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Author Topic: Print color frustration  (Read 4692 times)

mdijb

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Print color frustration
« on: January 19, 2019, 01:15:59 pm »

My image looks great on the screen and the proof copy looks great.  When I make the print, ugly green colors appear in many areas of the print that do not show on my screen.  I have seen this regardless of what paper I use or what profile I select(appropriate for the paper choice).  It occurs whether I use a profile supplied by the paper maker, or a custom profile I had made.  I am printing on an epson P800 from a MAC using LR.

I attached a copy of the print proof and an iPhone copy of the print that results.  The green colors in the print are greatly exagerated in the iphone image of the print but are clearly visible in the actual print.  The geen colors are most prominent in the areas of sand detail.

Can anyone help diagnose this problem?

MDIJB
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2019, 02:07:41 pm »

Possibly the VM and/or VLM channels blocking?
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mdijb

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2019, 02:28:28 pm »

I do not know what Vm or VLM refer to.

MDIJB
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2019, 02:31:52 pm »

Vivid Magenta and Vivid Light Magenta.

Do you do a nozzle check before each print job?
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2019, 02:54:17 pm »

Just because the image looks great on screen doesn't mean it's an indicator of what's printing and the two match. That's part of the display calibration equation. After determining that indeed all inks are firing, output a color reference image and examine if or if not it matches the display while soft proofing.
http://www.digitaldog.net/files/2014PrinterTestFileFlat.tif.zip
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Garnick

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2019, 04:09:28 pm »

My image looks great on the screen and the proof copy looks great.  When I make the print, ugly green colors appear in many areas of the print that do not show on my screen.  I have seen this regardless of what paper I use or what profile I select(appropriate for the paper choice).  It occurs whether I use a profile supplied by the paper maker, or a custom profile I had made.  I am printing on an epson P800 from a MAC using LR.

I attached a copy of the print proof and an iPhone copy of the print that results.  The green colors in the print are greatly exagerated in the iphone image of the print but are clearly visible in the actual print.  The geen colors are most prominent in the areas of sand detail.

Can anyone help diagnose this problem?

MDIJB

What do you mean by the term "proof copy".  Is it an actual print, and are you using the same print profile on both the proof and the final print?  Also, is the "proof copy" printed on the same paper that you use for the final print?  If the answer to both is YES, then it could indeed be nozzle dropouts in one or both of the Magenta channels.  And of course Andrews reply should be followed as well. And if you have a test image of some sort that you have printed on this paper you can print that file again and see if it matches the first one.  Also make sure the profile and the "print settings" match.  The profile is only as good as the print settings.

Gary         
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Garnick

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2019, 07:28:39 pm »

One more question, or perhaps two.  Are these two images copies of the prints, proof and final print?  If so, are these camera shots or scans of the prints?  It would be good to know how you reproduced them for your initial post. 

Gary   
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mdijb

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2019, 07:37:09 pm »

OK.  Nozzle check looks fine--no gaps anywhere.

Printed the Digital dog test image with profile supplied with the paper and it looks great--no problems.

I have printed many other images with no problems.

It seems there is something about this particular dune image that is a problem.

ANy other ideas
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #8 on: January 19, 2019, 07:47:15 pm »

Are you comparing a SOFTPROOF of your photo with the print? It may be a colour adjustment problem that shows up under softproof.
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Garnick

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2019, 12:56:17 pm »

Are you comparing a SOFTPROOF of your photo with the print? It may be a colour adjustment problem that shows up under softproof.

That's what I was trying to get at in reply#5, but I probably didn't word it correctly.  He was referring to "proof copy", which I wanted him to verify.  Is it an actual print or the image on his display, soft or otherwise.  If indeed he has first printed a "Proof Print", assuming he has changed nothing before printing the final print it should be identical to the "Proof Print".  Therefore, something in "Print Settings" has changed or he has not selected the correct Print Profile.  An image file is an image file, and unless it has been altered it would print the same every time if there are no issues with the printer itself.   

