Canon Printer Setup

[ian in lancs]

I have a Sony PC screen calibrated by huey pro constantly adjusted for ambient light and the picture colours look fine and natural and look similar on all the lap-tops and PC's I have access to. I have always srtuggled to get comparable/aceptable colours on my A4 Canon Pixma IP300 Printer. I've tried every setting combination possible including printing RAW files to no avail. I have also tried printing from PSE, Nikon NX as well as LRII.

I have just got an A3 Canon Pixma IX4000 and am having the same problems - even the same muddy colours and a warm colour cast. Skin tones and whites are just not right.

What's the right basic settings to set them up? Surely they should be pretty good out of the box! What am I doing wrong? Do I have to resort to a calibration gadget or service?

[4hero]

What paper are you printing on?

I generally just use the "glossy photo paper" and High Quality settings on my pixma, looks excellent.

[ian in lancs]

4hero said:

What paper are you printing on?

I generally just use the "glossy photo paper" and High Quality settings on my pixma, looks excellent.

Canon's own and Tesco Finest both Glossy

[4hero]

Hmm, odd? I'm wondering if it's an 8bit/16bit issue? I normally use photoshop, changing the raw to 8bit. Have you tried printing a jpeg? I'm really picky about colours and printing, and have never had any issues with my photos. Is there a way to revert the printer back to default settings and trying again?

[cirks]

Double profiling? What settings are you using when printing eg "Let printer manage colours" or "Let application manage colours" etc?

[ian in lancs]

cirks said:

Double profiling? What settings are you using when printing eg "Let printer manage colours" or "Let application manage colours" etc?

tried both options

[ian in lancs]

4hero said:

Hmm, odd? I'm wondering if it's an 8bit/16bit issue? I normally use photoshop, changing the raw to 8bit. Have you tried printing a jpeg? I'm really picky about colours and printing, and have never had any issues with my photos. Is there a way to revert the printer back to default settings and trying again?

Ive tried mainly Jpegs but have tried a RAW (Nikon .NEF)

what are the settings you use in the printer driver and in LR or PS or PS Elements?

I might try printing directly from the camera (D300) to see what happens

[4hero]

Can't remember off the top of my head Ian, printer/pc isn't on just now (I'm on the laptop downstairs). I only ever change the setting for paper to Glossy Photo Paper, and bump down the speed from fast to slow (or is it high quality). I'll take a look tomorrow if that's ok.

What operating system are you using, and do you have the latest drivers?

[ian in lancs]

4hero said:

Can't remember off the top of my head Ian, printer/pc isn't on just now (I'm on the laptop downstairs). I only ever change the setting for paper to Glossy Photo Paper, and bump down the speed from fast to slow (or is it high quality). I'll take a look tomorrow if that's ok.

What operating system are you using, and do you have the latest drivers?

That's fine I went to bed rather than kicking the printer or using even more paper!

I'm on XP and using the drivers that came on the disk with the printer from Canon yesterday.

[ian in lancs]

In Lightroom 2, using 'Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy' and a calibration jpeg I got from gballard.net (PDI_Target_AdobeRGB.jpeg) I have these settings

Template Browser - Maximise size (so I get a full page image)

Layout Engine
Contact Sheet / Grid - rotate to fit and layout of 1 row 1 column

Overlays - off

Print Job

Print to Printer
Print resolution 300dpi
print sharpening low
media type glossy
Colour management Profile Canon ix4000 PR2
Rendering intent (whatever that is) Perceptual

Then on the ix4000 printer

properties

media type Photo Paper Plus Glossy

printer quality high
colour adjustment manual then set colour matching to none (is this right - ive tried driver matching and ICM but they dont get me what I want) and leave brightness at normal.

Page set up is as per page size and the effects boxes are unchecked

The test jpeg seems to print OK. When I print my pictures jpeg and nef (IIRC sRGB) it just aint right - a bit of a yellowish warmish cast visible on whites and skin tones. grrr!

which bit needs sorting, camera settings (do I need to use AdobeRGB), Lightroom instructions to the printer or the printer settings?

Thanks

Ian

[tim-b]

Are you printing RGB files? IF so it might be worth converting to CMYK as certain colours can change significantly when you do this. Obviously your printer/software will convert it to be able to print, doing it manually will allow you to adjust and tweak each channel should you wish.

For example, if there is too much yellow in your skin tones, use the curves tool on the yellow channel to bring it down a bit in the skin tone range.

Hope that helps!

[plg101]

I'd suggest reading some background on colour profiling as it's a complex area...

It's more than just profiling the monitor:

http://www.xrite.com/documents/literature/en/L11-1...