Color Management impossible on Windows?

<http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_1.htm> <http://www.normankoren.com/color_management.html>

Robert,
Here are a couple links for your perusal. Your basic premise, I think, is all wrong, but it may be true that the Mac platform is easier to color manage, I don’t know, I’m a PC guy , too.
All devices have their own unique color profile. A monitor profile, which contains info on color temperature, or example , would be totally inappropriate for a printer ( which knows nothing of color temperature ) . Cameras, scanners, printers, monitors are different technologies and their profiles must take that into consideration. On a particular printer, every different inkset/paper combination requires a different profile, because different inksets behave differently on the same paper. It not too confusing if you can manage to obtain profiles for just the elements of your own system, but even then , those profiles may be far from perfect. It’s a tough subject, but read a couple references . Ian and Norman cover a lot of ground in a well written way.

🙂

Brent

Not to mention the variable called paper. Like you I have just about pulled out what’s left of my hair. My best effort is to run sRGB color profiles on the monitor, PSE2, and printer (Canon i960). My camera defaults to sRGB and online printer folks (ie. shutterfly.com) are also setup for sRGB. In-home processing works reasonable well but I do have to manually vary the print intensity a bit for each kind of paper that I use. On-line processing is ok also. My biggest problem is giving someone a picture files that they then print at a local 5&dime store only to have it come out ugly. They want to blame me but when I take the time to print it out OR resave the picture with an embedded Fuji or Kodak profile (depending on where they want to print) then everything is fine.

—

< < < All outgoing e-mail scanned with NAV2004 > > >

wrote in message

Hi,

Posted a question back in December/January on this and after months of

frustrating, very mixed results it seems like we Windows users have bad news. Please correct me if I’m wrong, anyone. I’d love to be wrong on this one.

Unless I’m mistaken (and I hope I am), on Windows systems the monitors use

different profiles files to display colors than printers use to print them. Worse, monitors cannot read printer profile files nor vice versa.

As far as I can see that means it’s theoretically impossible to assure

that what you see is exactly what will print out because the printer has no idea what the display is displaying. It just prints its own thing.

Calibrating the monitor helps (a lot, actually) but doesn’t solve the

problem because the printer doesn’t print using any monitor file at all, calibrated or not. It continues using its own file.

The reason calibration helps is that calibrators like Spyder are trying to

calibrate colors to some standard, call it Standard X. Printers are (presumably) trying independently to print to that same or a similar standard. If they both succeed (independently) at attaining the standard then what you see is what you print. If not, then you’re hosed. Statistically, of course, this "not a match" situation will occur quite often, as it does in both my Epson and HP printers, sometimes from print to print.

Mac dominates professional color management even today. My total guess is

that in the Mac world printers and monitors work from the same files, or those files are developed together with Apple’s help so that printer and monitor files are pointed at the same target standard. If that is the case then Mac would be the only consistent way to go for consistent, professional color management.

Am I wrong about any of this?

Thanks,
Robert Ash

Brent,

Thanks a lot. I’ve seen the computer-darkroom piece before but the norman koren site is new and very helpful.

Actually, though, unfortunately my basic premises are correct:

1) All devices have their own profiles and thus are doing their own color rendering independently of all other devices.
2) All devices are working towards some common standard of color (which computer darkroom calls a device-independent color space and which I called Standard X).

By definition these two factors makes it difficult (at best) to consistently manage color to professional standards.

Where I seem to be wrong is in guessing that the Mac world is different because it has such high market share in professional graphics (neither of the articles seems to say that things are any better in the Mac universe, too bad about that).

Any ideas for good sources for custom profiles for printers?

Thanks again for the articles,
Robert

Robert,

While it used to be true that Macintosh had superior color management capabilities over Microsoft, that hasn’t been true for a long time. Microsoft and Macintosh are now comparable in color management capabilities and either can be used for professional level color management.

Of course, how you set up your default device profiles in the operating system is different for each platform. Each operating system has a built-in color engine that handles default operations, but individual color managed applications can over ride that and perform their own processing.

In regards to Photoshop, Adobe doesn’t use the default color engine provided by the operating system. It uses its own. So color management within Photoshop is exactly the same on both platforms. There is no difference in color management quality or capability.

Photoshop Elements uses the same color engine as Photoshop so there is no difference in the color management calculations. But, Adobe does limit user access in Elements to a small subset of the full Photoshop capabilities. It doesn’t support all the Photoshop color spaces and your options are limited in regards to assigning and converting color spaces.

If you use a variety of papers or inks with your printer, you are probably better off buying a profiling solution. Monaco makes a decent one as does Pantone/Colorvision. If you mainly stick to a single printer, ink, and paper combination, you can have a custom profile made for you but they’re not cheap. I can’t recommend a specific company because I’ve never used one but you can probably find one through a google search. If you stick to the printer manufacturer’s ink and paper brands, the manufacturer may include a general profile that may be close enough for non-critical work. Epson seems to do ok in this regard. Of course, for critical work you would probably want a specific custom profile. And if it’s critical, you’ll also want to recreate the profile with each change of ink as the batches can vary. I suppose the age of the ink could make a difference also as could the paper batches. Maybe you should get the profiling solution after all. That way you could calibrate your printer every month just like you do with your monitor.

Bob

"By definition these two factors makes it difficult (at best) to consistently manage color to professional standards. "

This is not far off the mark <G> . I’m not a professional, but I’ve been an apprentice of Ian Lyons since about 1996 . With good profiles ( I use Monaco for calibration and profiling ), I can do very nice work on my Epson 890 printer with a variety of papers and my wide format 1520 on a few papers that is does well with . However, when you extend that to creating files for offset printing or other outside print providers, a great deal of complexity is introduced into the equation. Color management is at its best when you select the right devices to work with. The Epson driver , for example, is made to be very flexible and versatile and is very color management friendly . Other manufacturers have fine printers with less friendly drivers, and that is a frustrating additon to our complex equation.

