Ps CS4 Printer Dialog Changes

[madmanchan]

Again I will ask. Why is Adobe coding things to force the drivers to do something?

If I may ask: What makes you believe that Adobe coding is forcing the drivers to do anything?

Context: There is no API with which Adobe's code can actually force the driver to do anything. On Leopard, Adobe's print code talks to Leopard. The printer drive code talks to Leopard. Adobe's code and the printer driver do not talk directly to each other.

The issue that can arise is this: if Leopard believes that the printer driver is going to take care of color management, Leopard may map the source data to Generic RGB, which will of course lead the image data to emerge rather horribly.

[Schewe]

So which is the "right" flavor, CS4 & LR, or CS3?

Based on my measurements, I'm guessing it's CS3, because if you go to the Windows side (or prior to Leopard on the Mac side), CS3, CS4, and LR all print the same way if you use your method (i.e., select Adobe RGB as the profile), and the output matches CS3 + Mac Leopard. So, of all these combos, the ones that "stand apart from the others" are LR & CS4 under Leopard.

Funky, huh?

Funky? You bet...anythng that has to live with and deal with Leopard is one strike against it and tat includes Photoshop, Lightroom and the print drivers...I really feel sorry for the time & effort people have to fight upstream against Apple's less than stellar constant changing of the ColorSync pipeline...the more they (and everybody else) tries to fix things, the more complicated the breakage becomes! All I know is that in order to print out of LR 2.1, I use Adobe RGB and then the ABW n=mode and that seems to work.

:~(

[Doyle Yoder]

On Leopard, Adobe's print code talks to Leopard.

Same thing. You don't have to do this do you?

[madmanchan]

Actually, yes we do ...

(That's how the Quartz 2D API works under Leopard.)

[Doyle Yoder]

Actually, yes we do ...

(That's how the Quartz 2D API works under Leopard.)

Then why does this not happen under Indesign or Illustrator? Not being able to select anything under Color Matching (forced to ColorSync) is what I am talking about.

Doyle

[madmanchan]

Doyle, unfortunately I can't speak for Illustrator/InDesign since they're too far removed from what I'm familiar with.

Under Leopard there are now 2 color-managed print paths via the Quartz 2D API. In terms of interface, they manifest themselves in the Color Matching heading in the driver, with one option being ColorSync, the other being "Vendor Controls" (or sometime under another name, such as "Epson Color Controls", etc.).

When printing from PS CS4 under Leopard, when you choose Photoshop Manages Colors (or in LR if you choose a printer profile in the Print Module), then the first print path is used (i.e., ColorSync in the Color Matching section). This is absolutely the correct thing to do. When you choose Printer Manages Colors, then the second print path is used (i.e., "Vendor Controls" or whatever it's called).

Whether or not these options are enabled/disabled or not is largely irrelevant. Only two print paths are supported under Leopard, and this requires all parties involved (application, OS, driver) to be working in concert for both print paths to work correctly.

For instance, things work fine with the Epson RGB color drivers for their current printers under Leopard (even though the controls in the "Color Matching" pane are disabled and set to "ColorSync" when using Photoshop Manages Colors).

[kingdex]

Thought  I'd chime in here since I started this pesky little thread: Hopefully those here printing b&w have been following this same thread in the Adobe forums as well (Adobe Product Forums>Adobe Photoshop>Photoshop Macintosh).

Eric Chan and I have been hammering this topic to death over there. And, Eric has found what seems to be an air-tight workaround for using ABW profiles and printing accurately in PCSC4 using ABW. This is how it works:

in CS4:

- Edit -> Convert to Profile. Choose your custom B&W profile. Preview image should look ok.

- Edit -> Assign Profile. Choose Generic RGB. Preview will look bogus. Ignore it.

- Do File -> Print. Choose Printer Manages Colors. Rendering Intent doesn't matter.

- Set ABW driver settings as desired.

I might add on a very important note that, on Eric's recommendation, I'm printing my ABW targets using PSCS3 and building ABW profiles from those CS3 targets. I use these profiles when printing from CS4. This is a very important point! And, needless to say, prints are consistent with the soft proofs from those profiles. Speaking of which, if you soft proof from PSCS4 using the above mentioned profiles, make all your output adjustments and do your soft proofing BEFORE you do the Convert/Assign workaround. If you try to adjust your screen image after doing Convert/Assign it will screw up everything on output!!

Eric's more detailed explanation as to why this works and what we can look forward to insofar as a fix is concerned can be found on the Adobe. Don't know if this will take you there or not but try it: http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?13@@.59b7055a/34

Hope this helps. And again, Many thanks to Eric's diligent work.

kingdex