Posted by Kevin Trinkner on November 6, 2008 at 10:46 PM
I'm really struggling with my Canon Pro9000 printer, anybody on here familiar with this beast and getting it to print somewhat accurate to my monitor image?
The reds are terribly overpowering on this printer, and it seems the changes I make have little effect on the output.
I printed the same image 6 times tonight, with a change in overall brightness of +25 and the image didn't look any different. I changed contrast as well, can't tell. Saved the image, flattened the image, printed as tif,psd,jpg, no difference.
Am I missing something here, this is rather frustrating at this point.
While I am not familiar with this particular printer, you might want to try the following as a first step (assuming your printer is working properly)...
If you are having PhotoShop manage color, be sure color management is turned 'off' in the Canon printer driver. Also, be sure you are using the correct paper profile. These two things; 'double' color management and incorrect profile are sometimes the culprit when severe print/monitor mismatches occur.
Preston has pretty much hit it so check these, you should not have to fiddle with brightness and such to match print to monitor. You might want to calibrate your monitor if you have not done so to make sure your colors are appearing correctly. These things can be a pain sometime but usually it is something just overlooked. You might check with a company that sells these like LexJet or someone similar they usually have experts there that might be able to get you on the right path.
how do I make sure color management is turned off on the printer driver?
I have calibrated my monitor, but I need to re-calibrate cause it has been a month or so.
I can't seem to find many icc profiles from paper companies for my Canon Printer. I find myself mainly using the canned Canon profiles that came with the printer. The printer limits me even more if I want to print borderless I only have a handful of paper profiles I can use or it forces me to put crazy borders on everything.
Overall I'm rather frustrated with this printer right now, hopefully with a bit more time I can get a little closer at least.
Posted by Dan Borzynski on November 7, 2008 at 9:59 AM
A monitor that is a couple of months out of calibration shouldn't be the root of the problem, assuming that it isn't about ready to die. It may not be perfect, but out of whack reds won't do this.
First question: is this printer new or have you been using it for a while? Also, given the number of replies you have, this probably doesn't apply, but how much experience do you have with higher end printing? This initial setup, to get everything right, can be frustrating.
Okay, here are my main settings:
From Photoshop CS2 (althought this is largely repeated in other versions of Photoshop, including Elements)
Go to print with preview. Under options there, under color handling, "let Photoshop Determine Colors". Same area, check the profiles. Since you don't have an exact profile for the paper, pick a glossy for a glossy, matte for a matte, etc. There may be a couple of choices here. Pick one. Print and evaluate. Keep going. Rendering intent: use either perceptual or relative colormetric. This last still shouldn't cause your problems.
Next go to page setup, printer (make sure you pick the right one, if you are running 2 or more printers, dont ask ). ON the main screen, make you you have the correct media type. Pick the closest one available if need be.
Under mode there, custom settings, advanced: Under printer color management, check the media type and and printer color management is "OFF".
Back out of there and go to utility. Do a nozzle check to make sure a head isn't clogged.
Assuming that you are running Windows, go to the printer settings and make sure they match with what you just set in PS.
My best guesses for the problem, in some vague order: clogged head, wrong profile for the paper, correct profile but wrong media selected.
Good luck.
Posted by Kevin Trinkner on November 7, 2008 at 10:26 AM
Thanks Dan.
The printer is probably a year old now, but I have not done a lot of printing on it, so to answer your other question, no I don't have much experience in higher end printing.
I will have to go back over some of my settings and see what I have.
Posted by Phillip Noll on November 7, 2008 at 10:49 AM
You have been given good advice above. With a color-managed workflow you should not have to mess with brightness (or any other setting). It is critical to make sure you have the color management turned OFF in the printer driver and let Photoshop manage color. If both are on you will get very strange results! After this, the next most important thing is your color profiles. You need to have good profiles for your printer/paper/ink combination in order to match your display. As Dan says above, a clogged head can also produce poor quality prints and strange color shifts. Choosing between Relative Colorimetric and Perceptual rendering intents will generally produce subtle changes which doesn't sound like what you are describing. The file type should have no affect on how it prints (color-wise) and if you calibrated your monitor within the last month or so, you can probably rule that out as well.
Posted by David Bostedo on November 7, 2008 at 11:20 AM
Kevin - As far as your problem goes, I would start by simplifying things paper/profile wise, as Preston suggested. Have you tried using one of the high end Canon papers and it's default profile (they're pretty good)? What program are you printing out of? Windows or Mac?
And the monitor profile could be causing a problem if it's out of whack no matter how recent it is, but I think that is less likely.
