Color Management

R
Posted By
rdoc2
Nov 12, 2007
Views
579
Replies
16
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Closed
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

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J
Joel
Nov 12, 2007
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote:

When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

Yes, there are articles which you can be able to GOOGLE for them, and there is/was talk about Photoshop, Printing, Color etc. which you will need to spend few minutes a day to read to learn. Good articles? I don’t know which is good/bad, but as long as I can learn from it then I guess I can live with it and cosider good read (some can be pretty confusing or technical).

But in general

– Monitor profile is for displaying/viewing

– Printer profile is for printing.

So

– You may need good Monitor profile (calibrated) to be able to get good displaying color to get better result

– Then you will need Printer Profile to match the Monitor profile, or you have a good Printer Profile you can fine tuning the displaying to match the printer output.
MR
Mike Russell
Nov 12, 2007
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

My own preference is to have the printer manage the colors, setting the printer to the default settings for printing photographs. Test by printing a test image from a web site that contains test patches and skin tones.

If you find that the test image looks good as a print, but not so good on your screen, the problem is with your display, not the printer, and you need to calibrate your display, which can be done manually, or by using a screen calibration gadget such as the Spyder Pro or Eye One Display 2.

If there are no problems, I avoid any special calibration procedures. However, YMMV, particularly if you are using third party ink or paper.

If you are able to get good results from the above procedure, more power to you. If not, you have several courses of action:

1) locate a canned profile for your printer / paper combination. This can be a good course to follow, provided you are sticking to the mfg’s materials.

2) use a test strip to manually configure your printer to print a good neutral tone scale and skin tones.
http://www.curvemeister.com/downloads/TestStrip/digital_test _strip.htm . The test strip procedure will save you a lot of paper and ink.

3) Have a company calibrate your printer, or use a device to do so – both of these can be an expensive proposition – more costly than printer and ink combined, and I don’t really recommend them at the present time.

4) Punt. Have an online service do your prints, while you sort out the problem with your printer. Send them some test patterns that you can compare with your printer’s output, and try step 2.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
R
rdoc2
Nov 13, 2007
Hi Mike and thanks for the help.
There seems to be two schools of thought on this subject which are Photoshop vs Printer.
I can see and presently agree that the Printer is the better choice however Russell Brown on his sight has a tutorial and he recommends Photoshop that is what confused me.
I am going to try your suggestions and see what happens. I have a few questions for now if you would. Here are some settings that I think are right? Printer Manages Color
Working Spaces sRGB IEC6 1966-2.1
Color Management Policies: RGB:Preserved Embeded Profiles Color Correction: Driver Matching
Manual Color Adjustment: Driver Matching
Final question: The printer is a Canon ip4500 and the paper I used is the Canon Photo Paper Pro, I think this is the right profile for that: Canon iP4500 series PR1?
If you would be kind enough to help me with the above questions than I can proceed with the testing you suggested.
Thanks again and I really appreciate your help me.

Mike Russell wrote:
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

My own preference is to have the printer manage the colors, setting the printer to the default settings for printing photographs. Test by printing a test image from a web site that contains test patches and skin tones.
If you find that the test image looks good as a print, but not so good on your screen, the problem is with your display, not the printer, and you need to calibrate your display, which can be done manually, or by using a screen calibration gadget such as the Spyder Pro or Eye One Display 2.
If there are no problems, I avoid any special calibration procedures. However, YMMV, particularly if you are using third party ink or paper.
If you are able to get good results from the above procedure, more power to you. If not, you have several courses of action:

1) locate a canned profile for your printer / paper combination. This can be a good course to follow, provided you are sticking to the mfg’s materials.

