Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: henrikolsen on December 21, 2019, 07:08:35 am
-
I first started a thread in Lightroom forum, but starting a new one here, as it seems it's not only related to Lightroom.
I have noticed severe changes on my color output of my Pro-1000 lately.
I'm using macOS 10.15.2 and printer driver is 21.10 for a Canon Pro-1000 (firmware 3.010). Tried reinstalling the printer driver, no improvement.
Color matching seem off on three papers just used. I make (for years) my own profiles with i1Pro and argyllCMS, and it just normally works for me, with nice match from screen to print, but not now for whatever unknown reason. Everything is set as I normally have it, screen, driver settings, color workflow etc.
Yesterday I noticed problems on image prints, having not printed with this setup for a couple of months. Today I made a quick 96 patch (spread perceptually evenly with argyll) measurement to compare with a result from not so long ago (late October) and indeed results are way off/different now. Like peaks of 13+ de2K. No wonder I thought something looked odd on image prints...
Results on October target reading with todays print of same little target.
Verify results:
Total errors (CIEDE2000): peak = 13.913734, avg = 2.054561
Worst 10% errors (CIEDE2000): peak = 13.913734, avg = 6.464712
Best 90% errors (CIEDE2000): peak = 3.803906, avg = 1.541752
avg err X 0.009787, Y 0.011745, Z 0.009240
avg err L* 1.640507, a* 1.539265, b* 2.274442
After a new Color Calibration on printer it changed very little - had hoped that would bring it back to sanity. Nozzle check is fine. Original toner, always.
I make target prints from ACPU as always. So I both notice big changes with target prints (without color management) and with color management (prints through LR).
I will look deeper into this, but a heads up to everyone that someone could be very odd with this combo of software, firmware and printer. A mess to resolve, time consuming and expensive.
Anyone else been bit by this change?
-
I believe it is possible that major software upgrades on a Mac can substitute your Canon print driver that has different characteristics to the actual Canon driver. Perhaps try reinstalling the Canon driver from the Canon site.
This has happened to me on several occasions and the guys at ImagePrint clarified the problem.
-
I tried that and unfortunately no change.
-
Canon has released a new driver update, version 21.10.1.0, previous version was 21.10.0.0. It seems to have solved the issue with printer driver settings not being correctly restored. Whether it also solves the change of color output I have observed, I don't know yet. Will report back when tested.
https://www.canon.co.uk/support/consumer_products/products/printers/inkjet/other_series/imageprograf_pro-1000.html?type=drivers&driverdetailid=tcm:14-1344471&os=macos%2010.15%20%28catalina%29&language=en
-
Canon has released a new driver update, version 21.10.1.0, previous version was 21.10.0.0. It seems to have solved the issue with printer driver settings not being correctly restored. Whether it also solves the change of color output I have observed, I don't know yet. Will report back when tested.
https://www.canon.co.uk/support/consumer_products/products/printers/inkjet/other_series/imageprograf_pro-1000.html?type=drivers&driverdetailid=tcm:14-1344471&os=macos%2010.15%20%28catalina%29&language=en
The driver update from December 24th to 21.10.1.0 did bring colors back on track. Glad it has been fixed.
-
I'm afraid the color output from the Canon Pro-1000 (latest firmware 3.010) is wrong again with latest macOS 10.15.4 and latest Canon driver version 21.10.1.0.
It does work still with 10.15.2 on my laptop, but with 10.15.4 it is funky again throwing some colors way off. Everything else being the same, latest LR, same profiles, same procedures all around.
It's frustrating to have to test incremental software updates, and not just trust that it surely works and beta testing periods have ironed out any issues, and should they still exists, at least a big warning to users that there's an issue. Canon, please help do the testing and get problems fixed asap, before bugs hit us end users.
Looking forward to an update that makes it work again, and more so to a time where I can trust the products better.
Attached a _very_ rough (quick phone photos) idea of what's going on visually. I don't want to run a ton of tests again with usual reference patch tests with argyll and i1Pro, when it's obviously gone bonanza again. I'll wait for another driver update, like last time where it failed december 2019 and got fixed with driver version 21.10.1.0.
