Lightroom Printing with Win7/64 and Z3200?

[jtmiller]

I'm not really sure where to post this since it spans printers, color management and LR. After many, many tries to get LR (currently using 3.2) to print accurately we've given up and print via doing an "Edit in Photoshop" with "Lightroom Adjustments", wait until PSCS5 launches and print from there.

We use the HP9180 and I assume there is a defective driver problem that will never get fixed since the printer has been EOL.

PSCS5 (and 4 for that matter) always printed what was seen on the screen. We have been though all the setup issues, have properly profiled the monitors and are using app managed colors, etc. PS and LR are ostensibly using the same profiles and of course the results are being displayed on the same monitors.

LR and PS just print different results regardless of how many different things are tried, including driver reloads, various adjustments to printer preferences etc.

Small animal sacrifices have been ruled out...

I recently spent several hours printing a dozen or so images that I could have just selected and pressed "Print" if I was willing to accept the LR results. I wasn't...

So now I'm considering a Z3200 and wondering if LR and PS will have the same disagreements for this printer or if results are uniformly in agreement for owners of this arrangement.

Thanks for all replies

Jim

[jtmiller]

This isn't a troll or a whine. Really.

We use LR3.3 for cataloging our photos as reference resources for my daughter's fine art painting. Printing color faithful to what is on-screen has been elusive with the HP9180 and LR. Same image processed via Edit in PS with LR Edits and immediately printed results in accurate rendition. It's just painful to do for a lot of prints.

If this is better asked in another forum let me know. I didn't want to multipost.

The basic question: is LR printing on a Z3200 under Win7 straightforward for the majority? We're seriously interested in a Z3200.

Thanks

Jim

[jaapb]

Jim,

Maybe you can elaborate more on your workflow.
You apparently are familiar with the concept of using printer profiles, but you don't mention softproofing (simulating on screen how your print is going to look on paper). You definitely need to do softproofing, also when you print out of LR. The softproofing can only be done in PS only not (yet) in LR, this means roundtripping the file between LR and PS before printing out of LR.
Other items to comsider:
-double profiling (printer manages color and use printerprofiles in LR or PS)
-paperchoice and mediasettings in driver
-colorsettings in PS vs LR
-rendering intents

I am not sure if a new printer is going to solve the problems you have when printing out of LR

Jaap

[jtmiller]

Jaap

Thanks for your reply.

Workflow is pretty simple most of the time. Just a few changes in LR then (in theory) hit the print button (after meticulously checking settings of course.) We've gone through all the possibilities suggested many, many times. We only use HP inks which are within their use-by date. We only use HP Advanced Photo Paper. Profiles are properly set and used by LR and PS. I've even made Printer Properties settings outside the application in case something wasn't sticky within the application. All rendering intents are the same between LR and PS. All available rendering intents have been tried.

Drivers have been ripped out, registries cleaned and drivers reloaded. All of this has been repeated multiple times with the result that PS prints accurately what is seen on the screen and LR prints with a slight magenta cast. We always check to ensure that Application Managed Colors are set in the app, driver and printer properties defaults.

I've spent well over 100 hours over the past two years, first on Vista then on Win7, trying everything suggested to no avail. I've long concluded that it likely isn't a LR problem but almost certainly an HP driver problem and since the printer is EOL the drivers will never be revised.

At this point we just put up with the hassle and don't intend to put any more time into trying to fix the LR/9180 problem. PS has never had a problem. The 9180 produces beautiful prints when used with either. But the colors are slightly off when printed from LR toward magenta and they have no such cast when printed from PS.

I just wanted to know if folks in general are happy with their workflows and resultant print fidelity with Win7, LR and Z3200. We need a larger format printer at this point. If the Z3200 and drivers are solid then it is currently our printer of choice.

Thanks again

Jim

[John.Murray]

I'm printing either to a 9180 or z3100 from LR and CS5 and am getting excellent matches with either (win7-64).  That being said, i generate my own profiles on the 9180 using an i1.  Like you, i use HP Advanced paper often.

I've downloaded Hp's canned 9180 profiles and found them pretty lacking (this, along with the need for display calibration, drove my purchase of the i1) - you might try having a custom profile generated ....

[jtmiller]

I've never been able to figure out why the prints from LR and PS which look identical on the profiled monitors, differ when printed with all the same setting, drivers, paper, etc. PS looks great, LR always has a slight magenta tinge.

If both looked the same when printed and I then didn't like the prints I could certainly create a new printer/ink/paper profile.

BTW, this is for images which (according to PS) have all colors within gamut.

jim