I also have the Pro9000, and I think I get terrific results out of it. I've printed many things from both Photoshop Elements and Qimage. If you search on here, there are a few threads that mention the 9000 and might have some more info on papers and profiles.
And you won't find too many canned profiles for it, but if you really like a paper could always get a custom profile made (for something like $25 to $50). Somewhere on here I reviewed a few papers I've tried and talked about profiles.
Posted by Robert Fisher on November 7, 2008 at 11:38 AM
If you're using non-Canon papers and don't have the proper profile for them, it'll be more a matter of good luck than good (colour) management that the print comes out the way you want.
This, unfortunately, is one of the downfalls of Canon printers. Most of the better third party paper manufacturers do a good job of supporting Epson printers but not so good at supporting Canon printers with profiles.
As others have suggested, try some of the Canon papers for which you have profiles. Follow the instructions from others on how to turn printer colour management off in your driver (I don't use Canon so can't help there) and results should be better.
Discussion
8 repliesI'm really struggling with my Canon Pro9000 printer, anybody on here familiar with this beast and getting it to print somewhat accurate to my monitor image?
The reds are terribly overpowering on this printer, and it seems the changes I make have little effect on the output.
I printed the same image 6 times tonight, with a change in overall brightness of +25 and the image didn't look any different. I changed contrast as well, can't tell. Saved the image, flattened the image, printed as tif,psd,jpg, no difference.
Am I missing something here, this is rather frustrating at this point.
Thanks for any advice..
Kevin
While I am not familiar with this particular printer, you might want to try the following as a first step (assuming your printer is working properly)...
If you are having PhotoShop manage color, be sure color management is turned 'off' in the Canon printer driver. Also, be sure you are using the correct paper profile. These two things; 'double' color management and incorrect profile are sometimes the culprit when severe print/monitor mismatches occur.
-P
how do I make sure color management is turned off on the printer driver?
I have calibrated my monitor, but I need to re-calibrate cause it has been a month or so.
I can't seem to find many icc profiles from paper companies for my Canon Printer. I find myself mainly using the canned Canon profiles that came with the printer. The printer limits me even more if I want to print borderless I only have a handful of paper profiles I can use or it forces me to put crazy borders on everything.
Overall I'm rather frustrated with this printer right now, hopefully with a bit more time I can get a little closer at least.
First question: is this printer new or have you been using it for a while? Also, given the number of replies you have, this probably doesn't apply, but how much experience do you have with higher end printing? This initial setup, to get everything right, can be frustrating.
Okay, here are my main settings:
From Photoshop CS2 (althought this is largely repeated in other versions of Photoshop, including Elements)
Go to print with preview. Under options there, under color handling, "let Photoshop Determine Colors". Same area, check the profiles. Since you don't have an exact profile for the paper, pick a glossy for a glossy, matte for a matte, etc. There may be a couple of choices here. Pick one. Print and evaluate. Keep going. Rendering intent: use either perceptual or relative colormetric. This last still shouldn't cause your problems.
Next go to page setup, printer (make sure you pick the right one, if you are running 2 or more printers, dont ask
Under mode there, custom settings, advanced: Under printer color management, check the media type and and printer color management is "OFF".
Back out of there and go to utility. Do a nozzle check to make sure a head isn't clogged.
Assuming that you are running Windows, go to the printer settings and make sure they match with what you just set in PS.
My best guesses for the problem, in some vague order: clogged head, wrong profile for the paper, correct profile but wrong media selected.
Good luck.
The printer is probably a year old now, but I have not done a lot of printing on it, so to answer your other question, no I don't have much experience in higher end printing.
I will have to go back over some of my settings and see what I have.
And the monitor profile could be causing a problem if it's out of whack no matter how recent it is, but I think that is less likely.
I also have the Pro9000, and I think I get terrific results out of it. I've printed many things from both Photoshop Elements and Qimage. If you search on here, there are a few threads that mention the 9000 and might have some more info on papers and profiles.
And you won't find too many canned profiles for it, but if you really like a paper could always get a custom profile made (for something like $25 to $50). Somewhere on here I reviewed a few papers I've tried and talked about profiles.
This, unfortunately, is one of the downfalls of Canon printers. Most of the better third party paper manufacturers do a good job of supporting Epson printers but not so good at supporting Canon printers with profiles.
As others have suggested, try some of the Canon papers for which you have profiles. Follow the instructions from others on how to turn printer colour management off in your driver (I don't use Canon so can't help there) and results should be better.