Gary
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #10 on: January 20, 2019, 12:58:33 pm »

In LR, proof copy is a soft proof with an output specific edit. The OP seems to understand that and he's comparing the soft proof (proof copy) to the actual print as I read his initial post. They don't match. He seems to be calling the output to the print, a print copy.
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mdijb

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2019, 01:39:23 pm »

I do not understand and am confused by the comments above.  Let me explain

I the LR window there is the original image on the left, and the proof copy on the right.  I make come changes to the image on the right after applying the appropriate profile to it.  I then make a print of this proof copy.  The green stuff I described appears in Neither of these on the screen images but does appear in the print.

Does this help?

MDIJB
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #12 on: January 20, 2019, 01:45:43 pm »

I do not understand and am confused by the comments above.  Let me explain

I the LR window there is the original image on the left, and the proof copy on the right.  I make come changes to the image on the right after applying the appropriate profile to it.  I then make a print of this proof copy.  The green stuff I described appears in Neither of these on the screen images but does appear in the print.

Does this help?

MDIJB
It makes sense and how I read it, so again, the issue is a mismatch between what you see on-screen and what you get on print, so see reply #5. IF everything prints correctly with the reference image but not this single document, be useful to see a low rez copy of it. It could contain a lot of out of gamut colors which cannot be seen on-screen. Or some other setting that maybe differed from the color reference output (double check).
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mdijb

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #13 on: January 20, 2019, 02:36:12 pm »

A low rez  copy of the proof copy is attached in my original posting.

There some OOG colors, especially the yellows, but the areas of OOG that appear on the screen do not correspond well to the areas of green discoloration in the print.

Again, I have printed many other images which have some OOG colors, because I like intense colors, without problems,  but not this one.

MDIJB
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Garnick

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #14 on: January 20, 2019, 02:37:05 pm »

I do not understand and am confused by the comments above.  Let me explain

I the LR window there is the original image on the left, and the proof copy on the right.  I make come changes to the image on the right after applying the appropriate profile to it.  I then make a print of this proof copy.  The green stuff I described appears in Neither of these on the screen images but does appear in the print.

Does this help?

MDIJB


This is going to sound rather strange and probably has no bearing on your situation, but I'll try to explain it as well as I can.  I seldom work in LR and I never print from LR.  For the variety of work I do I find Photoshop to be faster for printing.  Now, one more question.  What adjustments have you made to the original file before printing?  I need the answer to that before I go on, and I will admit that my theory is probably way out in left field, but it almost makes sense to me. 

Please answer ASAP! 


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Gary N.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #15 on: January 20, 2019, 04:11:50 pm »


This is going to sound rather strange and probably has no bearing on your situation, but I'll try to explain it as well as I can.  I seldom work in LR and I never print from LR.  For the variety of work I do I find Photoshop to be faster for printing.  Now, one more question.  What adjustments have you made to the original file before printing?  I need the answer to that before I go on, and I will admit that my theory is probably way out in left field, but it almost makes sense to me. 

Please answer ASAP!

Just to make sure this isn't a cause of further confusion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with printing from Lightroom. In fact, it's much more convenient and better set-up than printing from Photoshop, and is technically fine. I do ALL my printing from LR except when I need Absolute Rendering intent for proofing purposes.

From all that's been exchanged here, the problem seems something image-specific, and not generic to the application or the print pipeline.
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2019, 04:23:56 pm »

Just to make sure this isn't a cause of further confusion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with printing from Lightroom. In fact, it's much more convenient and better set-up than printing from Photoshop, and is technically fine. I do ALL my printing from LR except when I need Absolute Rendering intent for proofing purposes.

From all that's been exchanged here, the problem seems something image-specific, and not generic to the application or the print pipeline.
OT but I absolutely agree and there's many workflow advantages to printing out of LR; the print module is worth the price of admission.
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Garnick

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #17 on: January 20, 2019, 04:50:23 pm »

Just to make sure this isn't a cause of further confusion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with printing from Lightroom. In fact, it's much more convenient and better set-up than printing from Photoshop, and is technically fine. I do ALL my printing from LR except when I need Absolute Rendering intent for proofing purposes.

From all that's been exchanged here, the problem seems something image-specific, and not generic to the application or the print pipeline.