🙂

Brent

While the monitor uses a different colour space to the printer, and have different color profiles to reflect this, and in general it is better to use a third colour space to edit in eg sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhotoRGB (which have nice properties such as equal amounts of red green and blue adding up to grey which won’t necessarily be true of the device colour spaces), in theory, the colour engine in photoshop will be able to convert from one colour space to another seamlessly using the descriptions provided by the colour profiles – and as mentioned above the colour engine used by the Mac and Windows in photoshop is pretty much the same beast.

When you callibrate a monitor with a spyder or whatever, you aren’t just telling it what standard colours to display, you are also creating a description of how it displays these colours (the profile) and the colour engine in PS (or your printer) uses this description together with the description provided by the working space colour profile and the printer colour profile of how they handle colours to translate from one colour space to another.

Where things get messy is (a) it’s not that easy to perfectly profile all the devices – so there can be errors in translation from one colour space to another. (b) some colour spaces have colours that aren’t directly translatable to other colour spaces – eg the gamut (range of colours that can be represented) by the CMYK inks used by a printer is narrower than the colours that can be obtained by the RGB spaces in mixing light used by a monitor. Both these factors (plus the fact that it’s easy to foul up the colour settings by accident!) will lead to imperfect colour matching – and they are totally system independent. The problem is with the technical limitations of the colours that can be printed and their representation on a computer screen

brent bertram – for attention –

I also have an Epson 890 printer but a Tevion TFT monitor. Unfortunately I never get a printout the same as I see it on the monitor. The pictures always turn very much darker. If I enhance them in adding a lot of brightness, I loose on the definition but only then I just get an acceptable colour.
Being a novice – but old in age and not any wiser – I tried to dabble in setting the Gamut but that did not improve anything. Now I wonder if I have messed all up. Can you, please, check for me the data which are in the Gamut of my Adobe Elements 2 with yours – in the first box I have under Description: Adobe RGB (1998); the next box Phosphors: Custom; Gamma: Windows Default 2:20; Hardware White Point: 6500 K(daylight); Ajusted White Point: Same as Hardware;
Can you,please, help me in sorting this out. It might not make any difference in my printouts but then I will have to continue further in my battle.
Thank you!
Frantiska Clarkson

Hi all,

Thanks so much. This is all really helpful and is helping me put it together a little better. Some statements in Susan’s note in particular really clarify what’s going on, Epson told me about the CMY vs. RGB issue too but Susan explains it better, the differing color rendering ranges really nail it. Not encouraging, but still enlightening.

I was thinking about using Pantone’s printer calibration product but just didn’t want to shell out another $300 after buying Spyder. Might try Monaco, too. But both my printers put together didn’t cost that much 😉

Here’s my situation – I have an Epson Stylus Photo 825 and an HP Deskjet 6122. The Epson has always had color cast problems. First the cast was blue. Jodi Frye told me to stop using Kodak paper and use Epson paper instead. That worked much better. But now there is a dark green cast that won’t go away completely. Epson tried to help and ended up recommending turning off High Speed Printing. Color almost matches but the slow print speed at Best Photo quality is unworkable now.

So I started using my HP for photos instead of just for letters. The HP has no color cast problems using Kodak Ultima paper. But it washes out the color in some of the prints. Will try HP paper but it’s still annoying.

Robert’s and Susan’s notes hammer home the hard fact of life that I’ve figured out awhile back — namely, I’m going to do darkroom work whether I want to or not (and I don’t). Just using software, glass and connection cables instead of using liquids and complete lights-out. I greatly prefer the computer route, though, I must admit. Just have to find — or make — one really good end to end combination of settings, printer and paper and stick to it.

A little off-topic, but would like to share a great url I ran across while researching HP PhotoRET software, explains how most dpi ratings for printers are effectively overkill:

< http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&amp ;cc=us&docname=bpy20611>

Frantisca,
What is the model number of your monitor ? There are downloadable drivers for various models at < http://www.helpdrivers.com/ingles/listado/panel.asp?marca=Te vion&perif=monitores> . The drivers usually have the mfg’s ICC profile included which is installed when you install the driver. The appropriate way to use the profile is to load it into Adobe Gamma, then make NO adjustments and save the profile under a new name, like "MyLCDProfile". That profile will then become the system profile.

I would do that procedure rather than editting any setting in the Adobe Gamma utility. It was not designed with LCD displays in mind.

🙂

Brent

I’m glad that note helped a bit – it was the translation analogy that helped me understand what is going on better (which is one I think that Bruce Fraser used on the Photoshop forum). But even understanding what is going on a bit better it hasn’t helped me improve the prints from my printer much! – I was apparently doing as well as one can given the printer limitations. To go any further I need to profile the printer and that isn’t worth the effort/expense given it’s three years old and I plan to upgrade when I can afford it. Instead I’ve taken to sending out to a Fuji Frontier where I get absolutely spot on colour but the contrast is a little flatter…

Is Fuji Frontier reasonably priced?

Yes, it certainly helped, thanks again. To make it worse for us, I’ve checked on several forums including this one and custom printer profiles are not guaranteed reliable. At least some of them end up not working well at all, whoever you get them from.

I’d also recommend reading the article url I shared above. It woke me up to another hard fact of life. What the article essentially says is that upgrading your printer will probably not improve your prints much either. At least not your digital ones.

Turns out even an 8MP camera like my Minolta A2(about 3200 x 2400 pixels max resolution in RAW mode) only has 320 dpi max print resolution for an 8×10 (just divide 3200 pixels by 10 inches). Likewise, a 16×20 only has 160 dpi max (3200 pixels / 20 inches) . The rest of the resolution is filled in by software interpolation.

Can’t tell you what to do, but if I were you I’d consider delaying the printer for now and buy some good calibration tools instead (Spyder + Pantone or Monaco printer calibrator, or maybe even try a custom printer profile from a good provider) because:

1) You will likely end up having to buy them or something like them anyway, most likely, whether you stick with your current printer or buy a newer one.
2) The tools should(?) work with whatever printer you own, or buy in the future

So you lose nothing later, plus you might gain better prints now. And you might even finance the tools from your savings at not having to send off your prints to a (presumeably expensive) Fuji lab. My custom lab charges $65 for an 11×14 so if I printed lots of them then buying my own 11×14 printer would pay for itself very quickly even if I had to buy printer calibration software. Plus my monitor calibrator will work pretty much forever.