If anyone knows a way to get notified of Canon printer driver updates, I'd like to know. Else, let's keep this thread updated if anyone sees a new version come along.
Just a heads up, so other users can delay upgrading to 10.15.4 using a Pro-1000 (possibly the whole x000 series).
-
Man, that's a big change. I've never seen a Windows update to anything like that let alone a Canon update. Are you using 16 bit mode? That's only available using Canon's plugin and I've done little testing of it since it appeared not to actually do 16 bits.
-
Man, that's a big change. I've never seen a Windows update to anything like that let alone a Canon update. Are you using 16 bit mode? That's only available using Canon's plugin and I've done little testing of it since it appeared not to actually do 16 bits.
Yes, the change is dramatic and makes printing useless until resolved (short of using older setup). It feels like a bit of a lottery these times making it run stable.
I do have enabled the 16-bit print option directly from LR (not using the Canon plugin). I do recall from last problem in December though that targets also printed significantly different from usual (here I have no 16-bit option, see first post for example of differences back then), so I'm afraid going 8-bit from LR won't resolve the issue, although it's worth doing.
-
Yes, the change is dramatic and makes printing useless until resolved (short of using older setup). It feels like a bit of a lottery these times making it run stable.
I do have enabled the 16-bit print option directly from LR (not using the Canon plugin). I do recall from last problem in December though that targets also printed significantly different from usual (here I have no 16-bit option, see first post for example of differences back then), so I'm afraid going 8-bit from LR won't resolve the issue, although it's worth doing.
Do I understand correctly, that you are using the Canon plugin to print ? If so, perhaps this could be the source of the problem.
-
From what I was told by our color consultant is that LightRoom's color management is pretty bad in general. You can't get a proper print from the settings you select (for some reason) and they've been in contact over certain issues with Canon over the years, but it's just the way the software handles the selections.
Using the Plug-in gives the settings access more user ability to do what you want since it's from Canon going to their printer.
Try doing a patch process of about 1914 (may need 2 sheets), but this should give you a much more open gamut and better managed profile. We do custom profiles for many customers throughout the US and done some internationally, but little problems. Not saying it always works, but it's either the customers printer or setup or they just don't like it (it happens).
Yes, the firmware version can surely cause problems as well, but these are our recommendations to hopefully provide a good output. Also, if you can choose "Relative" ColorMetric, this will help more with the smoothness between colors and hopefully sharper details. Can always try both Relative and Perceptual for your best output though since everyone has different visual.
-
From what I was told by our color consultant is that LightRoom's color management is pretty bad in general. You can't get a proper print from the settings you select (for some reason) and they've been in contact over certain issues with Canon over the years, but it's just the way the software handles the selections.
I am really puzzled by this comment. I, and many other Canon printer users, have been successfully printing colour managed from Lightroom to Canon printers for many years.
-
Also, if you can choose "Relative" ColorMetric, this will help more with the smoothness between colors and hopefully sharper details. Can always try both Relative and Perceptual for your best output though since everyone has different visual.
How does the Relative intent, as distinct from the other intents (Perceptual/Absolute/Saturated), help the “smoothness between colors” and create “sharper details” ?
I find this very perplexing.
-
A few clarifications. The 96 patch test for comparison purpose in first post is of course not what I use for profile generation which is way more. It was just a few strips for a basic comparison that didn't needed high resolution but just a good spread of samples to prove something was way off - which it was, and now is again.
No, I'm not using the Canon plugin. I frankly find their software terrible to use, and have no need for it. Been printing very fine directly from LR (and some from PS) for years with both OEM and great (own) custom made profiles from both Windows and macOS. Profiles are fine and smooth, both using perceptual and relative intent, but not with the combo of software from December and unfortunately now again in April.
It's a bug, and I look forward to a fix (like Canon made with 21.10.1.0 back in December, without telling so that is, but it did fix the issue). I will continue printing from 10.15.2 until the issue get resolved with 10.15.4. I hope for better quality and openness from Canon in the future.
