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Author Topic: Matching colors on the Epson P800 & Canon Pro-1000  (Read 595 times)

PatCastaldo

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Matching colors on the Epson P800 & Canon Pro-1000
« on: November 01, 2019, 07:24:49 pm »

I've been printing with a Epsons for a long time (7900, a couple 3880s, and now P800s) — and I've always got consistent color between them. And since it was the only printers I had, I've been able to go without doing any real color-profiling. I know what I'll get with the files I use and they look accurate to my screen.

I recently got a Canon Pro-1000 to test out it's feed mechanism (I've had problems with my P800s not grabbing paper after a few months of heavy, heavy use).

The color on the Canon is *much* different than the P800s. It doesn't really handle richer reds as well, at least not with the files I'm using.

In my older (less professional) way of doing things, I'd just tweak the file — but since I want to be able to print on both sets of printers with the same results,  I'm looking at doing some profiling for the first time.

What would be the "easiest" (ideally cheapest, but I'm willing to spend money to get stuff right) way to get the prints on the Canon to look like the ones on the epson? I started looking at X-Rite stuff but got lost over there in a sea of options. And I'm not even sure that's the best thing for my use case.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Matching colors on the Epson P800 & Canon Pro-1000
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2019, 09:29:00 am »

First thing to do is get a standard test print that you can use to evaluate the difference in colors.  Print it out using the profile so that you can evaluate exactly which areas are problematic.  I switched from an Epson 3880 to a Canon Pro-1000 earlier this year.  I save all my test prints so that I can compare different papers and now printers.  I did not see much difference between the two printers.

You might look at Mark Segal's review of the Canon Pro-1000 where he does some good comparisons:  https://luminous-landscape.com/canon-imageprograf-pro-1000-printer-review/   Mark does his own profiling and do I.  If you are using profiles prepared by the paper manufacturers, that might be a possibility for the differences you see.  Of course the only way you can verify this is to prepare some profiles yourself to check this.
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I.T. Supplies

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Re: Matching colors on the Epson P800 & Canon Pro-1000
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2019, 09:39:25 am »

First- you'll want to calibrate your monitor to properly match what you'll see on print (not 100% though).
Best option is to have custom profile made to match the output more closely to your printers inkset with the paper vs the manufacturer profile that is a canned profile made in their location; different environment will provide different output.  The printer is just the device that reads the "instructions" of the computer end and whatever settings/options you choose, it will process the details that way.

You won't technically get them to be identical since they are different ink sets, but pretty close.

The X-rite device that can do both would either be the i1Studio or i1 Photo Pro (if wanting to manually scan the targets for custom profiling and monitor calibration), Display Pro for just monitor calibration; i1 Photo Pro is the more expensive route for doing all of it with extra tools (if you're getting deeper into calibration and profile making).  Otherwise, the higher end method would be a X-Rite ISIS 2 scanner that automatically scans the targets for profiling making and Display Pro for monitor calibration.  A few ways, but depends on how you want to do it.

2nd option: as long as your monitor is calibrated per printing, you can try the Soft Proof option which will mimic the look of the paper with the ICC profile made for it.  But again, you'll want to make sure you have the settings properly selected for this to print what you see via Soft Proof; or it may look off in some ways.  Also, make sure the nozzles are firing smoothly as this may also cause issues.  Soft Proof is a feature that Photoshop, Light Room and a few other programs have.  At least it's an inexpensive way, but just need the device to calibrate the monitor properly.

IT Supplies
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smthopr

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Re: Matching colors on the Epson P800 & Canon Pro-1000
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2019, 12:28:55 pm »

I've been printing with a Epsons for a long time (7900, a couple 3880s, and now P800s) — and I've always got consistent color between them. And since it was the only printers I had, I've been able to go without doing any real color-profiling. I know what I'll get with the files I use and they look accurate to my screen.

I recently got a Canon Pro-1000 to test out it's feed mechanism (I've had problems with my P800s not grabbing paper after a few months of heavy, heavy use).

The color on the Canon is *much* different than the P800s. It doesn't really handle richer reds as well, at least not with the files I'm using.

In my older (less professional) way of doing things, I'd just tweak the file — but since I want to be able to print on both sets of printers with the same results,  I'm looking at doing some profiling for the first time.

What would be the "easiest" (ideally cheapest, but I'm willing to spend money to get stuff right) way to get the prints on the Canon to look like the ones on the epson? I started looking at X-Rite stuff but got lost over there in a sea of options. And I'm not even sure that's the best thing for my use case.

I've made my own custom profiles for my 3800 using an iOne2 spectro.  A few months ago I went to the photo store to shop for paper for an upcoming gallery show.  The store used a Canon 4000 (I think) printer using custom profiles made by the store using even higher end profiling tools.

In the end, the prints from the Canon were very very close to my Epson 3800 prints.  Sure there were specific areas that I could see a slight difference upon close inspection, but I doubt anyone looking at a single print could possibly see these differences.  All the papers tested were glossy papers such as the Canson Infinity Platine and similar.  And all produced quite similar prints with minor differences in the paper stock.  And these differences were mostly in the color of the paper stock itself.

What I'm saying is that with a proper custom profile for each machine, the Canon printer will produce prints very much like your Epson.  And actually, for the show, we did make a few large prints on a Canon 44in printer on the same Canson paper, and they looked liked they came from my old Epson 3800...

My suggestion to you would be to choose a paper for your Canon printer and have a good custom profile created for that paper.  At that point, any obvious differences with your Epson will probably be do to using a less accurate profile for the Epson printer.
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Bruce Alan Greene
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aaronchan

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Re: Matching colors on the Epson P800 & Canon Pro-1000
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2019, 01:35:30 pm »

What was your printing workflow?
Sounds like you weren't printing with any icc profile?
Or do you print with a canned profile, the one you downloaded from the paper manufacturer's website.

There is a not so right way to do it when you were trying to simulate the look of another printer.
Let's say you use the same paper for both printers and you do have proper profiles for both of them as well.
In Photoshop, open your image (better be the one you had printed with your old printer and you still have your print on your hand), go to edit-> convert profile, convert your image to the previous printer profile (P800) with whatever rendering intent you used to print with (Let's say Percptual), then, go to print dialog, go to your driver and setup the right printer driver's settings, go back to print diaglog, select Photoshop manages color with abosolute colorimetric for rendering intent, click print, then you should be able to simulate your previous print look with your new printer.

This "MIGHT" work or maybe doesn't, but worth a try.

aaron
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