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Author Topic: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think  (Read 12267 times)

TGM123

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Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« on: February 19, 2015, 07:46:32 am »

Hello,

I have spent the last several months learning as much as I can about the best way to create prints from my iMac (Canon Pro-100, Precision colors new ink set, mostly Red River Ultra Gloss, printing from Lightroom 5, monitor calibrated, DigitalDog's "Why are my prints so dark" article read and re-read).

My current situation is that I think have solved the "prints to dark issue" by a combination of viewing conditions and calibration settings (again thanks to DigitalDog's "Why are my prints so dark" article). I am also am happy with the colors. I say "I think" because I have not printed enough of a variety of things to fully convince myself I have nailed it, but that will come.

Here however is the catch, when I say that I have solved the issue I get the desired results only when I let the printer manage the color in Lightroom. Whenever I use the ICC profiles the colors are not only off but much darker. I now that this is somewhat messed up logic that I think I am in control of my color workflow yet the process to control it the most (using ICC's) give the worst results. However, I do know that the combination of my computer, software, ink, lighting conditions, and eye can indeed deliver what I would consider an acceptable print. Not sure if that makes sense.

So, any ideas as to what I am doing wrong when try and use ICC's? I get my ICC profiles from the Red River site and more recently from Precision Colors site (which are new based on the most recent ink set) and in both cases they are off. Any known gocha's that new guys like me fall for? Is there a logical approach you can suggest to help me track down the issue?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Best,

Tom
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PeterAit

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2015, 08:33:36 am »


Here however is the catch, when I say that I have solved the issue I get the desired results only when I let the printer manage the color in Lightroom.


There seems to be some confusion if the above is what you meant to write. The printer cannot "manage the color in LR." It's either the printer (the driver, actually) applying the ICC profile during printing, or it's LR - not both. Of course it's possible to apply both, this is called double profiling and is a common cause of screwed up colors (as I learned well early on!).

In theory, color management by LR or by the printer should give identical results, after all it is the same profile. But it is my understanding that most photographers prefer to let the software (LR, Photoshop, QImage, etc) manage the color and always have management turned off in the printer driver.
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TGM123

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2015, 08:42:23 am »

Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes, I misspoke, when I said "Here however is the catch, when I say that I have solved the issue I get the desired results only when I let the printer manage the color in Lightroom."

When I choose the "Managed by Printer" option in LR the prints seem to turn out fine. When I, in that same drop-down box pick a specific ICC profile, the prints are off as described above.
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Simon Garrett

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2015, 09:04:15 am »

Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes, I misspoke, when I said "Here however is the catch, when I say that I have solved the issue I get the desired results only when I let the printer manage the color in Lightroom."

When I choose the "Managed by Printer" option in LR the prints seem to turn out fine. When I, in that same drop-down box pick a specific ICC profile, the prints are off as described above.

When you choose "managed by printer" in LR, do you turn on colour management in the printer, and specify the print profile?  

By default, most printers don't use colour management, but do their own thing - assuming the image to be sRGB, and applying proprietry alterations to make the print "pretty" (often increasing saturation and contrast).  But this is not the same as turning off colour management, which means turning off ALL processing in the printer driver.  

The two options for colour management:
  • Specify "managed by printer" in LR, and then explicitly turn on colour management in the printer and specify the printer profile (almost certainly not the default setting in the print driver)
  • Specify colour management in LR, specifying the printer profile, and then turning off all processing including colour management in the printer (again, almost certainly not the default setting

Forgive me if you know all this, but just in case, here is an example of settings for my Epson R2000 printer.  

Here are the default printer settings:


Note the "Mode" is "PhotoEnhance".  In this setting, the driver messes the picture to make it "pretty", which is useless for colour mangement.


If you get LR to manage colours by specifying a printer profile (not "printer manages colours") then you must explictly turn off all processing in the printer:



If you set "Managed by printer" in LR, then you must specify this in the printer driver:

and in this case, you must (for my printer) click "Advanced" and specify the printer profile, source image profile and so on.  

This will vary from printer to printer, obviously.

Apologies if you know all this, but as PeterAit says, from your post it suggested you might not.  
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TGM123

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2015, 05:47:32 pm »

Hi Simon,

Thanks so much for the through reply, I appreciate it. Also, no need to apologize for anything, I am here to learn.

Your advice was helpful and I think I am making further progress.

I have included two screen shots both have the print module and printer dialogue in the same shot. One is managed by the printer and I supply the ICC profile in the print dialogue box and the other LR manages the color and you can see the same dialogue box is now greyed out. These two make sense to me. The prints are different though, one has a green cast to it. Why are they different when no double profiling was involved and both use the same ICC profile?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Tom
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 06:25:28 pm by TGM123 »
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digitaldog

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2015, 05:56:54 pm »

The 2nd dialog is correct is what you want for using that profile.
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TGM123

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2015, 06:42:47 pm »

Thanks.