Given all of this, Robert’s advice to fine-tune one or two specific monitor/photo-software/printer/paper/ink combinations is very wise indeed.

Guess what all of this means is that color management is still difficult, primitive and unreliable with few or no guarantees. But still have to admit it way beats sloshing around messy, inconvenient film and paper chemicals with even fewer guarantees.

Robert

Robert -Actually the Fuji lab is pretty cheap! Sadly there aren’t any near me (as in several thousand km last time I checked!) that have been profiled by dry creek – see <http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Frontier/FrontierDatabase.htm> for a list but even so the colour output was good – the operator clearly knew what he was doing. I was particularly impressed by the cast free black and whites and the very accurate sepia results. I’ve mainly been doing small prints there – the larger ones get more expensive pretty quickly as you say! (especially at $$$$Australian prices). But they are on Fuji Crystal archive paper and provide a good archival back up to the digital originals – and the quality is impeccable as far as sharpness goes – to my eyes indistinguisahble from prints from 35mm (actually rather better as I am getting less problems with colour casts and things than I was having with 35mm)

I’ve investigated the cost of profiling – in Australia there isn’t any sort of hobbyist market that I can see and all the distributors of the software and hardware solutions charge prices that can really only be justified if you are going to be earning money from the process (and deducting the expense against tax!).

As to getting large prints out of digicams – the experts I’ve read say that you need between 250 and 300ppi for an inkjet printer – any higher is just giving the printer more information than it needs and slowing things down. The actual dpi specs of a printer don’t seem to mean too much except to the individual printer manufacturers. What you get from a better printer is not the higher dpi – even the cheapies have a perfectly adequate dpi these days – but better colour using six rather than four ink colours, individual cartridges leading to better ink management, better quality inks and better colour processing. And if you go high enough, the ability to print bigger prints. I’ve only got a 4MP camera, non-DSLR, and even that can give a pretty big print (I don’t print larger than A4 but I’ve printed off some quite highly cropped images that have come out well). By all reports the 6MP DSLRs can be up-ressed to give really quite big prints, as long as you start with a razor sharp original, perfectly in focus, taken on a firm tripod. Part of the way you can do this is that most big prints are really meant to be looked at from a distance so you don’t actually need such a large ppi to get them.

brent,
Thank you for your reply.
I found the number of my Tevion Model (1560A+) but not in the suggested web page so I could not upgrade my driver. I could not find the Device Manager in my Control Panel but somehow I found something somewhere and – I think that I am right in saying – that my installed driver is Version 5.1.2001.0′ Drive date 06/06/01 by Microsoft.
Now I am rather lost and do not know what to do particularly as my printer stopped working after I refilled with ink! It goes better and better!
I might have better luck tomorrow.
Thanks again for your effort.
Frantiska

"Frantiska Clarkson" posted:
"…
I could not find the Device Manager in my Control Panel but …."

It’s not in the ‘Control Panel’

(1) Right Click on your ‘My Computer’ icon (usually located in the upper left corner of the screen);

(2) Choose the last menu item … ‘Properties’

wrote in message

brent,
Thank you for your reply.
I found the number of my Tevion Model (1560A+) but not in the suggested web page so I

could not upgrade my driver. I could not find the Device Manager in my Control Panel but somehow I found something somewhere and – I think that I am right in saying – that my installed driver is Version 5.1.2001.0′ Drive date 06/06/01 by Microsoft.

Now I am rather lost and do not know what to do particularly as my printer stopped

working after I refilled with ink! It goes better and better!

I might have better luck tomorrow.
Thanks again for your effort.
Frantiska

I have not seen it referenced before on here, but over the years I have found that it is best to pick one make of printer and stick with it. I use Canon myself, as well as the paper designed for the printer you own. I use Canon Pro Paper ONLY now. My last printer was an i9000, and with a little tweaking, I could match EXACTLY (To my old eyes anyway) the colors that were on the screen.
As stated before, I save that screen set up as a different profile when I get it tweaked to where I want it, and I find that as Long as I am using Photoshop, and the settings are always set the same in the color management area, and I use ONLY canon ink and paper, I can print from 5X7 to 13X19 without changing the settings at all, and the prints still MATCH what I see on my SyncMaster900F monitor. (As long as I calibrate it to some standard software once a month or so at least.)
I just bought the new i9100 last week, set it up yesterday and ran off half a dozen prints for an up coming show, and after the first two, I was able to do some minor tweaking, and match them to the original monitor view I had before. I KNOW this is not a scientific means of setting up ALL printers with ALL monitors, and computers, video cards, software, etc..etc..but I only use my MAIN computer to run my photo printers from, so I dont care.<LAUGH> It works for me, and I think it would for most of us, but you must keep as many things the SAME as possible. One can not expect a printer to print on different paper, or generic ink, and come up with consistent results. Not in my opinion anyway.
I DO notice however that if I change cameras, I change colors as well. Not model of camera so much as BRAND. I only use Canon cameras now, but I do have a Sony, and a Nikon as well, and if I try to run the same setting out with those cameras, I DO SEE a noticeable change in the colors. I DO have profiles set up for my monitor for these cameras as well, ((and when I remember to USE THEM,)) I do get satisfactory results..
So all I am really saying is, that I believe you have to pick a SYSTEM and stay with it. One you can trust, and one you like. Then tweak it until it works for YOU.
Perhaps someday more STANDARDS will be used to make things more even across the board, but until that day comes, we will be left pretty much on our own to devise what works best for us. Which is pretty much what I have always found to be the case anyway, even when working with film. (One enlarger or solution never worked the same as another for me anyway, again just my own opinion.) So like digital, I would use one BRAND of paper, as well as chemicals, and calibrate the enlarger mostly. It WAS easier to calibrate them however, but how old was that technology before we were even able to do that on a steady basis?<smile>
Good luck in your search, I wish you all the best. I also wish there was one SIMPLE solution for what your seeking, but I really dont believe there is.
Gary~*

Hello Frantiska,
I was browsing through when I noticed your post. Not knowing if you found a solution by now I am replying to it anyway. I had the same problem with my Epson R300 but found I can open (in Windows XP) my print properties dialogue box for my printer and customize settings. It is located in Control Panel under Printers and Fax. In the Color Management tab click Add, then select the monitor ICC, yours being AdobeRGB1998 and click Set as Default. It worked for me.
The reason why I was browsing because my Elements 2 shows a defferent contrast and briteness levels (darker) than Picture and Fax Viewer in XP and I,m looking for a solution. Hope this helps.