2) use a test strip to manually configure your printer to print a good neutral tone scale and skin tones.
http://www.curvemeister.com/downloads/TestStrip/digital_test _strip.htm . The test strip procedure will save you a lot of paper and ink.
3) Have a company calibrate your printer, or use a device to do so – both of these can be an expensive proposition – more costly than printer and ink combined, and I don’t really recommend them at the present time.
4) Punt. Have an online service do your prints, while you sort out the problem with your printer. Send them some test patterns that you can compare with your printer’s output, and try step 2.
MR
Mike Russell
Nov 13, 2007
From: "Gary F. Pitel"

Hi Mike and thanks for the help.
There seems to be two schools of thought on this subject which are Photoshop vs Printer.
I can see and presently agree that the Printer is the better choice however Russell Brown on his sight has a tutorial and he recommends Photoshop that is what confused me.
I am going to try your suggestions and see what happens. I have a few questions for now if you would. Here are some settings that I think are right? Printer Manages Color
Working Spaces sRGB IEC6 1966-2.1
Color Management Policies: RGB:Preserved Embeded Profiles Color Correction: Driver Matching
Manual Color Adjustment: Driver Matching
Final question: The printer is a Canon ip4500 and the paper I used is the Canon Photo Paper Pro, I think this is the right profile for that: Canon iP4500 series PR1?
If you would be kind enough to help me with the above questions than I can proceed with the testing you suggested.
Thanks again and I really appreciate your help me.

Looks fine, though I can’t really answer your next to last question. If you are going to be using a Canon profile, which is fine, then there will be no driver settings specified for color correction or manual adjustment.

BTW – the best web page I’ve seen on color setup is by Ian Lyons, whose Digital Darkroom web page overall is well worth a look:
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps10_colour/ps10_1.htm

Save yourself a lot of paper and ink by printing a small image along the top margin of the sheet of paper. Then snip off an inch or two and use the same sheet again. That, or buy stock in Canon and get some of your ink and paper money back 🙂

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
R
rdoc2
Nov 13, 2007
Mike Russell wrote:
From: "Gary F. Pitel"

Hi Mike and thanks for the help.
There seems to be two schools of thought on this subject which are Photoshop vs Printer.
I can see and presently agree that the Printer is the better choice however Russell Brown on his sight has a tutorial and he recommends Photoshop that is what confused me.
I am going to try your suggestions and see what happens. I have a few questions for now if you would. Here are some settings that I think are right? Printer Manages Color
Working Spaces sRGB IEC6 1966-2.1
Color Management Policies: RGB:Preserved Embeded Profiles Color Correction: Driver Matching
Manual Color Adjustment: Driver Matching
Final question: The printer is a Canon ip4500 and the paper I used is the Canon Photo Paper Pro, I think this is the right profile for that: Canon iP4500 series PR1?
If you would be kind enough to help me with the above questions than I can proceed with the testing you suggested.
Thanks again and I really appreciate your help me.

Looks fine, though I can’t really answer your next to last question. If you are going to be using a Canon profile, which is fine, then there will be no driver settings specified for color correction or manual adjustment.
BTW – the best web page I’ve seen on color setup is by Ian Lyons, whose Digital Darkroom web page overall is well worth a look:
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps10_colour/ps10_1.htm

Save yourself a lot of paper and ink by printing a small image along the top margin of the sheet of paper. Then snip off an inch or two and use the same sheet again. That, or buy stock in Canon and get some of your ink and paper money back 🙂

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
"Looks fine, though I can’t really answer your next to last question. If you
are going to be using a Canon profile, which is fine, then there will be no driver settings specified for color correction or manual adjustment."

Well that statement lost me! Than do I set Auto for Color/Intensity (Color Correction is under that) and that is it which I guess means that I don’t set anything for Color Correction since it is handled Automatically?

Where can I find out if the profile I picked is the right one for the Printer and the Paper.

Thanks Mike you are a great helper and teacher.
MR
Mike Russell
Nov 13, 2007
From: "Gary F. Pitel"
[re Mike’s comment:]
"Looks fine, though I can’t really answer your next to last question. If you
are going to be using a Canon profile, which is fine, then there will be no
driver settings specified for color correction or manual adjustment."
Well that statement lost me! Than do I set Auto for Color/Intensity (Color Correction is under that) and that is it which I guess means that I don’t set anything for Color Correction since it is handled Automatically?
Where can I find out if the profile I picked is the right one for the Printer and the Paper.

