Printing with Canon

[William Walker]

I have the following setup: MacPro 2013 Bug Sur,  NEC Multisync PA272W, Canon iPF8400.

I have been printing quite happily for a few years using the following print workflow: I set up the print in Lightroom i.e. Paper size, margins, layout etc. I then export as a JPEG (see attachment) - open in Photoshop and export to iPF8400 Print Plug-in.
I then print from there, following all the appropriate steps and get a result that is, to my eye, as good as it gets regarding colour accuracy. (If it is a simple layout I can "Edit in Photoshop" straight from Lightroom and then export to the Print Plug-in).

This procedure was developed when the problems of "double-profiling(?)" when printing from Lightroom were going on, and, frankly, once I felt I had solved or by-passed that problem I never worried about it any more.

Yesterday, however, I thought I would try printing out of Lightroom and Photoshop and immediately noticed the difference. As you can see from the examples, there seems to be an ugly yellowish-brown caste on both prints.

In both LR & PS print dialogues it shows "no colour correction"...

I have two questions:
1.  Is there still an issue printing out of Lightroom - or is there something I am not aware of to rectify it?
2.  Do I lose any "print-quality" by exporting from Lightroom Print Module as a JPEG?

Thanks
William

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

As far as I am aware there are no known current problems printing from Lightroom and Photoshop.

In the screenshot under 'Color Management' you have selected ProPhotoRGB as the printing profile.  You need to select the printing profile for the printer and paper you are using; and, as I am sure you know, you need to make sure that colour management is turned-off in the printer dialogue.

Hope this helps.

Happy New Year !

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

As far as I am aware there are no known current problems printing from Lightroom and Photoshop.

In the screenshot under 'Color Management' you have selected ProPhotoRGB as the printing profile.  You need to select the printing profile for the printer and paper you are using; and, as I am sure you know, you need to make sure that colour management is turned-off in the printer dialogue.

Hope this helps.

Happy New Year !

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Twice?!  How did that happen ?

[William Walker]

As far as I am aware there are no known current problems printing from Lightroom and Photoshop.

In the screenshot under 'Color Management' you have selected ProPhotoRGB as the printing profile.  You need to select the printing profile for the printer and paper you are using; and, as I am sure you know, you need to make sure that colour management is turned-off in the printer dialogue.

Hope this helps.

Happy New Year !

Hi Simon, thanks for the reply... I export the file in ProPhoto, open it in PS, export to the Canon Print-plugin and then allocate the correct profile in there... Sorry if I was not clear on that initially!

[Garnick]

Hi Simon, thanks for the reply... I export the file in ProPhoto, open it in PS, export to the Canon Print-plugin and then allocate the correct profile in there... Sorry if I was not clear on that initially!

Hi William,

Simon makes a good case.  ProPhoto RGB is a color space that acts as the Document Profile only, not a printer/paper profile.  What I'm not seeing in the Color Management part of the print dialog is the part where you would select what is actually managing the color throughout the printing process.  With the Epson print dialog that is named Color Handling, but perhaps different for your printer.  Under Color Handling you would have two choices - Photoshop Manages Color, or Printer Manages Color.  Obviously you would chose Photoshop Manages Color, assuming that color management is indeed turned OFF in the printer dialog.   

[William Walker]

Hi William,

Simon makes a good case.  ProPhoto RGB is a color space that acts as the Document Profile only, not a printer/paper profile.  What I'm not seeing in the Color Management part of the print dialog is the part where you would select what is actually managing the color throughout the printing process.  With the Epson print dialog that is named Color Handling, but perhaps different for your printer.  Under Color Handling you would have two choices - Photoshop Manages Color, or Printer Manages Color.  Obviously you would chose Photoshop Manages Color, assuming that color management is indeed turned OFF in the printer dialog.   

Hi Gary,

I apologise for not being clearer...the prints work perfectly when I follow that procedure. All I am doing is exporting a JPEG image - from LR Print - which now includes borders and layout and is easy to do in LR Print - see example). I now have a ProPhoto image which I bring into PS and print it via the Canon Print Plugin - that works perfectly. I have attached the print dialogue of the Canon Print Plugin so you can see where I set the correct profile for the print.

The second Lightroom attachment is when I print through Lightroom Print - as you can see, the paper profile is set accordingly - but the printed colours are wrong. It is when I print directly out of either LR or PS's "PRINT SETTINGS" that the colours print wrong

[TonyW]

It is when I print directly out of either LR or PS's "PRINT SETTINGS" that the colours print wrong

Is it possible that you are using the wrong profile when printing from Lightroom or if you are using a custom profile it is reacting differently in the Canon print app?

