topic Re: Colors are off - please help! in Professional Photo Printers

Colors are off - please help!

AFamFace — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 20:17:50 GMT

I am relatively new with Photoshop. I have Photoshop CC 2018 and I have Windows 8.1 and my browser is Chrome. Previously, I purchased my ink from a "compatible" brand but just today threw everything out and changed all my cartridges to genuine Canon ink and I still am not seeing any difference! I am careful to select the right settings when I print, ie: paper type, etc.. I have seen others write on here about changing the ICC settings in Photoshop but I'm honestly not totally savvy with this stuff. Can anyone help me? I'd so appreciate it.

Re: Colors are off - please help!

AFamFace — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 20:47:48 GMT

Forgot to say I have the Canon Pixma Pro-100 printer. Although it is brand new, I still did the color test and everything was "true". I added the Print Studio Pro plugin to try printing from there and prints were the same.

Re: Colors are off - please help!

jaykayem — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 00:20:07 GMT

Hi - my name is jaykayem. I am having a similar issue with my printer.

My printer - Canon PIXMA MP495 - has been doing fine. But when I tried printing yesterday - it starts out printing black but as the page comes out of the printer the color changes to reddish brown. I checked my ink quantities and they are fine - and did some diagnostic troubleshooting that showed nothing. I tried cleaning the ink cartridges to be sure the nozzles were not clogged and they were okay. I am confused as to what is wrong. I have to print out some artwork and I need to have my printer working. Thanks. Jenny Miller

Re: Colors are off - please help!

shadowsports — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:41:10 GMT

@Jakawem,

Please start your own thread. Everything about your environment is different from the person who started this thread.

Re: Colors are off - please help!

shadowsports — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:51:00 GMT

@AFamFace,

Owning PS and a higher end printer doesn't guarantee perfect color rendition.

You didn't talk about your monitors or say if they have ben calibrated. Its possbile they are not displaying your color and tones accurately,

Color Rendition issues:

Can stem from settings or incorrectly matched paper

Wrong ICC profiles

Processing photos in one application and printing from another

Its sort of diffucult to positively identify from a forum post. Do you have any samples? Might help us to see what you see and know what your entire work flow is start to finish and what settings you are using.

Re: Colors are off - please help!

bellevuefineart — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 21:55:51 GMT

First, if you had third party ink in your printer but threw it out and replaced the ink with genuine Canon ink, the lines will still be full of that third party ink until the Canon ink finally gets to the print head. It can take a while to clear those lines.

I'm not saying that is it, but it's one variable, and quite a large one.

Secondly, You may be aware of this, but it's not just the ICC profile that matters for the paper you're using but also the media type. The media type you select drasticallly effects the saturation of ink on the page, and thus color. I've had papers on the Canon Pro-1000 where I thought the profile was bad, and was convinced of it, but changing to the correct media type made the prints come out perfect. An example is the Hahnemuhle Bamboo - I thought it was super washed out, and I was using the paper type Heavy Fine Art Paper. As per Hahnemuhle's recommendation I changed to High Density Art paper and all of a sudden the color was perfectly what I expected.

If you're using Photoshotp CC 2018, and PSP, then by using the ICC profile and color settings of Print Studio Pro then you are already letting Photoshop manage the colors. If you print directly from Photoshop then you need to specify that Photoshop manages the colors and not the printer, and then select the correct media type and ICC profile.

Honestly I'm finding print Studio Pro much easier than printing using Photoshop's dialogue box, which has lots of little hidden settings and is more prone to missing a setting.