Hmmm .... I just reread my previous reply and I cannot see anything that refers to LR being inferior to Photoshop in any way.  I simply expressed my opinion based on the variety and volume of prints job that I deal with.  LR does a great job of processing and rendering files, but there are some things that PS does better in my opinion, and in my workflow printing is one of them.  And there are also certain types of work that LR cannot handle, which is perfectly OK, since one can easily switch from LR to PS if necessary.  In no way was I demeaning LR, or at least that was not my intention.  Nor was I trying to convince anyone that LR's printing capabilities are inferior.  In my setup PS is faster, that simple.

"From all that's been exchanged here, the problem seems something image-specific, and not generic to the application or the print pipeline."  I'm not sure what you mean by that Mark.  If the OP has done the softprofing in LR it's still that same image.  That's why I asked my latest question.  If his answer is what I expect it might be I have a theory, but I have to admit that I don't know how it could possibly have happened, especially in LR.  I can see how it could happen in PS if one was in a rush and not paying attention, but not in LR.  I hope I get an answer.  And also, I asked him what he meant by "Print Proof Copy", but I think he meant the soft proofed image, not an actual print.  As Andrew mentioned, that means nothing, since we don't know what his print settings were and exactly what the actual print looks like.  I would hardly consider an iPhone copy to be a viable rendition of the actual physical print.  What light source was he using for the copy shot?  What settings on the phone?  Simply not enough information in my opinion.  I certainly don't doubt that the OP is having a problem with this image, but we are supposed to offer opinions based on two images from totally different sources.  Apples and Oranges.

Gary     

 
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #18 on: January 20, 2019, 05:08:19 pm »

Hmmm .... I just reread my previous reply and I cannot see anything that refers to LR being inferior to Photoshop in any way.

In order to print anything in PS, you have to find and open it and load it into memory. In LR you can select one or hundreds of images and click "Print" and all will be printed.
In order to print anything in PS, you have to first render the raws before you can even start with #1 above. In LR, the rendering takes place as one prints. Select and print.
In Photoshop, if you want output specific edits, you have to soft proof and create the edits on layers (if you're smart), and do so for each output device. In LR, you build Proof Copies, something you don't seem to be aware of: they take up NO space, they contain only the output specific edits. The soft proof is memorized as is the rendering intent as this affects what you see of course. AND the output specific edits are all stored with metadata that takes up on space.
In the Print module, the edits and rendering intent is honored.
In the Print module, you can build as many print presets as you wish (again, virtually no space taken up) which saves EVERY print parameter including size of paper, paper type and all the stuff mentioned above so you can again, select any number of images, raw or otherwise and make a print exactly as the preset defines. That simply isn't possible in Photoshop.
The soft proofing in Develop is much better visually in LR than PS if for anything else, how the bkgnd is not as white as the GUI (the surround is grayed back if so set). To get this in Photoshop, you need to work in Full Screen mode.
LR provides adaptive print output sharpening! Based on the image size and output resolution AND the capture sharpening applied to the original; raw or rendered.. PS requires you do this on each image manually.
LRs Print module provides info such as page bleed, margins and gutters, dimensions on-screen. PS doesn't.
LR provides options for automate Rotate to Fit and Fill. PS doesn't.
LR provides metadata overlays ON the printed output you can select or even the users Identify plate. PS requires you manually type that in using a Type Layer.
Further, LR provides page options on the print (Page number, crop marks and page info).
You want to gang up 6 images on one page. Maybe the same size, maybe different sizes on one page You can build as many Print Packages or Custom Packages, again with all the preset stuff mentioned above. In Photoshop you have to open each document, size it, move it into a canvas etc. ANYONE making such packages will find LR to be vastly faster and superior than PS!
There is simply no comparison between what one can do in LR's print module vs. Photoshop which from day one has and continues to be a 'one image at a time' workflow. LR isn't.
I'm probably forgetting more features of the module and hopefully if so, others will chime in. Again, IF you print more than a few images per month, let alone week or day, LR's print module is worth the price of admission.
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dgberg

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Re: Print color frustration
« Reply #19 on: January 20, 2019, 05:41:57 pm »

+1
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