-
A few clarifications. The 96 patch test for comparison purpose in first post is of course not what I use for profile generation which is way more. It was just a few strips for a basic comparison that didn't needed high resolution but just a good spread of samples to prove something was way off - which it was, and now is again.
No, I'm not using the Canon plugin. I frankly find their software terrible to use, and have no need for it. Been printing very fine directly from LR (and some from PS) for years with both OEM and great (own) custom made profiles from both Windows and macOS. Profiles are fine and smooth, both using perceptual and relative intent, but not with the combo of software from December and unfortunately now again in April.
It's a bug, and I look forward to a fix (like Canon made with 21.10.1.0 back in December, without telling so that is, but it did fix the issue). I will continue printing from 10.15.2 until the issue get resolved with 10.15.4. I hope for better quality and openness from Canon in the future.
This is rather concerning. I hope we are not going back into repeating the colour management nightmare of a few years back.
-
Here we go again !
Users report serious problems with macOS Catalina 10.15.4 (https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac-software/problems-macos-catalina-10154-3785841/)
-
Tried 8-bit today from LR, but same funky results, especially in the blues (no pun intended), no matter the profile. Hope for an update soon to either macOS or the Canon driver, whereever the bug is caused. Will continue printing from another system that works (older versions).
-
I've finally gotten it to work again on the troublesome installation. It wasn't a recent update to macOS 10.15.5, but rather a more aggressive deep clean of the printer driver. I have previously reinstalled without luck, so this time after removing the printer, I manually also removed Library > Printers > Canon > BJPrinter (as advised in Canon knowledgebase), then reinstalled. And bingo, finally it's back to normal. Why it got into this strange condition, I cannot explain. But nice to see it behaving normally again.
I'm attaching another phone snapshot of some of the oddities it was showing off. Notice the abrupt changes in gradations in green and cyan, violet blues etc etc. Not anymore.
-
Hi Henrik, All,
I am having a similar problem. My colors on the Pro-1000 were completely off (first attached picture). Look at the cyan patch that is dark blue--it is actually wrong by a dE of 26 (checking with colorimeter). I am printing the test chart from PhotoShop on a Mac with Catalina 10.15.7. I then installed the latest printer driver (v 22.20.0.0) from the Canon website. After that, it worked for a few days and I printed a couple of pictures successfully. Also the color checker was really spot on (second attached picture). Now I printed a large picture and the colors are off. Sure enough, the color checker that I printed afterwards looks again like the first attached picture.
So has your problem ever come back since? Has anyone had a similar issue with the colors switching back and forth from perfect to completely off? This is extremely frustrating (and I just wasted $50+ in paper/ink...).
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi Henrik, All,
I am having a similar problem. My colors on the Pro-1000 were completely off (first attached picture). Look at the cyan patch that is dark blue--it is actually wrong by a dE of 26 (checking with colorimeter). I am printing the test chart from PhotoShop on a Mac with Catalina 10.15.7. I then installed the latest printer driver (v 22.20.0.0) from the Canon website. After that, it worked for a few days and I printed a couple of pictures successfully. Also the color checker was really spot on (second attached picture). Now I printed a large picture and the colors are off. Sure enough, the color checker that I printed afterwards looks again like the first attached picture.
So has your problem ever come back since? Has anyone had a similar issue with the colors switching back and forth from perfect to completely off? This is extremely frustrating (and I just wasted $50+ in paper/ink...).
Thanks in advance!
It looks to me like you have accidently assigned the printer profile to the Colorchecker image. I get similar shifts doing that with the Pro1000. Make sure you download a new CC image from Babelcolor in Adobe RGB. It's not initially assigned a colorspace so first assign Adobe RGB (1998) to it. Then print it using absolute colorimetric intent.
-
Thank you, Doug!
I reinstalled the (same latest) printer drivers once more, and the problem is now gone again. But I suspect it might come back, as this is no different from what I did before.
You are right that, when I assign a printer profile instead of AdobeRGB or sRGB (following Babel's filename), I get almost exactly the same degradation (blue too dark/towards magenta, green too dark, top row "faded", reds towards orange, and cyan patch much to dark/blue)! So this, indeed, seems to indicate that, somewhere in the process, this kind of profile mis-assignment is occurring--very hard to imagine we'd see the exact same set of degradations through any other issue or mechanism!
But, unfortunately, it is not because I wrongly attach a printer profile to my images, since:
- PS does not even offer me any printer profiles, when opening an RGB image without profile (seems to look only in the local Library path and my printer profiles are in the global one)
- When I forcefully assign a printer profile to a checker image while opening, I already see these exact color defects on the screen in PS (as one should expect), not just in the print output. When I get the wrong prints, the checker still looks perfect on the screen though.
- I get the same color cast problems when printing normal photos (imported from camera into LR, then choosing "Edit in PS" within LR) and these picture also look perfect on the screen and then show the same issues when printed.
- Henrik (his post from April 6) is showing the exact same color cast, also on real pictures. (See how the cyan in his example picture has turned dark blue and the green is dark and faded.)
- Why would the problem go away after reinstalling the printer drivers?
At this stage, I don't really know, where else to look. I am definitely checking these things before every print:
- Setting the right paper type in the printer driver dialog from within the PS print window
- Ditto for print quality (highest)
- The color management radio button is greyed out and "Colorsync" is selected (has always been like this for me when printing from PS)
- Selecting absolute colorimetric (for checker) or perceptual (for real pictures) in PS print window
- Selecting "PS manages colors"
- Selecting the right printer profile
I have anyhow never seen dE over 25 just from wrong paper types or print quality. My problem looks identical with printer profiles I created myself as with those downloaded from Hahnemuehle. So the profiles seem intact.
So I really think at some stage, PS or OSX assign the wrong profile, but I don't think it is in my control, but rather some bug. Maybe I should move my printer profiles from the global Library folder to my local one?
What is weird is that my issue seems to be the same as Henrik's, looking at his color defect examples, although we are now several major OSX and printer driver versions further along--as if some major bug never really got fixed.
-
I am experiencing this issue currently with six Canon Pro-1000 printers on Catalina. I delete a printer, re-add it and it fixes the color, but then it reverts back to poor color.
Mac OS: 10.15.7
Canon Print Driver: 22.20.0.0
Pro-1000 Firmware: 3.010
Has anyone figured out yet what the cause is? Or more importantly what the solution is?
Do we need to upgrade the OS from Catalina?
Thank you!
-
The Pro1000 has an calibration feature designed to align their OEM profiles with whatever printer paper you use. While a nice feature for most that use OEM profiles, it's a problem with custom profiles. Running the paper calibration will change the printer color output if using custom profiles so you need to make new profiles after running a calibration. I disable this feature using only the OEM default calibration. Can't tell if this problem affects the OP but might be of interest to anyone making custom profiles.
-
I'm glad Google brought me here, was thinking I was going nuts with the sudden color shifts eventhough I hadn't changed anything on the system. Have been debugging this and doing test prints for way too long already… hours & euros wasted, nerves wrecked.
Experiencing same exact issues described earlier in the thread, especially seen in blues which turn into way too dark & way too satured. Also noticed a very distinct sepia toning in pure B&W images which wasn't there earlier with custom profiles even without the forced B&W-setting in printer settings. Was able to get the tones correct with forcing the printing to B&W only, but again that wasn't needed earlier.
On macOS 11.6.1 here, printing from Lightroom Classic 11.0. Guess I'll need to reinstall the printer drivers once more, cross fingers and hope this fixes it for a while. But god damn this is just utter bullshit that we need to deal with this kind of stuff with expensive pro-gear. Seems it's all holding together with duct tape and hail marys…
-
Just reporting the latest updates:
1) simple reinstall of the driver didn't fix anything
2) hard manual removal of everything related to Canon printer drivers & installing drivers again did the trick, colors now back to normal
Come to think of it, should've tried a middle-of-the-road option as well of just removing the printer from the System Preferences first before venturing into option the nuclear option 😅 In option #2 manually removed Canon printer related stuff from under /Library/Application Support/ + /Library/Preferences/ + /Library/Printers/ and all the same under the user folder as well.
-
Just reporting the latest updates:
1) simple reinstall of the driver didn't fix anything
2) hard manual removal of everything related to Canon printer drivers & installing drivers again did the trick, colors now back to normal
Come to think of it, should've tried a middle-of-the-road option as well of just removing the printer from the System Preferences first before venturing into option the nuclear option 😅 In option #2 manually removed Canon printer related stuff from under /Library/Application Support/ + /Library/Preferences/ + /Library/Printers/ and all the same under the user folder as well.
Not sure if it was the same issue, but a couple of months ago I had a problem with the colors changing on my Canon Pro-1000 after doing a MacOS upgrade. Reinstalling the driver alone didn't fix it. Reinstalling the driver and then deleting the printer and adding it back did fix it.
-
A recent Win 10 OS upgrade caused my Pro1000 to stop accessing the printer. I had to delete all the driver files and reinstall. Most interesting is that the color shifts I had been seeing in Dec. and Jan. completely reversed aside from the warmup shift I see between the first print and immediate second print. It's a small shift that increases a bit the longer it had been since I previously used the printer. Very small after 1 hr to somewhat larger after 24 hrs (.05 dE to .2 dE). Very stable from second print onward. I also checked the OEM profiles that were re-installed and they are identical to the originals.
I then printed a test patch series on Pro Platinum using the factory defaults with the OEM profile and got a very similar result from 2019:
Full gamut ave. dE2k 1.19, Low saturation gamut ave. dE2k .96
Then I ran the Color Calibration and repeated the print which improved color accuracy.
Full gamut ave. dE2k .91, Low saturation gamut ave. dE2k .75
This is quite good considering the OEM profiles are made on different instruments (I use an i1isis XL 2)
Note that when you do a color calibration for one of their papers, it assigns updated values to all other papers that haven't been color calibrated. Once a paper is color calibrated, the value sticks for that paper. So, for instance, if I calibrate against Pro Luster, it will update other papers but not the Pro Platinum because I had already calibrated it.
The printer print all the calibration settings for each paper type when you select "Print advanced paper settings" on the printer's menu.
The problem is that if you create custom profiles for different papers then re-calibrate it will change all other papers you haven't calibrated. So the optimal approach is to calibrate against only one paper. Then create custom profiles for all the papers you use. After that you should be able to get the best results out of those papers and profiles by simply color calibrating against the same paper type. It will update everything for any drift the printer has experienced. This should also work when you have to replace the print head.
-
Hi All,
Thought I provide some additional info, as I was still not able to resolve this issue (which I described in more detail in my post from Feb. 2021:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=133310.msg1207968#msg1207968 ).
To recap: Every couple of weeks, my installation breaks and the colors get thrown off completely, way too saturated (see examples in my original post). This is not a small deviation, as you might get from wrong internal printer calibration or picking a profile for a different paper, as the deviation is at least a dE of 25.
To my biggest frustration, the problem still prevails, even though I moved to a brand new Mac end of Jan. (MacBook Pro M1 Max, running all the Monterey sub-versions that came out since then).
I was very careful to not migrate to the new machine by copying over any binaries or configuration files from my old MacBook, but really do this as a 100% clean new install, downloading all applications, drivers, etc. from the manufacturer websites again, installing and configuring everything from scratch.
We can also really exclude any one-off mishandling of my part, because I have now been doing the exact same things to print my test images many dozen times, and they only involve a couple of simple steps:
- Load test image (TIFF encoded in ProPhoto) in PS
- While loading, tell PS to assign the ProPhoto profile
- Go to PS print menu and check all printer settings (paper type, print quality, etc.)
- Select right paper profile
- Select "PS manages colors"
- Choose "absolute colorimetric" intent
- Go!
Also, once the setup is broken, it is broken consistently, until I reinstall the printer, which is really the only thing that fixes it!
At this stage, I can only suspect it is either due to the macOS updates or the PS updates, as I don't know what other thing would changes every couple of weeks.
I am really surprised that not more people are suffering from it, as I did a complete clean new installation of my entire Mac.
Thanks in advance for sharing any additional insights that might have emerged.
Markus