Robert S.

Robert,

That’s probably because Windows Picture and Fax view is using a different profile to display its picture than Elements 2 is using. There are quite a few profiles in the Windows directory and Microsoft makes it a point to use different standards wherever possible to make other products seem inferior to its own. Or it could just be using the lowest common denominator that’s guaranteed to work on any monitor ok, but on no monitor optimally.

If that’s the case then you probably won’t be able to resolve it without compromising in some other way. However, you can use it to your advantage by treating it like a 2nd monitor when you want to save jpegs for web viewing. Since few viewers of your work will own Elements 2, have calibrated monitors, etc. that 2nd viewing source can help give you some real-world adjustment guidance and make your images appealing to the most people out there viewing them.

God bless,
Robert Ash

Hi Robert,
That is good advise. But what I want to try is swithing my monitors Icc to that of Adobe’s RGB1998 ICC to see if that makes a difference. I noticed Frantiska did so. I’ll post later to share my results.

Thanks again, Robert S.

Gary,

Good point regarding calibrating a single end-to-end system rather than individual components. Takes a lot of experimenting, though.

Unfortunately I’ve about given up trying to calibrate using my Epson Stylus Photo 825 which worked well at first and I really liked. But I noticed it had a blue cast. Jodi Frye told me it’s because I used Kodak paper and told me to switch to Epson paper. But the Epson Premium Glossy had a dark brown-green cast. Epson told me to shut off High Speed Printing but that made printing way too slow and a slight cast still remained.

So after months of frustration I finally tried my HP DeskJet 6122 about 2 weeks ago. Works fine with Kodak paper, no color cast that I can see so far. Also works fine on plain paper or even on Epson paper despite Epson’s silly warnings on the package that their paper might damage other printer manufacturer’s equipment. In fact, my HP prints better pictures on Epson paper than my Epson does, despite long phone sessions with Epson support. And the HP DeskJet 6122 isn’t even a ‘photo printer’.

But a few pictures do print with the color washed out. For those few pictures I guess I’ll just have to hand-tweak the brightness in Elements 2. But at least the color will be right, which is progress for now.

Robert

RobertS,

Any results yet?

Robert

Some great info here!
If I may rant?:

When we get the monitor accurately calibrated — and honor the file’s embedded profile in Photoshop — Photoshop will be displaying the file accurately. Period.

If the print does not match the "calibrated" monitor (within reason), then we have pointed the Color Management System to the wrong or inaccurate target ColorSpace, Printer/Paper/Ink ICC Profile. Period.

+++++++

In the simple, core theory of Photoshop Color Management:

MonitorRGB < SourceFile/Space > TargetSpace/Profile

In other words:

1) The Color Management System CONVERTS the SourceSpace/File into MonitorRGB (the custom "calibrated" monitor profile) and PROOFs the color accurately on the screen.

2) The Color Management System CONVERTS the SourceSpace/File into the TargetProfile/Space (the custom "calibrated" printer profile) and PROOFs the color accurately on the printed paper.

Color Management is ONLY about CONVERSIONS (and knowing the file’s SourceSpace):

A SourceSpace is CONVERTED to a TargetSpace.

It starts with a good monitor profile (to PROOF the color acurately on screen) — and in a print workflow — it ends with a good target profile (to PROOF the color accurately on the paper).

The simple challenge (for me) is knowing when/where the Conversion takes place….

+++++++

In most PHOTO series inkjet printers, the Conversion is set up in the print utility:

SOURCE SPACE: (will always be the file’s current ColorSpace)

PRINT SPACE: Select the SPECIFIC Printer/Paper/Ink ICC Profile

COLOR MANAGEMENT: Select "NO COLOR ADJUSTMENT"

What is happening with No Color Adjustment:

Photoshop’s Adobe (ACE) Color Management System (CMS) is Converting the document’s present ColorSpace (SourceSpace) directly into the Target ICC Profile entered in Print Space> Profile.

In other words:
The printer and OS Color Management are OFF, and Photoshop’s Adobe (ACE) CMS is Converting the file directly into the ICC Profile or ColorSpace entered in Epson’s Print Space> Profile.

Hi G,

In a perfect world you would be correct. Unfortunately the equipment manufacturers do not do not think that way so what you’re saying is only partly correct.

If the print does not match the "calibrated" monitor (within reason)

Firstly, "within reason" is not good enough for professional-quality color management. It has to be dead-on accurate.

Secondly, there are many situations (like mine) where the approach you recommend doesn’t work. I’ve already gone through all of those settings in the countless hours I’ve spent on the phone w/ stymied Epson and Photoshop Elements support analysts over the past 8 months. That approach just doesn’t work for my environment.

The reason is that many printers – like my Epson Stylus Photo 825 – look only at their individual installed profiles. Such printers cannot use monitor profiles, nor can they use the color profiles of any other printer. In fact, the 825 cannot use any other profile except its default profile file, period (unless you try to trick it by overwriting its default profile with a custom profile having exactly the same name, and that is absolutely not guaranteed to work).

So if such a printer’s default installed profile does not happen to match the color profile of your calibrated monitor then the printer will always print with a color cast. Worse, the color cast can vary depending on the paper you use. Software like Elements2 can guess at how to reconcile the monitor and printer profiles but if Elements guesses wrong or there is a paper mismatch there’s not much that can be done — the resulting color cast can be reduced but not eliminated.

As an illustration imagine a track meet with bunch of blind athletes on a bunch of different relay teams:

– Team 1: the Minolta A2 camera (runner 1, team 1) + Dell FP1700 monitor (runner 2, team 1) + Photoshop Elements 2.0 (runner 3, team 1) + HP 6122 printer (runner 4, team 1) + Kodak Ultima paper (runner 5, team 1) team,
– Team 2: the Nikon CoolPix 8500 + iMac computer + Canon i9000 printer + the Canon Premium Glossy paper team,
– Team 3: yet another camera/monitor/software/printer combination, etc.