This may just be termininlogy. A profile is normally an icm or icc file that is installed on your system for use by a color device, such as a printer or display. If you have such a profile installed, then there is no need to specify individual device settings.
Thanks Mike you are a great helper and teacher.
Well, thank you for your kind words.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
D
dvus
Nov 13, 2007
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
From: "Gary F. Pitel"
[re Mike’s comment:]

"Looks fine, though I can’t really answer your next to last question. If you
are going to be using a Canon profile, which is fine, then there will be no
driver settings specified for color correction or manual adjustment."
Well that statement lost me! Than do I set Auto for Color/Intensity (Color Correction is under that) and that is it which I guess means that I don’t set anything for Color Correction since it is handled Automatically?

Where can I find out if the profile I picked is the right one for the Printer and the Paper.

This may just be termininlogy. A profile is normally an icm or icc file that is installed on your system for use by a color device, such as a printer or display. If you have such a profile installed, then there is no need to specify individual device settings.
Thanks Mike you are a great helper and teacher.
Well, thank you for your kind words.

It’s a little off the point, but speaking of color profiles, anyone using a Syncmaster 226BW might want to read:

http://www.behardware.com/articles/667-1/samsung-226bw-a-and -s-series-the-verdict.html

I checked mine and it’s *not* a Samsung screen.


dvus
R
rdoc2
Nov 13, 2007
Mike Russell wrote:
From: "Gary F. Pitel"
[re Mike’s comment:]
"Looks fine, though I can’t really answer your next to last question. If you
are going to be using a Canon profile, which is fine, then there will be no
driver settings specified for color correction or manual adjustment."
Well that statement lost me! Than do I set Auto for Color/Intensity (Color Correction is under that) and that is it which I guess means that I don’t set anything for Color Correction since it is handled Automatically?
Where can I find out if the profile I picked is the right one for the Printer and the Paper.

This may just be termininlogy. A profile is normally an icm or icc file that is installed on your system for use by a color device, such as a printer or display. If you have such a profile installed, then there is no need to specify individual device settings.
Thanks Mike you are a great helper and teacher.
Well, thank you for your kind words.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
This may just be termininlogy. A profile is normally an icm or icc file that is installed on your system for use by a color device, such as a printer or display. If you have such a profile installed, then there is no need to specify individual device settings.

You are losing me now. After we did all of the above settings are you telling me that I don’t have to set anything. How do I find out if there is an icm or icc file on board? I will do a search.
R
rdoc2
Nov 13, 2007
Mike Russell wrote:
From: "Gary F. Pitel"
[re Mike’s comment:]
"Looks fine, though I can’t really answer your next to last question. If you
are going to be using a Canon profile, which is fine, then there will be no
driver settings specified for color correction or manual adjustment."
Well that statement lost me! Than do I set Auto for Color/Intensity (Color Correction is under that) and that is it which I guess means that I don’t set anything for Color Correction since it is handled Automatically?
Where can I find out if the profile I picked is the right one for the Printer and the Paper.

This may just be termininlogy. A profile is normally an icm or icc file that is installed on your system for use by a color device, such as a printer or display. If you have such a profile installed, then there is no need to specify individual device settings.
Thanks Mike you are a great helper and teacher.
Well, thank you for your kind words.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
There are 20 icm files installed on this computer. So now what do I do to finish this color management setup?
MR
Mike Russell
Nov 13, 2007
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
[re color management and icc files]
There are 20 icm files installed on this computer. So now what do I do to finish this color management setup?

Start>Help and search for "color management" —
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
R
rdoc2
Nov 13, 2007
Mike Russell wrote:
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
[re color management and icc files]
There are 20 icm files installed on this computer. So now what do I do to finish this color management setup?

Start>Help and search for "color management"
Thanks it is appreciated.
K
KatWoman
Nov 13, 2007
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
Hi Mike and thanks for the help.
There seems to be two schools of thought on this subject which are Photoshop vs Printer.
I can see and presently agree that the Printer is the better choice however Russell Brown on his sight has a tutorial and he recommends Photoshop that is what confused me.
I am going to try your suggestions and see what happens. I have a few questions for now if you would. Here are some settings that I think are right? Printer Manages Color
Working Spaces sRGB IEC6 1966-2.1
Color Management Policies: RGB:Preserved Embeded Profiles Color Correction: Driver Matching
Manual Color Adjustment: Driver Matching
Final question: The printer is a Canon ip4500 and the paper I used is the Canon Photo Paper Pro, I think this is the right profile for that: Canon iP4500 series PR1?
If you would be kind enough to help me with the above questions than I can proceed with the testing you suggested.
Thanks again and I really appreciate your help me.

