Green Tint on prints

[Fred Salamon]

I am having a problem and would appreciate any help.
My prints all have a slight greenish tint.

Printing on Canson Platine Fibre Rag paper with an Epson 2200 printer.
Using the icc profile from Canson.
Monitor is profiled w/i1 Display Pro.
Using Lightroom 5.7
Perceptual or Relative Intent does not seem to make a difference as far as the green tint is concerned.
Softproofs look good on the screen. Do not see any greenish cast.

Had the same images printed at Freestylephoto on Platine using a Canon iPF6450, they look great.

I realize that I will not get the same results because of the difference in printers, inks and profiles.
That being said, I am satisfied with the color I am getting from the Epson 2200 apart from the green tint.

Should I try adding some magenta via the Tint control in Lightroom? If so how much or is it just trial and error?

Thank you for any help.

[Mark D Segal]

Did you do a nozzle check to see whether the Magenta channel in the printer is clogged?

[Fred Salamon]

Mark,
Thank you for the suggestion.
I ran a nozzle check before I started printing and another just now. Both show no clogs.

[BobShaw]

It could be lots of things.
Did you turn on the Gamut warning when you did the soft proofing?
Are you printing from Photoshop/Lightroom?
What colour space is Photoshop/Lightroom using?
What profile is embedded in the file?

[Mark D Segal]

Mark,
Thank you for the suggestion.
I ran a nozzle check before I started printing and another just now. Both show no clogs.

OK, good to know that's not the cause. The next most likely suspect is the profile. Do they actually have a custom profile for that printer? - it is a very old model by now. Just to test the possibility that it may be the profile, pick up a small package of letter size Epson paper - perhaps close to the one from Canson you are using, and run a couple of prints with it using the Epson profile matched for that Epson paper and the 2200 printer. See if the green tint is still there. If it isn't, you are pretty sure the problem is with the Canson profile.

[Fred Salamon]

Mark,

Canson does have a profile, which I downloaded and installed.
I have recently made prints on Epson Premium Lustre using an Epson profile without any problems.
I am reluctant to invest in a custom profile for a printer this old, would rather explore alternatives.
Hopefully there is way to resolve this green tint issue that will allow me to complete my current printing needs.
Thank you for you help.

[Fred Salamon]

I looked at the Canson profile in ICC Profile Inspector.
Under color space in ICC Profile Inspector it shows RGB.

I believe Lightroom uses a different color space.
I opened the image in Photoshop CC and under Edit > Color Settings chose Adobe RGB.
Then printed the image through Photoshop rather than Lightroom, using the same icc profile from Canson and it looks like the green tint is gone.

I will test more and see if this holds up, but I would like to understand what is actually going on.
Is the problem that Lightroom uses a different color space than Photoshop?

[Mark D Segal]

I looked at the Canson profile in ICC Profile Inspector.
Under color space in ICC Profile Inspector it shows RGB.

I believe Lightroom uses a different color space.
I opened the image in Photoshop CC and under Edit > Color Settings chose Adobe RGB.
Then printed the image through Photoshop rather than Lightroom, using the same icc profile from Canson and it looks like the green tint is gone.

I will test more and see if this holds up, but I would like to understand what is actually going on.
Is the problem that Lightroom uses a different color space than Photoshop?

There are different flavours of RGB colour spaces. Lightroom uses one of them, and I have never heard of Lightroom causing such a problem. But that raises some questions about settings. What print settings are you using in Lightroom Print Job Settings? Does it say "Profile" with the profile selected, or is it set on "Managed by Printer"? I assume from the foregoing you do have the profile selected in that panel, but if so go back into the Epson Printer Driver to verify that you have Color Management switched OFF in the driver. If there is double management going on, this can cause the kind of problem you are experiencing.

[digitaldog]

Download and print using a color reference file (http://www.digitaldog.net/files/2014PrinterTestFileFlat.tif.zip). See a green cast?

[Fred Salamon]

Andrew,

I do not see a green cast after downloading and printing that file.
All settings were the same, used the same icc profile as I did before.

I have also tried increasing magenta in the white balance to compensate for the green but that did not work either.

[digitaldog]

I do not see a green cast after downloading and printing that file.

Then the issue is the original document, not the profile or the rest of the color management to make the print.
That's good news. But you have to figure out why the image prints green but doesn't appear on-screen that way.

[Fred Salamon]

Andrew,

I have printed several different images and they all had a green cast.
All were tiff files that had been previously printed on a Canon printer with a custom profile.
All of them look great.
When I try to print the same tiff files on my Epson 2200, using the Canson profile for platine paper I get the green cast.

[digitaldog]

I have printed several different images and they all had a green cast.
All were tiff files that had been previously printed on a Canon printer with a custom profile.
All of them look great.
When I try to print the same tiff files on my Epson 2200, using the Canson profile for platine paper I get the green cast.

IF the color reference file has no green cast, which it wouldn't based on the document, but others do, it's the RGB numbers being sent, not the profile or the color reference file too would have a green cast. The reason I asked you to use the reference file is to determine if the green cast is the profile or some such setting or the document data. Based on what you report, it's the document data. The other printer and profile are a different story entirely at this point. Perhaps the color reference file on that printer would have appear with magenta cast? You'd have to print it to that device with the same profile and settings.