The reason for asking is that in your Canon Print Dialogue the Media Type says cifa-Rag Photo310 which is for Canson Rag and the Output Profile appears correct for Canson Rag for your printer

Your LR Print Job dialogue however does not show a Canson profile but rather a profile HNM PHOTO...  (Is this a custom profile name?)

It should read something like cifa_ipf8400_ragphot310 as this attachment

[William Walker]

Is it possible that you are using the wrong profile when printing from Lightroom or if you are using a custom profile it is reacting differently in the Canon print app?

The reason for asking is that in your Canon Print Dialogue the Media Type says cifa-Rag Photo310 which is for Canson Rag and the Output Profile appears correct for Canson Rag for your printer

Your LR Print Job dialogue however does not show a Canson profile but rather a profile HNM PHOTO...  (Is this a custom profile name?)

It should read something like cifa_ipf8400_ragphot310 as this attachment

Hi Tony, no, that was just an illustration.... I do use the appropriate profiles...

[mearussi]

Printing from jpeg will not affect your color. Exporting your image in the ProPhoto color profile is the norm for professional printing.  I can't see from your posted photos the yellow cast you mention, but if it's sever I would suggest a nozzle check to see if any of your blue nozzles are missing. 

[David Sutton]

Hi William.
A couple of thoughts.
In the printer properties is the colour mode set correctly (see attached photo)?
Exporting a jpeg with the profile set to "prophoto" instead of "srgb" or "adobe rgb" may do nasty things to the colour. Jpegs don't support prophoto. Also, a jpeg is 8 bit, so printing in 16 bit will not help, though I can't see how that would mess the colour.
David

Edit: I've heard some upgrades on Mac OS mess with colours, but being on Windows I don't know that stuff.
Secondly, your workflow makes my head hurt, but if whatever you do is working for you, I'd stick with it.
Converting to a jpeg definitely reduces your print quality. Your printer can print colours that are out of gamut in a jpeg file. Also, if you are converting to a jpeg from a tif file, detail may be lost depending on the conversion software. The question is, will the difference be visible in print? Probably not at all.
However, the conversion to a jpeg step does open the door to errors. As if we don't have enough to worry about as it is.
Assuming you have your master file saved as a prophoto tif, having set it up in Lightroom why not save the settings as a template and print from there? I've used Canon's print plug-in but found it a little clunky compared to LR. I process in Capture 1 now, but still find LR can't be bettered when it comes to printing. 

[William Walker]

Hi William.
A couple of thoughts.
In the printer properties is the colour mode set correctly (see attached photo)?
Exporting a jpeg with the profile set to "prophoto" instead of "srgb" or "adobe rgb" may do nasty things to the colour. Jpegs don't support prophoto. Also, a jpeg is 8 bit, so printing in 16 bit will not help, though I can't see how that would mess the colour.
David

Edit: I've heard some upgrades on Mac OS mess with colours, but being on Windows I don't know that stuff.
Secondly, your workflow makes my head hurt, but if whatever you do is working for you, I'd stick with it.
Converting to a jpeg definitely reduces your print quality. Your printer can print colours that are out of gamut in a jpeg file. Also, if you are converting to a jpeg from a tif file, detail may be lost depending on the conversion software. The question is, will the difference be visible in print? Probably not at all.
However, the conversion to a jpeg step does open the door to errors. As if we don't have enough to worry about as it is.
Assuming you have your master file saved as a prophoto tif, having set it up in Lightroom why not save the settings as a template and print from there? I've used Canon's print plug-in but found it a little clunky compared to LR. I process in Capture 1 now, but still find LR can't be bettered when it comes to printing.

Hi David, thanks for your comments:I take your point about JPEGS and ProPhoto and immediately checked to see what happens when I bring that LR export into PS - it remains in ProPhoto.

Perhaps I confused matters when I mentioned my LR via Ps via Canon Print-Plugin workflow - It works perfectly! (Again, thanks for addressing the JPEG print quality issue, to be honest, I cannot tell the difference in all the comparisons I have made. However, for my own peace of mind I will avoid that route whenever I can!)

I should have just stuck to the LR problems! Attached are the two relevant - I hope - pictures of the LR Print dialogue box. As you can see, the relevant boxes are greyed out so perhaps that might be significant?

[William Walker]

Printing from jpeg will not affect your color. Exporting your image in the ProPhoto color profile is the norm for professional printing.  I can't see from your posted photos the yellow cast you mention, but if it's sever I would suggest a nozzle check to see if any of your blue nozzles are missing.

Keep in mind that I do not get that colour-caste when printing from the Canon Print-plugin (via PS)...
I'm not sure how a nozzle would be affected by printing out of the LR or PS and not the plug-in.

