grichie5

Having recently returned from a trip, I printed about thirty of my better images; mostly 8.5 by 11, but few in the 13 by 19 size. They were printed on a Canon Pro 100 printer using OEM ink.
Printing from Photoshop seemed slow.It took almost thirty seconds for the print dialogue box to open and then a few seconds delay between each of the next steps, including seeing a preview before printing. I then tried to use Canon's Print Studio Pro which was faster but gave several issues. A few of the first prints came out with banding on the side or bottom or both. A call to Canon Tech support advised that in printing from an image in Photoshop, it was necessary to flatten the layers before attempting to print. This extra step did eliminate the banding issue. I then noticed that the 13 by 19 prints came out a good bit darker than when the same image was printed using Photoshop's print command.

My computer is a Dell XP 8500 running Windows 10 with 12 gb of memory.

Has anyone had similar experiences with either printing method? Comments or advise would be appreciated.

tcthome Loc: NJ

Monitor calibrated? Using the paper/printer ICC profile? Most monitors are way to bright out of the box for color accurate work. With that said , you can try lowering your monitor brightness. I have the same printer & print from LR6 or Affinity Photo. From LR I usually turn up the brightness ( at bottom of print menu ) just before sending it to the printer. I wasted some ink & paper in the beginning. Keep notes of all your settings for what works.
Good luck & have fun.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

First, if possible, upgrade the memory on your computer to 16GB minimum, or even better, 32 GB (and make sure you are running 64 bit Windows (look in control panel/system to make sure all your memory is usable). Second, what graphics card are you using and how much VRAM? That takes care of the compute side.

Then, get a Color Munki or Spyder calibration system and calibrate your monitor. Disable Canon managing your printing preferences in control panel/printers and enable PS managing your printer. Install the correct ICC profile for your printer and the particular paper you are using. Then enable soft proofing in PS and adjust the image for brightness and color as necessary.

Sounds like a lot of work, but those are the steps to speed up your printing and get the output you expect.

johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

my guess is you have ab incorrect printer profile entered

mizzee Loc: Boston,Ma

I always use the Print Studio and use the “contact sheet” for contrast and color. Then I can choose the proper rendition. I had had problems with dingey prints and Print Studio fixed that problem.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Most people don't realize how many unnecessary programs are running in the background on the typical Windows based computer (and, presumably, Mac's also). These programs not only slow start-up time but use resources that can slow down your computer.
Go to the Windows icon in the very lower left of your screen and right click on it, just as you most likely do when you shut down your computer. In the pop-up menu go to "Task Manager". Click on the tab marked "Startup". This will bring up a list of all the programs that start and run when you start your computer. It will show which one are enabled and disabled and their effect on start-up. Many are unnecessary and some will use considerable resources even when not in use, slowing down your computer. By highlighting any of them you can disable them using the button in the lower right. Disabling a program only means that you are disabling it's automatic start-up. The program will still be fully functional but when you go to use it, if you ever do, you will have to wait for it to start at that time. BTW, the McAfee virus program that comes with the computer is a notorious resource hog. I disabled it as soon as I got my current computer. Instead, I us Webroot and Malwarebytes Premium. The two combined provide excellent protection and are far less intrusive.
While the steps I mention can help, upgrading your computer's RAM can give you a noticeable improvement. It is quick and easy to do if you are at all a DIYer. Just be sure to order the proper chips. There are variations. If you are unsure as to what you need, call Dell. I upgraded my Dell XPS 8920 some time back. Bought the chips from B&H, but, I knew exactly what I needed so it was no problem.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Yup. It's your monitor brightness and not calibrating your monitor. For now, if you don't want to buy a calibration device, try dimming the brightness on your monitor about 20%, going back into Photoshop, then adjust your picture to your liking, and then print it. If it's still too dark, either dim down your monitor again and then re-adjust your image in PS, or using the Canon Plugin increase the brightness 10% - 20%. There is an adjustment in Print Studio Pro for doing just that.

rcarol

I have found that printing from Lightroom Classic eliminates all of the problems that I had with printing using my Canon Pro 100. Printing from Photoshop was a hit or miss situation for me. Prints were darker than the monitor. Colors were dull and undersaturated. Soft proofing is so much easier in Lightroom and in my opinion, is a necessary step in producing quality prints.

flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

Excellent advice in my opinion.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

A few possibilities:

1. Do you have a Photoshop "scratch disk" set up? This provides additional space for PS to save temp files and such, helps it work faster. The scratch disk should be a separate drive, either actual or virtual, dedicated for only PS use. I've got 100GB partition on one of my drives, which is probably larger than needed.

2. In Photoshop preference you can tell PS it how much RAM and processor it's allowed to use. More is better for faster performance and printing, but you may need to shut down other programs.

3. You definitely need to flatten any layers in images before printing (otherwise PS will need to do so with at least a temp file, before it can send it to the printer). It sounds as if you are already doing this.

4. It's a good idea to work with 16-bit while doing your editing, tweaking, retouching, adjustments, noise reduction, cropping & sizing, sharpening, etc. to images. But once all that's done and before printing convert to 8-bit and save as either JPEG or TIFF. 8-bit is more than sufficient for high quality photo printing. 16-bit images don't look any different, but can take longer to print and may consume more ink. If you've been printing from 16-bit, do some test prints of the same images in 8-bit and see for yourself.

5. Too dark prints are usually caused by working with an uncalibrated monitor. It happens because, from new most computer monitors are way too bright for accurate photo editing (colors are also off, but that's more subtle). This causes the user to adjust their images too dark. It looks fine on the user's monitor, but will look dark to anyone viewing it with a calibrated monitor, as well as print too dark. I'm not sure this is the problem you're seeing... Did you mean that the prints look correct in PS, but not in Canon's own software?

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Use only canon printer software to find and print your images. ie come out of PS and close it down. close down any other open programs.
Check that you are using RGB or SRGB NOT AdobeRGB in post processing and as default on printer.(you can change your camera too) Having a mix of RGB screws everything
IF you get consistent darker / brightness issues turn up/down your monitor brightness...
Never jump straight into printing from a cold start on the printer.....do a test print and check all cartridge capacities. (using software)

Find a colour profile sheet and print it...keep it pinned above the pc, check the difference between the colours from screen and print....bear that colour difference in mind when post processing (for print)

always use the same make of paper and accept that you may have to print a couple of copies of every image befor 'getting it right' by PP. Especialy if the images vary in colour /Saturation / content .

There is no 'easy' fix. your images constantly differ.

Have fun

grichie5

Thanks to everybody for the helpful responses. I did increase the memory allocated for Adobe use by about twenty percent, to near the maximum suggested and it really increased the speed of Photoshop's response to the print request; from about thirty seconds to about five seconds. The other steps in the print dialogue box respond much faster. I also lowered the brightness of my monitor.
A few test prints now show a definite improvement in print speed response and monitor brightness matching.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