Out of gamut colors

I am trying to print my recent photos of zinnias (flora and photo art last week) and am finding that I can't get the reds that are evident in the image. I asked PS to show out-of-gamut colors, and what do you know: that's where all the red is.

How do I recover or adjust just those particular colors without affecting the rest of the image??

Thanks a lot for your help!

What kind of camera do you have. I noticed with Nikon, that Ps does not bring out all the colours well. You need to use capture. That is what I do now and its a huge difference. I know,capture is a drag.I

Catherine: you can either let the rendering intent (Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric) deal with those OOG colors, or you can manually desaturate them until they fit the printer/paper gamut. Alternatively, you can try and print on a wider gamut printer (inkjet is wider gamut than most silver halide processes such as Lightjet, Chromira, etc.).

OOG colors are NOT recoverable with that particular printer/paper setup, as it is color spectrum that is beyond the printing ability of the printer. All you can do is shift those OOG colors to their nearest relative in-gamut colors.

thanks. Yes, elisabeth, I do use a Nikon, and Capture is a real pain. But if I must...

Michael, I am using an Epson inkjet printer with K3 inks. I've tried both Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric and there is virtually no difference. I know the printer can print a vivid red. It's just not happening on this particular image. The color palette of the image is bold- red, red orange, a red that is bluer, orange, pink, yellow... Is that the problem? And how do I "shift those OOG colors to their nearest relative in-gamut colors" without disturbing the rest of the image??

Hi Catherine:
In order to provide further help, I would need to inspect a copy of your file (and probably printer profile). K3 printers are indeed wide gamut, so either the original colors are simply too vivid for the printer's gamut; your profile is no good; or something else is wrong. These things are hard to diagnose unless I can sit at your machine.

As to how to correct outside of rendering intent, Google "fix out of gamut color" and you'll find lots of help. Best of luck!

The express purpose of the Relative Colorimetric rendering intent is to move "OOG colors to their nearest relative in-gamut colors" - so that should be the one to use. If that is not working, then either your perception of the printer's ability is incorrect, or as Michael says something is a bit off in the printer profile.

Patrick Herold
Tech Support
www.chromix.com

Thanks everyone. Found the problem. Gotta have the right combination of "color handling" and "printer profile." Need to get in the habit of looking at all those buttons and boxes every time...