[Richard.Wills]

Hi William,

I know exactly the ugly bronze veil you're seeing. Used to get it when sending files from LR to the free layout application, so we could nest jobs up on our 8300. Printing direct from LR worked fine, as did printing from the Photoshop plugin. It is not  a blocked nozzle isues.

Our 8300 came with a free copy of EFI express, which once set up resolved the profiling issues.
When we switched up to the 8400, our dealer threw in a free copy of the EFI Express designer edition, which I could not imagine working without.

Our workflow is a mix of print to jpeg from LR, for iamge on page layout and batching of images with asymetric borders, or for images to go into set frame sizes for ongoing projects, along with export as 16bit tiff for files which have subtly gradients, where the 8bit files deficiencies can become apparent. The rip allows us to set even borders on all images where needed.

[picman]

Is the clear coating (chroma optimizer) switched on?

[William Walker]

Hi William,

I know exactly the ugly bronze veil you're seeing. Used to get it when sending files from LR to the free layout application, so we could nest jobs up on our 8300. Printing direct from LR worked fine, as did printing from the Photoshop plugin. It is not  a blocked nozzle isues.

Our 8300 came with a free copy of EFI express, which once set up resolved the profiling issues.
When we switched up to the 8400, our dealer threw in a free copy of the EFI Express designer edition, which I could not imagine working without.

Our workflow is a mix of print to jpeg from LR, for iamge on page layout and batching of images with asymetric borders, or for images to go into set frame sizes for ongoing projects, along with export as 16bit tiff for files which have subtly gradients, where the 8bit files deficiencies can become apparent. The rip allows us to set even borders on all images where needed.

Hi Richard, thanks for the info - I will have a look at EFI!

[William Walker]

Is the clear coating (chroma optimizer) switched on?

The iFP8400 does not have clear coating feature, and, again, I have no problems printing through Canon's Print-plugin.

My problem seems to be with Adobe LR & PS.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Hi David, thanks for your comments:I take your point about JPEGS and ProPhoto and immediately checked to see what happens when I bring that LR export into PS - it remains in ProPhoto.

Perhaps I confused matters when I mentioned my LR via Ps via Canon Print-Plugin workflow - It works perfectly! (Again, thanks for addressing the JPEG print quality issue, to be honest, I cannot tell the difference in all the comparisons I have made. However, for my own peace of mind I will avoid that route whenever I can!)

I should have just stuck to the LR problems! Attached are the two relevant - I hope - pictures of the LR Print dialogue box. As you can see, the relevant boxes are greyed out so perhaps that might be significant?

The boxes greyed-out in the dialogues are correct for LR or PS manages colour and indicate that colour management in the printer is being automatically turned-of.  JPEG does support the ProPhoto RGB colour space.

I've seen the yellow/sepia cast before and I can't remember the cause.  I think it may be to do with the data being sent with an Absolute Rendering but I am not sure.  I may be wrong but I don't think it is caused by double profiling.

I assume that the prints of test images you shared in your first post were in the ProPhoto RGB colour space and printed directly from LR and PS to the printer using PS/LR manages colour sent with the correct profile.  In theory this should print correctly without the cast

Speaking from experience, trying to diagnose problems with colour management is a lengthy and thankless task.  The only sure way to get to the bottom of it is through a process of elimination, one thing at a time until you can identify the likely cause.  When changing software and/or settings it is sometimes necessary to restart the Mac to clear what might be held in a cache somewhere.

Good luck !

[Garnick]

Hi again William,

This is something I've seen since I read your first post.  This is what you wrote there - "As you can see from the examples, there seems to be an ugly yellowish-brown cast on both prints".  I have to disagree with that because on my Calibrated NEC display I can easily see a definite difference between the two prints, both Colour and B&W.  The one on the left looks fine, but the one on the right does have the yellow/brown cast.  Since you didn't describe which is printed in LR or PS I cannot add to what might perhaps be the cause of the cast on the right side print.  But from your questioning I would think the one on the left was printed in LR and the right print in PS.  If not, I have simply misread your post somehow.   

[Richard.Wills]

On each photo, the print on the left is from PS using the plug in, the print on the right is from LR (at least that is my experience).

There is something in the settings playing against you, though the two dialogue boxes shown look to be correct, as Simon notes.
I don't think that LR has an option for absolute colorimetric rendering.

I've used rips for the productivity boost, for almost quite a while. Efi Express is not inexpensive, and the learning curve is moderately steep. Something in the print pipe line is squewed - is free layout being called, after LR has sent the files to print? Should be LR>Canon print dialogue, but if print preview is selected, form memory, this is where things went wrong for us, and things went to bronze.