Mike Russell wrote:
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

My own preference is to have the printer manage the colors, setting the printer to the default settings for printing photographs. Test by printing a test image from a web site that contains test patches and skin tones.

If you find that the test image looks good as a print, but not so good on your screen, the problem is with your display, not the printer, and you need to calibrate your display, which can be done manually, or by using a screen calibration gadget such as the Spyder Pro or Eye One Display 2.
If there are no problems, I avoid any special calibration procedures. However, YMMV, particularly if you are using third party ink or paper.
If you are able to get good results from the above procedure, more power to you. If not, you have several courses of action:

1) locate a canned profile for your printer / paper combination. This can be a good course to follow, provided you are sticking to the mfg’s materials.

2) use a test strip to manually configure your printer to print a good neutral tone scale and skin tones.
http://www.curvemeister.com/downloads/TestStrip/digital_test _strip.htm . The test strip procedure will save you a lot of paper and ink.
3) Have a company calibrate your printer, or use a device to do so – both of these can be an expensive proposition – more costly than printer and ink combined, and I don’t really recommend them at the present time.
4) Punt. Have an online service do your prints, while you sort out the problem with your printer. Send them some test patterns that you can compare with your printer’s output, and try step 2.

FWIW I Have never once got anything close to the screen colors choosing PS for the print driver
no amount of loading profiles tweaking manually or spidering does better than my Epson drivers

Mike Russell gives the best advice here on color control in PS what he said about print a file straight from camera to determine your monitor is great
I think it also depends what color space your camera is shooting

so have you printed anything?
how does it look to you?
same as screen? similar? way off??
T
TheComputerGuy
Nov 14, 2007
On Nov 11, 6:54 pm, "Gary F. Pitel" wrote:
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

A word of advice from a professional printer. Never change your settings in Photoshop to CMYK unless you are just trying to do a test. Always keep your profile to "Adobe 1998" Let your printer do the color correction from RGB to CMYK. Always make sure you have decent light in the area you are working, not too warm or cool. Sunlight and Lamp light can cause your colors to look totally different. When changing Profiles in photoshop, do "Assign Profile"

Also what was mentioned before, printing out color swatches is the best. Crop a good section of your photo and adjust the color making several prints until the screen and print out look right. I like to crop and then paste the crop into a new document to make several swatches. Some can be warmer, some can be cooler. When you print you can find the one that looks the best. Hope that helps.
R
rdoc2
Nov 15, 2007
KatWoman wrote:
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
Hi Mike and thanks for the help.
There seems to be two schools of thought on this subject which are Photoshop vs Printer.
I can see and presently agree that the Printer is the better choice however Russell Brown on his sight has a tutorial and he recommends Photoshop that is what confused me.
I am going to try your suggestions and see what happens. I have a few questions for now if you would. Here are some settings that I think are right? Printer Manages Color
Working Spaces sRGB IEC6 1966-2.1
Color Management Policies: RGB:Preserved Embeded Profiles Color Correction: Driver Matching
Manual Color Adjustment: Driver Matching
Final question: The printer is a Canon ip4500 and the paper I used is the Canon Photo Paper Pro, I think this is the right profile for that: Canon iP4500 series PR1?
If you would be kind enough to help me with the above questions than I can proceed with the testing you suggested.
Thanks again and I really appreciate your help me.

Mike Russell wrote:
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.
My own preference is to have the printer manage the colors, setting the printer to the default settings for printing photographs. Test by printing a test image from a web site that contains test patches and skin tones.

If you find that the test image looks good as a print, but not so good on your screen, the problem is with your display, not the printer, and you need to calibrate your display, which can be done manually, or by using a screen calibration gadget such as the Spyder Pro or Eye One Display 2.
If there are no problems, I avoid any special calibration procedures. However, YMMV, particularly if you are using third party ink or paper.
If you are able to get good results from the above procedure, more power to you. If not, you have several courses of action:

1) locate a canned profile for your printer / paper combination. This can be a good course to follow, provided you are sticking to the mfg’s materials.