….with all these blind athletes trying to run a relay race on an oval race track and each trying to hand off their color baton to the correct next runner on their team at each stage. You get the "picture" — sometimes they succeed and often they don’t.

In your case each member of your team of blind athletes found the right team members to hand their color batons off to, in my case they did not.

The short story is —> color management is evil….

In such a case the only solution is to swap out one of the moving parts and see if that works. If not then swap out another until you get good results. In my case swapping out Kodak paper and using Epson paper didn’t work, but swapping out the Epson printer and using an HP printer solved the color cast problem. A handful of images print too light but that’s a much easier problem to work with than seeing image after image print with a color cast.

Robert

Firstly, "within reason" is not good enough

I used "within reason" specifically for all the naysayers who argue that monitors cannot possibly display all the colors that ink can (or is it the other way around?).

For practical purposes, in Photoshop, the ‘calibrated’ print PROOF will match the ‘calibrated’ monitor PROOF (as previously outlined).

My experience is with Epson PHOTO series inkjets, the 1200, 1270, 1280, 2200, 7000, 7600. Every one of these Epson drivers has been able to load nonEpson profiles, including custom profiles, so I am not sure I understand what you are seeing there?

if such a printer’s default installed profile does not happen to match

the color profile of your calibrated monitor then the printer will always print with a color cast.

What on earth are you thinking here?
How can a custom monitor profile ever match a default printer profile? They describe two different device types (not to mention one profile is unique)???

We should be targeting the printer with a SPECIFIC Printer/Paper/Ink profile. If the printer doesn’t allow that, it is not fit for professional use, iMO.

A simple truth:

Photoshop color management only uses our monitor profile for one thing: To PROOF the Source File on the monitor.

If our workflow is not consistant, I’d say we are missing something. If our workflow is not accurately PROOFing on screen and on paper, I’d say we have bad target profiles or we are missing something.

I hate to see G Ballard being the only one to stick up for ICC color management <G> . I never have any problem ( other than equipment failure ) getting good results on my bevy of Epson printers. About 9 years ago, I ran into Ian Lyons, via a now defunct website "Digital Darkroom @singapore.com " which linked to some of Ian’s articles. Ian’s own site, <http://www.computer-darkroom.com/> has a wealth of information that is particularly valuable for Epson printer users ( the printer manufacturer of choice for color management buffs because of the excellent color management support ) .
My success has less to do with my brilliance at color management but more to do with using the right tools. The Epson printers respond very well to the media profiles I create with Monaco EZcolor . They also respond very well to the simpler "Printer Color management" output space, if used as described in Ian Lyons’ essays.
< http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7_print/ps7_print_mac_2.h tm>

href=" http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.lyons/ps7-colour/ps7_color.gi f" align=center > Ian Lyons Image Flow

is a simplified image flow chart depicting an image as it "rolls" through your system. At each stage the color management engine converts the image from the source colorspace to the destination colorspace to keep the image looking the same, in the new environment .

Color management works if you have all the components. If you don’t have the components, or misuse them, then your inkjet can give you surprisingly strange results. Try using a media profile for one printer on a different model printer if you want strange ! If you don’t want to mess with color management, buy an HP printer. HP has their own ( proprietary, obviously ) system for managing the output of their printers, and it’s designed for minimal user intervention . If you want to use color management to change between output devices, different paper/ink combinations and still have accurate output, then do some research and get the right tools for the job.

🙂

Brent

If you don’t want to mess with color management, buy an HP printer. HP has their own ( proprietary, obviously ) system for managing the output of their printers, and it’s designed for minimal user intervention

And I might add, not too bad at it, either. With my ancient 920c I was able to get surprisingly good results as far as color, although of course the image quality was very second-rate since it’s not a photo printer.

When all goes well their newer printers are pretty competent. Of course, the problems come if you want to tweak something. Then you are in for it.

I also have read that the newer HP photo printers will accept AdobeRGB as their source space. Haven’t tried it, but it can’t help but further improve their fine images.

🙂

Brent

I would hazard a guess that HP is using sRGB because they were instrumental in the development and adoption of this standard

Grant

HP is using sRGB

Good point.
sRGB is a monitor-type profile.
Unmanaged drivers are generally based on a monitor-type Source Space. Unmanaged drivers generally target general paper surface types.

Nothing seems too specific about these drivers and their Conversion error(s) generally fits the window fine for most people:

A monitor-type Source Space (sRGB) is fed to the printer (the printer is looking for a monitor profile) and crunches the numbers for a general type of paper surface. Not exactly Color Management, but so what, it’s "good enough" for some people.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

Adobe RGB (1998) is a specialized "high-gamut" device-independent ColorSpace for professional use in color-managed applications like Photoshop.

The AdobeRGB ColorSpace, ICC Profile, ColorSync Profile has nothing to do with monitors or printers, this is why Adobe RGB displays and prints so bad when the profile is ignored.

Adobe RGB is unsuitable for use outside of color-managed applications, including web browsers…

G,

What on earth are you thinking here? How can a custom monitor profile ever match a default printer profile?

It’s pretty simple. You just need the right printer.

My HP DeskJet 6122 gets excellent results, noticeably better than my Epson. And it’s not even a "photo printer" whereas the Epson is. My HP has no color casts using Kodak or even Epson paper. My Epson 825 produces color casts no matter what combination I’ve used, no matter what Adobe or DimageViewer settings, even after many hours of attempted help from stumped Epson and Adobe technical support analysts over the past 8 months. My HP works without a color cast, my Epson does not. Unfortunately it’s as simple as that.

Moreover, as I shared earlier, this is not a correctable problem. The Epson Stylus Photo 825 uses only its own default installed profile. There are no other profiles available for it. Epson support specifically told me that. Therefore the only way you could get it to see another profile would be to give the other profile the same name and copy over the default. But keep a backup of the original, you’ll need it!

What is happening is that the HP’s default profile happens to match my calibrated monitor settings (probably for the reasons Grant explains above). When that happens, you get success. My Epson’s profile does not do this. When that happens you need a different printer.

