Questions concerning color management

SI
Posted By
Sebastiaan_IJssennagger
Oct 14, 2003
Views
338
Replies
10
Status
Closed
Hello,

I have a couple questions concerning color profiles, on the screen of my monitor the colors look fantastic but when I print the picture the colors are ‘washed out’. I tried a million settings but I just can’t get it right! I have a Canon i950 and a Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454, I calibrated my screen with Adobe Gamma.
There are a couple of places where you can choose a color profile, that’s the confusing part for me.

First, you can chose a color profile within the printer properties under color management. Which should I chose? Should the color profile be the same as the one you chose within Photoshop itself or doesn’t it matter because Photoshop overwrites these settings?
Second, in Photoshop you can chose a RGB workingspace, which one to chose there? Should I chose Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB or monitor RGB (which I created with Adobe Gamma).
And last, which printing settings should I use? Under printing preferences you can set your color adjusments on manual. You can chose to turn icm on, if you turn it on does it then use the color profile you defined in printing properties?

Thanx in advance!
Related Tags
color manage question

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

GH
Gary_Hummell
Oct 14, 2003
I would start by going through the steps at:
<http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_1.htm>

While you are at that site check out workflow suggestions he has for good color managment.

Gary
CW
Colin_Walls
Oct 14, 2003
I had the exact same problem and I too was confused by all the advice.

The thing which improved matters a lot for me, was setting "Proof Setup" [View menu] to correspond to my printer. Why they say "proof" instead of "printer" or "output", I don’t know.

You might like to try that. I am getting quite reasonable results now.
SI
Sebastiaan_IJssennagger
Oct 14, 2003
Thanx for you advice, I’ve tried different setup’s but without the results I was hoping for. Their seems to be little diference between the different color profiles. It’s not just one color that is not right but all the colors, the picture as a hole is bad; washed out colors and almost no contrast.
Could it be that the ink is not right, when I look at the yellow catridge I can look right through it as with the rest of the colors accept for the black.
KV
Klaas_Visser
Oct 14, 2003
One important thing to make sure, is that you are only colour correcting once.

When printing from Photoshop, you have a choice (using Print with Preview to set colour management choices) as to where the colour correction happens.

Firstly, in Photoshop, you set the destination colour space.

If you select "Printer Colour Management", then Photoshop will send the data to your printer without correction, and you need to specify the profile in the printer driver.

If you select the printer/paper profile in Photoshop, then you must set the driver to NOT use any profile at all, otherwise it will double correct.

Using the Proof Setup, will allow you to view the image when corrected using the profile selected, and does have value to get an idea of what will print out on the printer.

And the yellow ink will look smei transparent – this is normal for inkjet printer inks.
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 14, 2003
Colin – it says proof because it is for onscreen proofing, or hard (print) proofing.

It normally has nothing to do with your desktop printer, and should only be necessary when using your desktop printer to produce proofs of another device (like an offset printer).

Sebastian – yes, it is a matter of using the correct profile for your printer/paper.
CW
Colin_Walls
Oct 15, 2003
Chris:

Not sure what the difference is between printing on my inkjet and getting a hard proof …

In any case, when I was getting pale, washed out prints, I wasted a lot of paper/ink trying different settings until I stumbled on this. It seemed logical that, as I have a well-known printer [Epson 1200], I should be able to easily tell PS about it and get colour management working.
CE
Colin_E_Clarke
Oct 15, 2003
Sebastien, the main issue here is the different methods you are using. When viewing through your monitor you are viewing in RGB. Chances are your printer is printing in CMYK. RGB is light and based on subtractive colour whereas CMYK is ink based on additive colour. The RGB gamut is huge compared to the CMYK gamut. I suggest before you print, convert your images to CMYK for a realistic look at how they wil print, then do the colour corrections in CMYK. Remember CMYK is the reverse of RGB when making adjustments.
KV
Klaas_Visser
Oct 16, 2003
Just be aware that desktop inkjet printers (as the OP mentioned a Canon i950) are RGB devices, as far as Photoshop is concerned. The driver will take the RGB data, and internally convert to however the ink system is setup (some are four colour, some are six colour). Sending a desktop inkjet printer CMYK data will result in not very pretty results.
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 16, 2003
Printing on your inkjet doesn’t involve a press profile, just the inkjet profile.

Local printing: document profile -> inkjet profile

Hard proofing: document profile -> press profile -> inkjet profile
SI
Sebastiaan_IJssennagger
Oct 16, 2003
Thanx for all the advice!
This is what I’ve done so far: I deselected every colorprofile whithin the printerdriver, I’m doing al the color tweaking with PhotoShop.
I’m proofing my prints with the colorprofile provided by canon. When I’m satisfied with the result I send it to the printer. Every time the colors are vibrant and full of contrast on the screen but when I print them they come out dull and very low on contrast. I’m getting desperate! 🙁

Could it be that my printer is just broken?

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections