Lightroom print matching issues - advice requested

[khenke]

Greetings,

Although I considered myself well versed in color management and printing, I just started experimenting with printing from Lightroom 5. This issue is this sandstone image and basically the reds being shifted more toward orange. The brightness is perfect, however. And yes, my iMac is color calibrated with an i1 Pro and am using the appropriate paper profiles. In fact, to double check, I have printed on 3 different papers with my Epson 3880. All were photo papers with photo black ink. For comparison, I have always used Aperture and is does capture and match my screen fairly close. I also printed out of PS CC with the same results poor results.  So, its something with Adobe and/or my settings/ techniques, perhaps?

I also soft proofed and not soft proofed. The soft proof prints are a tad better, but still the reds are not displaying correctly. They shift to more orange and orange-ish brown. I have read through Jeff Schewe's Print e-book and other on line info and still have not found an answer to this issue.

No doubt I can continue to print out of Aperture, but now I have a challenge to figure this out! Also, I like the soft proofing capability feature of Lightroom over Aperture, hence why I was experimenting in the first place. Other trouble shooting I went through including recalibrating and restarting my Mac.

So, for those well versed in printing from Lightroom, do you have any words of wisdom?  Are you able to get matched prints from your screen?



Ken

[howardm]

what papers have you tried and which is the 'primary'.  Which paper profiles?  Do you know if they are version2 or version4 profiles (I think you can get that info from the ColorSync Utility).

[Mac Mahon]

Ken

Yes.  I always get good matching between my profiled monitor (NEC PA241W) and print on my 3880.  Using Mac OS 10.9.  In the old days of my iMac, I got distinct differences in deep cyans for no other reason that the iMac gamut is limited in those colours.

However, FWIW, the jpg image you attached looks mostly 'orange' and not very 'red' at all, on my monitor. 

Are you saying that in all of LR, PS CC and Aperture the image has distinct red tones on your screen?  But both LR and PS produce a print that is more orange than red (which is the way I see your image).

If so, I'd wonder about about the monitor profile, I think.  Then I'd wonder about whether Aperture is correctly selecting the paper profile. 

Just a thought.

Tim

[khenke]

The papers I have tried are BC Metallic, Ilford Gold Silk, and Canson Baryta. I have no idea what versions they are

To provide you all a visual, I've included a scan of both the Aperture and Lightroom image. The Aperture image is the one that is more reddish, which closely matches the screen view. The Lightroom image is more subdued oranges and are not a bright as they should be. Don't know whether Aperture is selecting the right paper profile, but regardless, it is printing correctly.

[howardm]

to see what version profile, open the profile in the Devices -> Printer tab of the ColorSync and look for 'Specification Version'

[khenke]

The versions for the papers I used were; Canson and Breathing Color Metallic - 2.4;  the Ilford was 2.2.

[khenke]

Good news as I finally have Lightroom printing well. Besides messing with every setting known, I was at my wits end. From another forum, they suggested monitor recalibration. Well, yea I did conduct that with my i1 display device. However, for kicks I did it again this time in advanced mode. The only two items I really changed was the numbers of color patches it measured and a setting for ICC profile that was changed to standard settings (version 4 instead of version 2). Howard, you were on to this rather quicky!

Well, $30+ of paper and ink was used, but now Lightroom printing is matching my screen quite well. Visually, I don't see much change on the screen display, but whatever changed it was for the better. That said, Aperture still prints well as before with no change. Unfortunately, I can't explain the technology of how those two image processors work in regards to printing, but there is a clear difference.

If nothing else, maybe the time and resources I put into this "experiment" will help others.

[khenke]

Dang, went to use Lightroom to print on a different day and back to the same problem, not matching my screen. I'm at a total loss what is going on with Lightroom and how it prints.

[khenke]

Just for kicks, I went back and printed the same image giving me fits and it printed quite well. Given that Aperture has printed it well the whole time, that would tend to suggest no system wide issue. What it would suggest is some kind of glitch with LR in reading the ICC profile correctly. I can't, nor has anyone else on multiple forums, suggested anything they were aware of that would cause this printing issue. I've been recording the settings for each of the prints I made so I'm 99.8% sure settings were not the issue, otherwise I would post screen shots. For now all is good.