Thanks to all that have contributed, I guess I have a lot to learn.
For those that asked I am using Windows XP and CS3. And yes I have turned of color managment in the printer driver.
Several replies indicated that my viewing area may be too bright. Probably. I do not have a very sophisticated set-up and have no way of knowing what my luminance is (how does one control it anyway?).
But... (bear with me I am a neophyte) it seems to me this is a way of saying that what I perceive on the monitor is probably not the " true color" and what I see on my profiled printer is 'right' and that once I adjust the luminance my monitor the image will be closer to my print rather than the other way around. Certainly I have seen the effect that ambient light can have on the appearance of the image on the screen and the print. However its not just that the print is too dark, its also that some of the colors just are not right. I have looked at the same print on 3 different LCD and a laptop (of which only one has been profiled) and get tolerably similar colors - though admittedly different brightness. So doesn't this imply the problem is with the print itself?
ChasP505 wrote
In the Canon printer settings, are you turning off Print Preview? I know that seems unrelated to the problem, but it's been found to be a cause of color shifts in Canon printers.
This is intriguing. Do you have more information? This may explain why some of my prints do not give consistent results when printed under the same conditions. I will try this.
Wayne
When you say the target colors are "out of gamut", how are you determining that? You shouldn't be using any printer profiles. Soft proofing a target is meaningless ... yes many colors will probably be out of gamut. That's sort of the point ... where is the limit of your printers gamut, the only way to tell that is send it a color that exceeds it, then read the results.
I guess I do not really understand this comment. I checked by soft proofing the target using the generic profile for my printer/paper that I downloaded from the Illford site. I thought this might be an indication of how far off the profile is and whether or not I needed a custom profile.
For that matter what does a custom profile actually do? What does it do with the printed colors in the target that are not correct.
Thanks for the help.
Robert