[Fred Salamon]

IF the color reference file has no green cast, which it wouldn't based on the document, but others do, it's the RGB numbers being sent, not the profile or the color reference file too would have a green cast. The reason I asked you to use the reference file is to determine if the green cast is the profile or some such setting or the document data. Based on what you report, it's the document data. The other printer and profile are a different story entirely at this point. Perhaps the color reference file on that printer would have appear with magenta cast? You'd have to print it to that device with the same profile and settings.

So,if the problem is the document data, what, if anything, can I do about this?
I am kinda lost here, honestly.
The same image, same printer, on paper A with corresponding icc profile, results are fine. With paper B, with corresponding icc profile, green cast.

Is there a solution to this issue? Where else in my workflow should I look?

Thank you for all your help.

[Mark D Segal]

Fred, I still can't help thinking this is a profiling problem, the question being whether this problem is located with the image file or with the printing process. You did not say whether you are printing with a raw file or a processed file (TIFF, JPEG, PSD etc). If it is a raw file and you are working from Lightroom, Lightroom handles colour space under the hood, and you only need to intervene with colour-managing the file at the Print phase, as we have discussed above. Hence if you have a good print profile and you have the same profile active in softproof (Develop Module), and the profile is managing the printing and colour management is OFF in the Epson driver and your display is correctly calibrated, everything should come out just as you would expect it. If any of these conditions are not met, there could be issues. If your file is NOT a raw file, the culprit may be an embedded profile in the image that somehow is causing this cast, but why and how I have no idea - I'm just working and suggesting avenues of investigation from deductive logic based on my understanding of the colour management chain.

[digitaldog]

So,if the problem is the document data, what, if anything, can I do about this?

Alter the RGB values, more Magenta.

The same image, same printer, on paper A with corresponding icc profile, results are fine. With paper B, with corresponding icc profile, green cast.

Try the color reference on both and report back what you see.

[Garnick]

Mark,
Thank you for the suggestion.
I ran a nozzle check before I started printing and another just now. Both show no clogs.

Hello Fred,

After reading this thread it would seem that perhaps every logical approach to your predicament has been suggested and followed by you, but with no apparent solution to the issue at hand.  As a matter of fact I read this late last evening at home and just re-read it here at work this morning.  I am going to offer a TOTAL "shot in the dark" approach here.  You'd likely it call my "illogical" approach, and rightfully so.  I haven't seen this phenomenon for quite along time, but I certainly have in the past, with the 4000, both the 7600s and initially the 9900.  In an early reply to Marks question concerning nozzle checks you indicated that you had indeed run a nozzle check before printing and everything appeared to be as it should.  I will now ask what most would consider a silly question, nothing new for me of course.  Given the fact that your initial nozzle check was showing all good, have you actually run a cleaning cycle?  There, your see, a totally silly question, right?  RIGHT!  But wait, there's more.  As I said, I haven't seen this happen recently, but what I have found is that on occasion a good nozzle check isn't necessarily an indicator that everything is actually "good".  I have run nozzle check patterns that looked great, but the following print showed definite signs of a nozzle problem.  Another nozzle check may or may not show where the issue resides.  However, after running a cleaning cycle or two and then another "good" nozzle pattern, the print results were exactly as expected.  Do I have any logical explanation for this, absolutely not.  I offer this only on the basis of past experience.  'Tis a puzzle to me, but it worked, and that's all that counted at the time.  Now of course this makes no sense at all when stacked up against the fact that the file Andrew sent seemed to print without issue.  Just one more puzzle with too many missing pieces at this point.  Try the cleaning cycle approach, can't hurt and just might help.  There are some things that we are not supposed to know.  Some days there seem to be far too many of them!

Gary

[jferrari]

I do not see a green cast after downloading and printing that file.
All settings were the same, used the same icc profile as I did before.

Gary, I think that Andrew's reference image printed just fine on that print/profile combination. That should eliminate the problem being with the printer. The issue seems to be related to his image file. It's so hard to troubleshoot over the internet.   - Jim

[Fred Salamon]

Andrew,

I do not see a green cast after downloading and printing that file.
All settings were the same, used the same icc profile as I did before.

I have also tried increasing magenta in the white balance to compensate for the green but that did not work either.

Actually let me correct this, I printed the test file again this morning.
This time on Epson Ultra Premium Lustre with Epson's icc profile. Colors look good, no green cast.
When I compare the Epson Lustre print to the Canson Platine, the Platine shows a green cast.
So if I understand, this would indicate that the problem is the profile and not the image file.

Does the Camera Calibration setting in Lightroom have anything to do with this issue?
Currently, they are Process: 2012(Current) Profile ACR 4.4
All the sliders are set at zero

I have spoken to Canson Tech Support and they are looking into this issue.
Hopefully it is not operator error or something obvious that I have overlooked.

My continued gratitude to everyone for taking the time to help me with this problem.

[digitaldog]

View both prints under a number of differing illuminants. Same cast and basic difference?