Brent,

I’ve done all the necessary research for awhile now. Please see above. Any recommendations on good combinations that work is highly appreciated.

Cheers,
Robert

🙂

Well, that’s my two cents (and I’m sticking to it 🙂

A damn good value !

🙂

Brent

wrote in message
: A damn good value !

Brent

You owe me a brand new monitor … this one is covered with coffee. Don’t you know you are suppose to put a beverage alert up before you use lines like that.

Grant

brent "value"

Ya, I worry about overpricing myself since Tuesday some ‘genius’ replyed back to me on my portfolio link and referred to me as "talentless boob."

Grant,

Just wipe it off and recalibrate, if your prints have a coffee cast, let me know and I’ll send a guy over to fix your printer…

I have to stick up for g ballard here… as I’m finding out to my own cost you can’t just calibrate the monitor and expect perfect prints.

I disagree with roberts statement that you can’t fix this, you can, you have to profile the printer, Brent would appear to be the evidence for this…

Calibrating the monitor helps, but it like opening Pandora’s box. If you’re lucky and your combination of camera/screen/printer works then great!! If not you have two choices, endlessly fiddle and waste paper or calibrate your screen AND printer. Custom printer profiles are a not so good idea simply because those lovely printer manufacturer’s produce slightly different batches of paper and ink so if anything changes then you can expect a colour cast of some sort… After a few times getting a new custom profile you finally wish you’d just bought the printer profiling kit in the first place. Again, don’t rely on the default supplied profile. If it works for you then great, if not…. you’re probably getting the point!!

However, one of the other things people seem to forget is make sure you know the colour space your camera is recording the information in… Also, check to see if it actually embeds the profile. Most Canon cameras for example do not. An easy way to see in Elements if the file is tagged is to open the file up and click save as… if the icc profile is ticked then the profile is embedded. If it’s not…

What impact does this have? Adobe RGB recorded Canon files may look odd in Elements. Printing may be even more weird as you can’t be entirely sure how elements is treating and hence converting for colour output. (This is why the Ignore EXIF utility works. Elements may think a file is sRGB when infact it is not.)

So, if you know the picture was recorded in the Adobe RGB colour space and want to assign the right profile, first make sure Elements is set to full colour management and open the file. Click save as and you should see the profile box unchecked but displaying Adobe RGB. Tick the box press save.

If you want to assign the sRGB profile, make sure colour settings in Elements is set to limited colour management. Click save as, you should see an unticked icc profile with sRGB against it. Tick the box and press save.

What you cannot do in Elements is convert between files, full photoshop is required here. Unless Save for Web will convert from Adobe RGB to sRGB… Anyone?

This makes sure that Elements has the correct settings from start to finish, and may help get further down the line to fixing colour problems….

Don’t blame Adobe, blame MS, printer manufacturers for rubbish default profiles, HP for co-inventing sRGB based on the least colour capable device in the system, and camera manufacturers for not actually correctly embedding the right profile in images to start with… Get all that right and the Adobe software usually works…

And g thought he was ranting!!! 🙂

Ian,

Unfortunately what you’re saying is not correct. What I’m saying is right. You can call Epson support and ask them.

The Epson Stylus Photo 825 only uses its own default profile. I think what’s going on here is that you guys are too high end for your own good 🙂 We’re not talking about an Epson 2200 13"x19" or larger professional industry standard w/ custom profiles available all over the world. This is an 8.5"x11" $179 OfficeMax off-the-shelf consumer printer.

According to G’s earlier note that means that printer is just not fit for professional-criteria use. In my specific case I’m forced to agree, though I’m sure it would work just great in someone else’s environment.

Deciding to experiment and use my HP DeskJet 6122 saved my sanity with this whole color management issue. The only reason I bought it was to print 2-sided documents. I never used it for photos, but it delivers excellent color balance without any custom profiling at all. In fact, I don’t have to use any printer settings at all, just click Best Photo quality, choose Portrait or Landscape and leave everything (hue, saturation, etc.) factory-defaulted to "0" and click Print. No discernible color cast at all so far. On any paper, to boot.

The only issue I see is that a handful of my photos look fine on the monitor but print a little washed out. But at least the color is still right, which is the biggest battle.

To quote the HP corporate slogan, Invent! I’m glad they did.

Robert

Sorry, but that’s why he’s stuck answering the phone…

I can see at least two ways of CHANGING the profile.

Way one, click on printer properties and click on colour management tab. You’ll find a profile called EE201_1.

Way two, right click on printer and click printing preferences. In bottom rightish corner you’ll see a button labelled advanced. Click it, can click continue on the warning. In the top right of that screen is a section called color management.

The default selection is colour controls. This is manual printer colour adjustment. You adjust the sliders and it will affect the colour. Useless for accurate phot printing.

The next one is PhotoEnhance. May give better results if you like a nice saturated and sharpened photo as per a P&S type camera processing. May work for you and will only have been tested with media by Epson. You may luck out on another combo depending on how much papaer and ink you’re prepared to waste.

Third option ICM. This is the important one. When you click on this only one option appears, this is ‘No Color Adjustment’ and it is not selected. In this instance, the printer will use the printer profile described in what I’ve called Way One on the actual device colour management window. So, going back to that window, *IF* you profile your printer this is where you exchange EE201_1 for whatever you call your profile. Windows ICM will then perform a colour conversion from whatever you have in Elements to that profile. To get elements to do this you select full color management and then on the print preview screen under show more options and color management set the print space profile as printer colour management…

Or alternatively and this would be my preferred approach, select no color adjustment on the epson driver and then in elements, instead of selecting printer color management, select your profile. In this instance, instead of Windows ICM performing the colour conversion, the Adobe Colour Engine will do it itself…

So I would argue that the Epson guy doesn’t know his own product. Now if that functionality doesn’t work then I’d be surprised, and I’d not buy an Epson printer as their driver functions are common across many printers…

Hope this helps,

Ian.

Thanks, Ian.

I hear you. Nowadays when I get on the phone about this issue I immediately ask for an advanced analyst (got the analyst’s supervisor last time and that worked much better).

What you’re saying makes a lot of sense and I’ve tried pretty much all of it. I poked around those printer options a lot some months ago in my first round with this color management situation and in the process tried all of the settings you describe. Tried every option in the advanced menu. Even tried manual printer color adjustments. Nothing worked consistently.

