Tinker

My wife has the Pro-100, I have Pro 9000 Mk II. She has had a problem with images being in either an incorrect color and/or just too dark. I can make the screen image overly bright but that just makes the printing result just a crapshoot. The latest issue is a print of a bright yellow flower that printed in a flat orange color. I printed the same image on the 9000 Mk II and the result was a correct image. We have recalibrated, worked on white balance, tried all sorts of combinations in both LR and PS. Same result. Neither of us is a computer whiz so we are pretty stumped. Could it be an update missed? Any help would be appreciated. Should it be important, we use a D90, P900 and a D5100. Bill

The Watcher

If this was my problem, I would be checking these things.

What does the nozzle check look like?

Am I using the proper paper profile?

What rendering intent am I using in the Photoshop print module? (My pick is Relative Colorimetric with black point compensation turned on)

Have I set the color correction to NONE in the Canon driver settings?

Does the printer know that Photoshop will be managing colors?

One more thing; You might want to see if this thread can be moved to the Main Photography Discussion where more people will see it.

Tinker

Thanks for your reply, Watcher. I will look into your suggestions and hopefully something will pop!

WayneT Loc: Paris, TN

One thing a lot of people forget when setting up a print job is that the photo you are looking at on your screen is backlit but the photo you are printing is reflective. The backlit will always be brighter. I use a Pro 100 and normally correct my photos by pushing it anywhere from 1 to 3 stops (based on the photo I'm printing) to increase the brightness on the printed photo, .

Chefneil

I have the pro-100 too and love it. I had the same problem when printing. So I tried Calibrating the screen and it seemed to make a huge difference. I also realized that maybe my eye on the screen enjoyed a darker image then on printed paper, so now I am trying to compensate during processing. It seems to work.

Also, there is a printer section on UHH and it may be a good place to direct your question.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I have both of those printers as well as smaller ones, and each printer produces slightly different tints of the same color. It has nothing to do with monitor calibration. If a print is important, I make adjustments on the computer to change the output for that particular printer. You're dealing with a mechanical machine and different ink formulas, so you're not going to get identical results from different printers.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Are you double profiling? One way to make sure that's not the case is to choose the paper type from the drop down box, and then let the printer handle the color management. On a Canon printer that means selecting the Auto setting.

TomV Loc: Annapolis, Maryland

I submitted a detailed settings response that gives a good starting point for solving this particular issue.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-515058-1.html

johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

I had a similar issue, until...... Ok, drama aside, make sure you set the correct color profile for the printer in Photoshop. Go to Edit/Assign profile. You will have three choices. Go to the third one, go to the pull down menu, and select the correct printer and paper including luster or gloss. I had not been doing that and the Pro 100 would not match the screen image colors. When you hit enter, you will likely get a slight color and/or brightness shift on the monitor. Now adjust picture to your liking, and print, making sure you select "printer manages color" and that the proper printer and paper show up in the box. You will then get your second print dialog box after hitting enter in the first box, and go to layout options. In this, make sure you go to the quality selection choice and you will find your printer paper as a choice as well as being able to select high or low resolution. Hit high.
If you use Photoshop Raw, you can change the default setting to the same print settings for each subsequent photo by clicking on the file name on the bottom, which is followed by the settings. But be sure you change this if you change your paper.
A quick way to set the correct printer and paper in Photoshop, not Raw, is to go to Edit/Assign profile. It will immediately change the profile to the last used profile.
The Pro 100 does a great job with photos when you do things correctly in the set up.

philo Loc: philo, ca

I would give Canon a call. they have helped me in the past.

3dees

are you using Canon ink? I tried third party ink and had problems. went back to the expensive Canon ink and no more problems.

philo Loc: philo, ca

I have a Pro 100 and have used 3rd party ink for years and never had a problem. right now I have 123 ink in my printer.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

It's not the printer, computer or software at fault... I'd wager it's your computer monitor. That needs to be calibrated with a device such as a Spyder or X-Rite.

The #1 reason for "too dark" prints is a TOO BRIGHT monitor. Out of the box and at their default settings, the majority of monitors are WAY too bright for photo editing, causing you to mis-adjust your images too dark when printed. A calibration device helps you set a correct brightness level and maintain it accurately over time. It also will help fine tune your monitor's color rendition to be more accurate. Both monitor brightness and color rendition change over time, too.... so recalibration is needed every so often (I do it once a month... some folks do it more or less often). If you do much printing, a calibration device will essentially pay for itself in savings of wasted paper and the cost of re-printing. Without a calibration device, you are just guessing at monitor settings.

The device will create and apply a custom profile specifically for your monitor in its current condition. Then each time you re-calibrate it will provide a new one. You'll see these change over time.... especially brightness... as the monitor ages. For example, around 7 years ago when I first got it, I had to dial my monitor down to 20% brightness to get a correct level for photo editing. Now after a number of years of hard use, my Spyder is having me set it to about 50% to have the same level of brightness. It's changed that much over time. (Color rendition changes too, but it's more subtle and difficult to track.)

I don't know why you are seeing different results with the two different printers. Maybe you just got luckier guessing at the settings for one, than the other. Or, in one case you are using your editing software to manage color during the printing, while in the other you are leaving it to the printer to control it, which is usually less accurate.

When ahving the editing software manage the color, you also need to use a "correct" printer profile. Especially in Photoshop there are "soft proof" options that you can use to emulate various printer/ink/paper combinations. If you use Canon papers and inks in the Pro-100, there are profiles already installed which you can use. It's not perfect, since no monitor has the same dynamic range as a print on paper can have.... Plus a monitor is back-lit, while a print is reflective. But soft-proofing is pretty good and the best we've got... and you can get accustomed to, learn to anticipate and take into account the more minor differences between a calibrated monitor and how an image will look on paper. It is important to use the correct printer/ink/paper profile when soft-proofing. There are custom profiles available for non-OEM combinations of paper & ink, too. Or, a calibration device might have ability for you to create your own custom paper & ink profiles.

If letting the printer control the process, be sure to select the correct paper type and quality settings. If not using the OEM combination, you may need to do some experimentation. For example, a cheap Kodak medium gloss paper that I use for thumbnail catalogs and small proofs seems to print best with a generic matte paper setting (which also saves a lot of ink).

Hope this helps!

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Do you use a colorimeter to calibrate her monitor? Usually and indication of prints being to dark is that the monitor is too bright. If the yellows are orange it could be several different thing wrong. But the first thing needed is a corrected calibrated monitor. Then if you still have this problem you could have the printer settings wrong. If you call Canon they would suggest that you download and install their plugin called Print Studio Pro. This make printing easy without all the confusion of dealing with color space, ICC profiles etc. It won't let you use 2 at once which can throw the colors way off. This is an easy mistake to make when using the print module in Photoshop and other editing applications.

In short, I suggest you download and use the plugin made for Canon printers called Print Studio Pro and calibrate the monitor.