2) use a test strip to manually configure your printer to print a good neutral tone scale and skin tones.
http://www.curvemeister.com/downloads/TestStrip/digital_test _strip.htm . The test strip procedure will save you a lot of paper and ink.
3) Have a company calibrate your printer, or use a device to do so – both of these can be an expensive proposition – more costly than printer and ink combined, and I don’t really recommend them at the present time.
4) Punt. Have an online service do your prints, while you sort out the problem with your printer. Send them some test patterns that you can compare with your printer’s output, and try step 2.

FWIW I Have never once got anything close to the screen colors choosing PS for the print driver
no amount of loading profiles tweaking manually or spidering does better than my Epson drivers

Mike Russell gives the best advice here on color control in PS what he said about print a file straight from camera to determine your monitor is great
I think it also depends what color space your camera is shooting
so have you printed anything?
how does it look to you?
same as screen? similar? way off??
I have only printed one and the colors where fine except I did one photo on top of another photo with the top photo being my grand daughter and I used a mask on that layer. Everything was fine except her hair is natural brown and it came out tanish stray or a little redish color. But it is possible that I can’t go by that since the grand daughter was a layer and not the background layer. Also she had all kinds of adjustments done on her previously. Like soft light.
The next photo will tell more. Thanks
R
rdoc2
Nov 15, 2007
TheComputerGuy wrote:
On Nov 11, 6:54 pm, "Gary F. Pitel" wrote:
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

A word of advice from a professional printer. Never change your settings in Photoshop to CMYK unless you are just trying to do a test. Always keep your profile to "Adobe 1998" Let your printer do the color correction from RGB to CMYK. Always make sure you have decent light in the area you are working, not too warm or cool. Sunlight and Lamp light can cause your colors to look totally different. When changing Profiles in photoshop, do "Assign Profile"
Also what was mentioned before, printing out color swatches is the best. Crop a good section of your photo and adjust the color making several prints until the screen and print out look right. I like to crop and then paste the crop into a new document to make several swatches. Some can be warmer, some can be cooler. When you print you can find the one that looks the best. Hope that helps.
I never switch to CMYK for printing. Where can I find a test bar of colors that I can print to see how that compares to what I see on screen. Now if the colors don’t totally match where do I go to adjust them. I know in Photoshop I can under Color/Intensity select manual and adjust there is that what you mean? Thanks! My profile is sRGB IEC61966-2.1 under the printer settings and that is a profile that is loaded on my computer I believe. Should I change it to Adobe 1998? When I open an image in PS and its profile is different than the Working Space Profile should I change it to the working space profile?
R
rdoc2
Nov 15, 2007
Mike Russell wrote:
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote in message
When setting up a printer (Canon i4500 series) with Photoshop CS3 who should be responsible for the color management? The printer or Photoshop? Is there a tutorial on this or even just a good article? Thanks your help is appreciated.

My own preference is to have the printer manage the colors, setting the printer to the default settings for printing photographs. Test by printing a test image from a web site that contains test patches and skin tones.
If you find that the test image looks good as a print, but not so good on your screen, the problem is with your display, not the printer, and you need to calibrate your display, which can be done manually, or by using a screen calibration gadget such as the Spyder Pro or Eye One Display 2.
If there are no problems, I avoid any special calibration procedures. However, YMMV, particularly if you are using third party ink or paper.
If you are able to get good results from the above procedure, more power to you. If not, you have several courses of action:

1) locate a canned profile for your printer / paper combination. This can be a good course to follow, provided you are sticking to the mfg’s materials.

2) use a test strip to manually configure your printer to print a good neutral tone scale and skin tones.
http://www.curvemeister.com/downloads/TestStrip/digital_test _strip.htm . The test strip procedure will save you a lot of paper and ink.
3) Have a company calibrate your printer, or use a device to do so – both of these can be an expensive proposition – more costly than printer and ink combined, and I don’t really recommend them at the present time.
4) Punt. Have an online service do your prints, while you sort out the problem with your printer. Send them some test patterns that you can compare with your printer’s output, and try step 2.
Hi Mike,
I downloaded your test strip and the photos are so blur that I can’t read those colors but the top black and white scale is good. So I guess I print it and just use the top scale? Is there a color test strip that I can download to use that for the colors?
Gary

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