Back then I also tried setting the printer to use different profiles as you describe. I tried a number of them and the Epson 825 would not accept any of them — error msgs. Then I found on other forums that custom profiles don’t always work, either. That printer is not expensive enough to warrant a $100+ custom profile, it’s easier just to buy another printer.

The only thing that eventually worked was to select HP DeskJet 6122 as my destination printer. Although that Epson might be a fantastic machine in the right environment, mine is not it.

For me it’s probably HP from now on, though I’m certainly still open about that.

Thanks again,
Robert

Robert,

I’m not sure your previous efforts in trying different files were anything to base any firm conclusions on. You *will* get error messages if you try and take a monitor profile and apply it to a different device such as a printer. Special software such as Windows ICM or Adobe ACE is the only thing that can convert between one device’s profile and another, so the fact you got error messages is entirely predictable. The result will be as you found, i.e. that the printer continues to use it’s default profile as it’s the only valid one you have on your system. That’s not conclusive proof that the printer won’t accept a valid printer profile. The profile has to contain information that makes sense to the device so that it can interpret that information. It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to see how a profile describing a monitors capability isn’t going to contain an awful lot of information on ink and paper… It’s unlikely that any profile other than one created for that printer will work.

With regard to prefering HP, the following view may be interesting. HP and MS co-invented the sRGB standard, and in true MS style, it dumbs colour management down to the lowest level, the monitor and the range of colour it can display. Therefore HP printers (esp. older ones) tend to be tuned to work best with sRGB. Given that by default that’s what is used if you do nothing, HP printers do often ‘out of the box’ deliver reasonable results. And for many people this is a big bonus, and if it works for you then that is not to be disparaged.

However, most photo people seem to prefer Epson or Canon. I would venture that this is because these companies printers work best using non-sRGB profiles as they have a much better range of printable colours. It’s just that to get them to work best requires a bit of extra knowledge and setup. If you do this the results can be superb. It’s no co-incidence that these two manufacturers seem to get all the praise in this area.

Now, I’d guess that you can get better prints from the Epson than the HP, but it’s a matter of how much time and effort you want to put into it… Also, this will only hold true if your camera is actually capturing in Adobe RGB. If it’s not then it’s all acamdemic as none of your pictures will contain any info outside of the HP’s theoretical capabilities!!!

Ian.

I think what’s going on here is that you guys are too high end for your

own good

Can’t speak for anyone but myself.

I am merely trying to tell you how color management works based on my limited understanding of the core theory and my own experience.

I prefer the Epson PHOTO series inkjets because I know how to make them work for me CONSISTENTLY and I like the Epson print quality.

I use the stock OEM Epson 2200 ICC Profiles on their married 2200 Epson papers with no complaints. I did buy a custom 2200 profile, but I actually like the OEM profile better.

G,

Thanks. Makes sense. I think some of this might just be the printer models we’re using. Epson is probably more careful with the quality in their stock profile for high end printers.

Ian,

Thanks. I’m sure you’re right. I didn’t try other printer profiles, and the monitor profiles I tried when I knew nothing at all about how profiles actually work. It was worth a try back then.

Also, I have Adobe RGB set into my camera as its color space.

Regarding HP vs Epson/Canon you could be right even though HP uses Canon engines in their printers. The only observation I’d share is that the 6122 really does deliver excellent color and clarity and it’s not even a photo printer. That’s no exaggeration. I’m really surprised.

On another note, I spent many hours doing side by side comparisons of HP photo printers vs the Epson I ended up buying. It was so close virtually no one would notice a diffence. The only nuance I detected in their demo printouts was that the Epson seemed to have slightly better shading when light blends into shadow, right along that light/dark border. But it was nothing one would notice unless you knew exactly what to look for, and was very, very slight.

One reason for this is because most color space superiority is theoretical and cannot be realized in practice. Theoretically it’s better, but in practice you can’t realize the extra benefit of one component because you’re limited by another component. Your prints will only come out with the quality that your weakest link will deliver.

As a practical matter all color spaces, profiles, etc. are limited by paper, which can only print a limited range of colors and contrasts. It’s just like film, b/w film has a 9-stop range but paper only has a 5-stop range after 100+ years of working on it, so 9 stop film vs. 7 stop film really doesn’t matter, it’s printing skills. Or harmonic distortion in amplifiers, music introduces enough distortion so .1 or .01 distortion doesn’t matter, it gets lost in the other noise.

So I think that even though theoretically Epsons or Canons might be better that HP in some ways, with each company’s better printers I don’t think it’s visible even to many or most professionals, if at all. At that quality level any such difference is usually nuance and preference.

In such cases what makes the bigger difference in market acceptance is mindshare/popularity, flexibility, feature sets, parts availability, secondary market add-ons, etc.

Robert

Hello Robert
Yes I have set all my outputs to the popular ICC profile AdobeRGB1998 and my color management has made a big difference. But during all the changes I was making, some how my film scanner took on the ICC profile of my Dell monitor. I found this out when I could not get the colors to match in the newly scanned images with the previous scans I did. Then I noticed it in my status bar and reinstalled the scanner software. I never knew I had to think so hard just to get a family photo album started. I should of did some homework first, right Robert? Now everything is OK and I am ready to edit over 500 images thanks to the many educated posts on this forum.

Thanks all, Robert S.

Robert,

One reason for this is because most color space superiority is theoretical and cannot be realized in practice. Theoretically it’s better, but in practice you can’t realize the extra benefit of one component because you’re limited by another component. Your prints will only come out with the quality that your weakest link will deliver

I’m afraid you have a fundamental misunderstanding of colour management. If what you said were true, there would be no point in having different colour spaces. The whole world would be using sRGB and Adobe RGB would be a waste of time.

When you take your pictures in Adobe RGB you are recording more colours than sRGB can display or print. So, in Elements what happens is you load in the image, (if you have full colour management enabled in Elements) it lets you edit the picture still in the Adobe RGB colourspace. If you then print the image to a printer capable of printing to a wider colour space than sRGB, Elements can convert the image directly from Adobe RGB to your printer colour space as defined by it’s profile. Elements ONLY converts an image to sRGB to display it on your monitor… and if your monitor is calibrated it actually converts it to your calibrated profile for display.

