DXO Optics Pro Color management when printing with imageprograf pro 1000

[traderjay]

Hey All - This is my first time posting here and look forward to actively participating in this great community. Most importantly, I am looking forward to learning from all the pros here who have years of experience with fine art photo printing such as Mark and the rest of the crew

I recently just got back into the digital photography and printing world after a few years of hiatus and my gear is primarily the 5D IV and imageprograf pro 1000. With this printer, I typically print via photoshop's canon Print Studio Pro plugin and I've been getting excellent results when using the appropriate ICC profiles and the output almost matches my color calibrated screen (NEC PA301W and LCD 3090 WQXI). However I do a bit of correction and processing via DXO Optics Pro and that software does not support the canon plugin. It does give me an option of using the paper ICC profiles in the print settings but compared to the output from Print Studio Pro, the color is way off. DXO Optics Pro printer setting does give me the following warning "Don't forget to turn OFF color management in the "printer Properties" window and I am not sure if this applies to the Canon driver?

When I export the processed image as JPEG and print via photoshop, using the Canon plugin, my colors are then again identical to the screen. Is there a driver setting where I can turn off color management?

[Mark D Segal]

The Canon Pro-1000 driver does not have a setting that disables colour management; you have a choice of either OS or Printer colour management. To disable colour management with these new Canon printers, you need to use Print Studio Pro and turn it off there; normally we do this only for printing profiling targets. But if DxO does not recognize Print Studio Pro and Print Studio Pro is the only way to disable colour management in the printer, you are stuck. The colour would be incorrect if both the printer and the application with its ICC profiles are trying to manage colour simultaneously. Never good.

I don't know DxO's raw converter so I can't advise about printing from it, but if you were printing through Lightroom for example, you would leave the Canon driver set to OS color management - i.e. ColorSync (Mac) or ICM (Windows), not use Print Studio Pro and your colour management would be fine direct from the Lightroom Print Module to printer - properly calibrated/profiled display image viewed under softproof and print will match. I do all my work this way when I am using the Pro-1000.

[Panagiotis]

The Canon Pro-1000 driver does not have a setting that disables colour management;

Mark if it's Windows it has:
Main --> Color/Intensity --> Manual --> Set --> Matching --> None

In windows there are three options:

Driver Matching (printer)
ICM (Windows OS)
None (no color correction)

From the manual: http://ugp01.c-ij.com/ij/webmanual/PrinterDriver/W/PRO-1000%20series/1.0/EN/PPG/Dg-main.html#main_05

[Mark D Segal]

I was responding based on the driver I have for the Canon Pro-1000, which is the driver for Macintosh OSX. What I said above stands in respect of the OSX version. I haven't used a Windows computer since 2010, but I recall even back then the driver set-up differed.

[traderjay]

Thanks all for the quick responses and I will definitely try to reprint the photos. I guess printing directly from the RAW workflow will result in better image quality than exporting it to JPEG and then printing? 

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks all for the quick responses and I will definitely try to reprint the photos. I guess printing directly from the RAW workflow will result in better image quality than exporting it to JPEG and then printing?

The most important place to preserve the raw workflow is for image editing. There is no need, and loss of data converting to JEPG for printing. Depending on the image the results may be OK, but why take the risk and why bother? I do all my printing of raw files (which under the hood and on-the-fly get sent to the printer in a temporary format acceptable to the printer) from Lightroom without making any permanent format conversions. The results are fine, as also found by a great many photographers.

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

[M]y gear is ... imageprograf pro 1000.... I typically print via photoshop's canon Print Studio Pro plugin .... However I do a bit of correction and processing via DXO Optics Pro and that software does not support the canon plugin. It does give me an option of using the paper ICC profiles in the print settings but compared to the output from Print Studio Pro, the color is way off. DXO Optics Pro printer setting does give me the following warning "Don't forget to turn OFF color management in the "printer Properties" window and I am not sure if this applies to the Canon driver?

This may well be an Apple / Windows issue, but what Panagiotis said is exactly how it works for me in Windows 7 with a Pro-100 (not Pro-1000). But there may be another workaround too: DxO Optics Pro has a plugin that works at least with Lightroom. I don't know whether it works with regular Photoshop. You do have to choose to install the plugin when you install (or update) Optics Pro; however, IIRC it detects that I have Lightroom and suggests installing the plugin.

More generally, as much as I like DxO Optics Pro, printing is one of the two big issues that IMO DxO should address, at least by version 12 (currently I've got 11.4.2 Elite, and I've been using it since version 8 or 9):
(1) the internal working color space should be expanded from Adobe RGB to ProPhoto RGB or some other wider-gamut space, and
(2) the print section needs a substantial improvement, because the current options and controls are somewhat limited and crude.