Need Help Please

[Greg11]

Please can someone point me in the right direction. I've struggled long enough on my own trying to work out color management through reading literature, and have run aground. Well, lets just say I haven't got any more hair left.
I'm an aspiring hobby photographer and despite investing in the equipment I can't say I've been successful or satisfied with the quality and consistency of my prints. There are just so many variables

Here is my setup:

XP pro laptop with 1GB of ram, all updates current
NEC Multisync LCD 1990SXi 19" monitor
The laptop monitor is normally turned off
Photoshop CS4
ColorVision Spyder2 suite (came with ColorVision PrintFIX PLUS, which I've never used)
Canon Pixma iP5200 inkjet printer
Paper is either Canon glossy, satin, or matt papers. Recently I have tried Pinnacle cotton Natural White 310gsm, which I absolutely love
Epson Perfection 4490 scanner
I'm between cameras at the mo, working with either jpegs from my mobile phone or scanning in old family photos, which is my current project

If I can get my pictures to look remotely like what's on my monitor, whether jpeg, scan, or RAW I'll be happy (not actually true, I'd like 'em spot on!).

When I recently calibrated the monitor the results from Spyder2 were too reddish, and I preferred the monitor look with no calibration. That pretty much sums up my 'success' with my attempts at quality printing.

Here are the variables as I see them:

• I have my monitor set to 'Native', which I believe is sRGB
• The CS4 'Print' dialogue box offers me (top right in the dialogue box, as in fig.1) two options in a drop-down box, Color Management and Output ( I only ever had it set to Color Management). Under Color Management you find 'Photoshop Manages Color' and 'Printer Manages Color'. I always have that set to 'Photoshop Manages Color'. Please see fig.1
• It also warns me to 'remember to disable color management in the printer dialogue box'
• In the iP5200 Printing Preferences (Main tab) dialogue box I then set the options as in fig.2, the paper is selected, print quality High, Color/Intensity is set to 'Manual', which I assume is me 'remembering to disable color management in the printer'. If I click on Set.. it takes me through to the Manual Color Adjustment dialogue box, all variables are set to zero. That's the lower screenshot in fig.2
• Additionally, in the Properties dialogue window (Color Management tab) you find more variables. I'm assuming this set to Manual (fig.3) is also correct for 'remembering to disable color management in the printer'
• As if that's not enough, in the Printing Preferences dialogue box there's a Profiles tab (see fig.4). I wouldn't know where to start with this one.

I'm loving what I get on screen with the old family photos, color and B&W, but its hit and miss with the prints. All help massively appreciated!  

[Mark D Segal]

You probably have two problems and possibly a third:

(1) Spyder 2 was never a great monitor profiling solution. Check with NEC for what they have or would recommend as a better profiling solution for that particular model display, buy it, and profile your monitor reliably.

(2) The second problem - and this probably the more decisive one - according to your first screen grab, you don't have a printer profile selected in the place that says Printer Profile. You have an sRGB colour working space selected. This is wrong. In this box you should have selected the profile for your printer and paper combination.

(3) I don't use Canon printers so I don't know how to ensure that Printer Colour Management is definitively turned off by what you've done. If there is any doubt whatsoever in your mind about whether printer colour management is turned off, which it HAS TO BE if you want Photoshop to manage the colour (as you should), then refer to the manual for that printer, because the manual surely tells you how to disable colour management in the printer driver. If it doesn't (which would surprise me), call Canon tech support and let them help you ensure you got it right.

[John Nollendorfs]

To quickly turn around your printing situation try using, "printer manages color". You will get a print that is "more in the ball park".

To move into "photoshop" manages color, you need to, download and install the manufacturer's provided profiles, and use them in the profiles pulldown menue for the particular paper you have loaded. This will result in much better, more saturated, looking prints.

The ColorVision suite you have is "ancient". The Current Spyder model is 4. It would work well with CRT monitors, but not so well with LCD monitors.  With SpyderPrint, you can create your own profiles for the papers you are using, but this also is a very early version of "print". They have greatly improved both hardware and software. You could experiment with profile making, but right off the bat, use the profiles provided with the papers.

Ultimately, when your system is properly balanced, the image on a good monitor, and the print coming out of the printer should look fairly close. With practice, you will be able to develop the proper "English" in judging how the screen image will look in print.

[Mark D Segal]

............With practice, you will be able to develop the proper "English" in judging how the screen image will look in print.

This should be largely unnecessary with a properly colour managed workflow. That's the whole purpose of it - to replace judgment with reliability as much as possible, and these days "as much as possible" means "almost completely". To make sure of this, Greg11 should of course also be soft-proofing his output before he prints and make his final adjustments under soft-proof - but that's only useful once he has a proper printer profile installed and selected in the the Photoshop print dialog. Oh yes - and he also needs to be sure that the paper selected in the printer driver is the same one that the printer/paper profile is keyed to if he is not using Canon media and Canon printer/paper profiles.

Your short-hand work-around is useful as a first approximation for detecting whether any other problems may be interfering with decent results, but he says he wants an accurate, predictable outcome, so he should set about doing it all the better way - good display profile, Photoshop managing colour, good and correct printer profile, and soft-proofing. None of this is completely foolproof, but just as a matter of example, I'm fussy, I make lots of prints and my reject rate because of colour management disappointments is close to zero, and I'm far from unique in this.

[MarkM]

Also, take a look at that first screen shot. In addition to what Mark Segal noticed about the printer profile, the document itself seems to be an untagged RGB document. I'm not quite sure what the color management software should be expected to do with that.

[Mark D Segal]

Yes - good observation. It would see that Greg does not have his warnings activated in Photoshop Color Settings Preferences. A document like that should open with a missing profile warning asking him to at least assign one flavour or another of RGB to the file from the get-go.

[Greg11]

Many thanks for these really useful replies. I'm tied up with work this week and will go into your suggestions and reply again towards the weekend ,

Greg