So, IF your picture contains more colour then the sRGB colourspace, you may only see the real depth of colour on the final print.

If you take pictures in Adobe RGB and do not use Elements set to full colour management then you really ought to set your camera to sRGB as you are not gaining anything at all.

At this point I’m afraid I’m going to bow out and rest my case… I hope this has been of some help to you.

Ian.

When I open a picture that is downloaded from my Olympus c750 camera in Elements, then click on document profile (triangle at bottom, middle), it reads "untagged RGB." I take it that this is what the camera recorded. Where do I go from here? I have never seen an option in the camera menus regarding color space settings.
Ken

Ken,
Most cameras ( consumer grade, anyway ) do not allow you to select a colorspace. The only thing that is color aware is EXIF info, which will be either sRGB or "untagged". I recommend "untagged" , since generally a digicam has a colorspace somewhere between sRGB and AdobeRGB and I’d rather have more color, than less color. If you’re working in the Full Color Management mode, you’ll have the opportunity to tag your image with AdobeRGB when you save it.

🙂

Brent

Brent,
Thanks for the clarification.
Ken

Ken,

Brent is right. I use a Minolta Dimage A2, the top of the line prosumer model out today. It allows you to choose color spaces inside the camera and make lots of other adjustments, but most don’t as Brent explains.

Ian,

I’m afraid you have a fundamental misunderstanding of colour >>management.

If what you said were true, there would be no point in >>having different colour spaces. The whole world would be using >>sRGB and Adobe RGB would be a waste of time.

You can of course believe what you wish, but what I’m saying is still correct. Besides the megapixel count of the source, photo paper is the limiting factor in color space reproduction and always has been. If the paper cannot reproduce what the color space can define then it doesn’t print them.

Even so, having different color spaces is still not a waste of time because:

1) It allows different devices e.g. monitors to be freer from the limited color palettes of other devices e.g. printers, so even though you can’t print some of the colors at least you can see some of them on a monitor, which is of value.

2) It allows for progress as device technology advances. Right now, for instances, there are enhanced color spaces that even monitors cannot display. Is that a waste of the color space? No, because someday monitors may get good enough to display at least some of them. Here is an article on the HP site that explains this concept quite well :

< http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&amp ;cc=us&docname=bpy20611>

3) It encourages manufacturers to improve their products

I have examined side by side, in detail, demo photos straight from each printer manufacturer, photo prints that they use to showcase their products’ best possible capabilities. Given comparable price ranges for the devices the differences are usually nuance for the best devices from each manufacturer. There are exceptions from time to time (e.g. Fujitsu’s new laptop monitors) but those are not the norm, and are never the norm for long, as the others catch up.

This dynamic is true for stereos, TVs, computers, film cameras, analog printers and yes for digital cameras and printers, too.

Best,
Robert

Hi Robert,

I think now is a good point to politely agree to disagree… 🙂

Ian.

Hi Ian,

Makes sense for now, I’m not trying to make trouble or anything. We’re both just sharing our personal experience and you undoubtedly have much more than I have in this area. To clarify, in digital color management I’m mostly speaking with respect to consumer gear that I’ve seen and compared, not the pro stuff that you know more about.

Just thought of something else. Digital color mgt could be different than film. With film cameras and with film what I said is true for the high end as well as the consumer gear (i.e Nikons don’t take better pics than Pentax’s but they have more gear and features, Hasselblads don’t shoot clearer pictures than Pentax 6×7’s but they have more features). I have a lot more experience with those. Digital photography and printing is new enough that that may not be as much the case.

Hope to buy a larger printer soon (e.g. 13 x 19). When I get to that point I might well eat my words, tell you you’re right and beg your forgiveness. And I do hope you’ll be kind enough to share any recommendations you might have.

Right now I’m kind of gun-shy about Epson and will probably go with Canon per your earlier note, but who knows, the bigger Epsons might work out better.

Best Regards,
Robert

Robert,

No problem! IT is my trade in large complex systems so I like to get to bottom of stuff. I don’t have much experience of the ‘pro’ end of digital photography but I do like to make sure I feel I understand the principles!

As to whether you go Canon or Epson, Epson seem to be very popular amongst many advanced photographers for printing, and do have very good off the shelf profile support from the likes of Ilford paper. However, as you have found out, they can be sloooowww on their best settings. I have a Canon S900 currently, and one thing you can’t say about it is that it’s anything other than blisteringly fast. And to my eyes, when I can get the colour right(!) the quality is excellent. If you find a store with both, get them to print a page for you while you watch…

Rgds,

Ian.

Ian,

No wonder we get along 🙂 I work in high-end systems as well, specifically in databases (large data warehouses). Do you work for an IT vendor or in IT at a company? I’m a product manager at a vendor.

Actually, reading it again and thinking about it more, what we’re saying isn’t mutually exclusive. I’m just speaking more in general principles, you’re more recommending specifics.

Also, I do owe you an apology. My side by side comparisons in the store were HP photo printer vs Epson Stylus Photo. I didn’t compare Epson vs. HP non-photo printer until 2-3 weeks ago here at home. But even so, it was a sobering but enlightening experience to see the photo printer outdone.

Yes, Epsons are sloooowwww at their best settings. Especially when Epson support recommended turning off High-Speed Printing. Now it’s 10 min/photo at least. That makes the HP even nicer to work with.

Given our discussion I’m going to do an experiment. I’ll take a TIFF file to a local pro photo lab and see what they do with it in 8 x 10. I’ll compare it to an 8×10 from my HP DeskJet 6122 and take a hard honest look at the differences.

At first I’ll compare clarity and dot pattern tightness + sharpness (not color – of course I expect their color to be better until I get better at this). I’ll also note the color differences, if any.

My guess is that the HP will be competitive (given the limitations of the source, it’s only an 8MP raw image), but I’m certainly open to learning otherwise.

Cheers,
Robert

Robert,

I work for a large hardware and software vendor who doesn’t make desktop printers… I’m sure you can guess who. 🙂

Ian.