profiling - No colour Management
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2017, 01:47:55 pm »

Be aware that the specific combination used of different versions of OS, printer, firmware and printing tool can affect results - as, unfortunately, bugs have sneaked in here and there.

My experience earlier using macOS Sierra 10.12.3, printer driver 16.10.1.0 and latest firmware at time of writing is here:

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=110646.msg959468#msg959468

I tested ACPU, Canon Print Studio Pro 2.1.0 and ColorSync for printing targets with the Pro-1000. On this combination of hardware and software, I concluded that Print Studio Pro (PSP) did _not_ print targets as expected (unaltered), whereas ACPU and ColorSync were alike, and matching measurements included in Canon's own provided ICC profiles (should be a valid outside reference in my eyes).

So I (still) use ACPU or ColorSync, to my best technical ability shown to print targets correctly, and I achieve great accuracy on resulting profiles made afterwards. I use a somewhat less used toolset, ArgyllCMS, that works best for me regarding control and insight, like here (target testing in isolation), but that tool choice doesn't influence whether the printing tools print unaltered or not, just helps verify it for me). Use what profiling toolset works for you, but just ensure you trust what it does.

Some of my shown results were perhaps slightly misunderstood (might be unclearly explained), but not that important for conclusion. The tests only focused on determining which tool outputs unaltered target prints. I tested target print in itself to reference measurements by others, not results of final profile, several steps down the profiling chain (I think some thought that - but not relevant here for me, as target print should be trusted first, in isolation). I wanted here alone to clarify target print tool correctness itself.

PSP does work for some setups though (and actually fix what other tools seem to make bad), as Mark S has shown in his thorough articles - possibly with other combinations of software, or because some errors cancel each other out later on in the profile toolset chain. End-to-end pipeline is complex given the many mixes of software and usage. Once you find something that verifirably works on an absolute level on your specific combination, be happy and stick with it while it lasts. But finding that solution can, as shown on the forum, be a struggle and confusing sometimes... For me, my tests were pretty clear on my setup though. PSP was clearly shown _not_ to print targets unaltered.

So a heads up that it can take some investigation on your specific setup to feel secure you get trustworthy results, from start to end. Good luck, and fingers crossed these mishaps in software combos will get fewer and fewer.
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