Canon Media Creation Tool not updating profiles on PC print driver

[george_z]

I recently bought a used Canon iPF6460 (the Asian version of the iPF6450, since I live in Asia). After downloading the current print driver and related software from the Canon website and installing them on my Windows 10 pc, everything seems to work as expected and I see in Photoshop about 20 Canon paper profiles listed. Before going into creating calibrating colors, creating custom profiles, etc., I wanted to setup the print driver to show the locally available Canon papers that I like to use, specifically "Matte Coated Paper 170gsm", "Satin Photo Paper 240gsm", and "Glossy Photo Paper 240gsm".

With the Media Calibration Tool I am able to “Add Genuine Paper” and show/hide the Canon papers according to my preferences (i.e. show only what I use and hide the most of the rest). All seems to work and ultimately MCT pops up a confirmation message that the media types have been updated successfully. And fair enough, on the control panel of the printer I can see that the media types reflect my preferences.

However, in Photoshop, the updated media types do not reflect my choices from the Media Configuration Tools, and I don’t see the output profiles that I need. All the original 20 or so Canon profiles are still showing, plus the two additional that I chose to “show” in MCT, but the Matte Coater Paper 170gsm is NOT showing. It is not listed in the OS folder like all other profiles (C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color). Checking with the Photoshop plugin shows the same list for profiles. The printer profiles listed in the Color Management control panel also show the same list.

I installed and uninstalled the driver and MCT multiple times, installed them on different PC, reinstalled MCT with a different region, and still can’t get that profile to show up on my system. Can someone please help me understand why this exact paper profile is not showing? Would it be possible to for someone to email me the icc file (perhaps for the iPF6450 model?) and I manually install it on my system? Also, how close is that profile to the built-in “Heavyweight Coated Paper” profile?

I use this paper a lot with my HP z3200ps and I need to print on the same paper with the Canon. If it helps, my system is a 64-bit Windows 10  v1903, I installed the following software from Canon:
•   Print Driver (iPF6460-Drv-Win64-460)
•   Media Configuration Tool (Version 7.02.001)
•   Status Monitor (64-bit Edition Version 25.70A)
•   Color Calibration Management Console (Version 2.00)
•   Photoshop Print Plug-In (Version v5.22)

Thanks for reading and any advice would be highly appreciated!

[Ryan Mack]

You completed the first step of downloading the media type from the MCT into the printer. There's a second step where you need to go into the printer driver utility and download the media types back from the printer into the driver. I only know how to do it on Mac but if you google I'm sure you can find the documentation that shows how to do it. On the Mac the tool is called "Canon IJ Printer Utility3" and the button is "Update Media Information" in the "Media Information" panel. On Windows the "Update Media Information" button may be in the Printer Properties dialog box.

[george_z]

You completed the first step of downloading the media type from the MCT into the printer. There's a second step where you need to go into the printer driver utility and download the media types back from the printer into the driver. I only know how to do it on Mac but if you google I'm sure you can find the documentation that shows how to do it. On the Mac the tool is called "Canon IJ Printer Utility3" and the button is "Update Media Information" in the "Media Information" panel. On Windows the "Update Media Information" button may be in the Printer Properties dialog box.

Thank you for the suggestion, but unfortuanately I couldn't make that work. I just don't see such "Update Media Information" or similiar button anywhere. Did that "Canon IJ Printer Utility3" software come with the printer? It was my inderstanding that the Media Creation Tool is supposed to update both the Printer Cantrol Panel and the Print Driver on the computer (both Macs and PCs).

[george_z]

UPDATE: It seems that the Media Creation Tool does properly update the printer driver for the selected media types. However not all of Canon's "genuine papers" come with an ICC profile. This explains why my Canon Glossy and Satin papers (240gsm) have corresponding icc profiles in the Color Profiles folder on my system, while the "Matte Coated Paper 170gsm" does not. It's simply because there is no ICC profile for that particular paper. Same thing with another "Genuine Canon Paper" that I want to use, "the Preimum Fine Art Bright White, 305gsm". The spec sheet for that paper recommends the "Extra Heavyweight Art Paper" media preset. MCT created the media presets for these two papers, and I can load them in the printer as such, but they don't have ICC profiles. So when I chose "Photoshop Manages Colors" they don't show up in the list of printer profiles.

Now the dilemma is which built-in Canon icc profile would be best suited to use with those Canon branded papers, but I guess that's another topic altogether.