Bummer as that one is the one with the slightly green sheen to it.

Can you shed a little light on why that is? I am not clear why they are different as they both use the same ICC profile.

Best,

Tom
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janwalker47

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2015, 12:10:31 pm »

I don't pretend to be expert at this but I do have a Canon printer (9500 Mk ii) and I do use a Mac. After standing on my head trying to make the printer use the profiles I created or the ones from paper manufacturers, I went to using Let Printer Manage Colors from Photoshop. Then in the printer settings, when I looked under Color Matching, it showed the Vendor Matching as selected. I believe this is the same as the Canon Color Matching in your dialog. Have you tried that, just forgetting for the moment about profiles for the particular paper? It might be worthwhile for data collection purposes. I was blown away when i discovered that the prints I got that way were more acceptable than the ones where I specified profiles from Photoshop. I don't claim to know what the software is actually doing; just giving some empirical experience.
Regards-
Jan
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Mac Mahon

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2015, 05:02:16 pm »

Thanks.

Bummer as that one is the one with the slightly green sheen to it.

Can you shed a little light on why that is? I am not clear why they are different as they both use the same ICC profile.

Best,

Tom

Tom

It's a while since I used a Canon Printer - and not the Pr0-100 at that, but I would proceed along Andrew's suggested path too.  Is it possible that the system is double profiling?  Is there another selection in the dropdown that allows for 'Color Correction' or something like that?  If so it should be selected 'off' or 'none'.  Otherwise it's possible that the driver will still apply a profile even though you have asked for Lightroom to do that - the result will typically be darker, off colors.

On the other hand, it seems that Canon now lets you invoke Colorsync and the correct printer profile through the driver (that wasn't always the case) when you ask LR to let the printer manage colors.  It could be that Canon has solved printer path problems by this method.  I'd say if you're getting good screen print matching using this method (and you did say you needed to test more, if I remember), perhaps it's the way to go.

Just my 2¢

Tim
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robertvine

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #9 on: April 05, 2015, 08:22:58 pm »

Hi Tom, are you soft proofing?  Do you see the green colour shift in the soft proofs? I print on an Epson 4800 with custom printer profiles and I've found that the soft proofs that I get in LR are not always 100% accurate to what I see in the final print. For example my soft proofs will show greens that are desaturated (especially in leaves) but if I correct this by increasing green saturation I end up with a print that has over saturated (almost flouro) greens. Experience with your printer and paper combination can count for a lot too.

What are the viewing conditions like? Try taking the print outside into bright sunlight and into the shade to view it to see how it looks. Also try looking at it under tungsten and flouro lights. Most of my prints look great under my house lights but there have been some that look terrible indoors and great under sunlight.
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digitaldog

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #10 on: April 05, 2015, 10:34:51 pm »

I print on an Epson 4800 with custom printer profiles and I've found that the soft proofs that I get in LR are not always 100% accurate to what I see in the final print.=
That's probably a display calibration issue. LR and Photoshop (or any other app that supports soft proofing) should produce identical results.
Profiles have two tables, the one that deals with the soft proof could be iffy. But then if you calibrate the display for a match, that should take care of that.
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JRSmit

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #11 on: April 06, 2015, 03:58:12 am »

That's probably a display calibration issue. LR and Photoshop (or any other app that supports soft proofing) should produce identical results.
Profiles have two tables, the one that deals with the soft proof could be iffy. But then if you calibrate the display for a match, that should take care of that.

isoftproof with lr and it is good as it gets. The one thing is under which controlled lighting do you put your print when comparing.
one other thing the profile is not taken into account any variaties in printer ink or paper since the creations of the profile. And they do. Which can gives rise to color shifts.
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #12 on: April 06, 2015, 11:24:10 am »

In the first screenshot you are allowing Apple’s Colorsync to manage the colours.  If you want the Canon driver to colour manage then the second radio button should be selected.

If I understand correctly, the mystery is why this former combination produces a more satisfactory print than the latter, where colour management is performed by Lightroom ?  Without wishing to revive this subject perhaps this points to vagaries of Apple’s colour management ?

For what it’s worth – using bespoke (ColorMunki created) profiles I have never been able to get a perfect match between screen and print always having to make minor adjustments, and some lightening, both in Lightroom and Photoshop.  I have not found that printer and paper manufacturer created profiles give good results.  Others may differ on these points though.
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digitaldog

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Re: Making some progress on getting prints to match screen...I think
« Reply #13 on: April 06, 2015, 11:31:12 am »

If I understand correctly, the mystery is why this former combination produces a more satisfactory print than the latter, where colour management is performed by Lightroom ? 
Either other areas are not correctly setup up and/or the profile used isn't a very good one.
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