New Pixma iP8720 printer prints dark photos.

[ejjacobs]

I recently purchased this printer back in May and I have been happy with the printer for the most part, however it seems to print every photo considerably darker than what I am view on either my laptop or iphone.  All of my printing is done via wireless and I have printed directly from my iphone and my laptop, as well as printing from Lightroom.  In all cases the photos the printer creates tend to be on the dark side for the most part.  Any suggestions, ideas on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Monitor or screen calibration will likely help.  The color or screen profile the printer is using might not be correct or a match.  This means what you see on the screen, might not be what the printer will output.  

Example.  Set your screen brightness to 10 or 100%.  Super dark or super bright.  Now print a photo.  The output will be the same since the printer is using the same profile regardless of what you see on the screen.

[Kadman59]

I too have noticed my 8720 prints darker than how my pictures look on ALL of my various desktop/laptop monitors. The fact that my previous Canon printer IP6600D did NOT have this issue points the problem to the 8720 as opposed to a monitor screen calibration issue. That said, it is true the appearance of pictures on your monitor MAY differ from their printed appearance depending on how you've set your monitor's brightness and contrast settings. I print from THREE different desktops, a laptop and two phones and in EVERY case the 8720's printed output is darker, and at times significantly darker. With both of us experiencing the same issue, I believe there may be a problem with the printer driver's embedded color profiles in conjunction with the photo paper being used. I am using the most current driver and ALL of the paper I am using are current Canon brands...PP-301, LU-101, PT-101 and MP-101. ALL of these papers are exhibiting this darker issue. My sole workaround has been to use a photo editing app to lighten the photos before I print them to the 8720. Note further my Canon TS9120 printer does NOT exhibit this problem. Perhaps someone from Canon Tech support would care to chime in on this?

[ejjacobs]

Thank you for you input! I am not at all convinced this has anything to do with screen calibration, but rather an issue with the 8720 as you have observed as well. I too try various differing apps to lighten the picture prior to printing, however it is not exact and sometimes requires more than one attempt to get it right. If there is a Canon rep on this forum their thoughts/insights would be greatly appreciated. BTW, I use ONLY Canon paper and have the latest driver for my Pixma iP8720.

[5SpeedGuy]

I have same issue with NEW 8720. My all-in-one Canon printer is great.

[Kadman59]

@ejjacobs, Thank you as well! Just last night while printing a photo for a wedding gift and as you stated, I spent HOURS attempting "...to get it right." And another NEGATIVE consequence of this issue is how COSTLY it has become...in having to throw out the many FAILED attempts at getting "...it right.", I'm using far more photo paper than I should have to. Using my IP8720 has become much less an excercise of enjoyment and much more one of FRUSTRATION. Canon...what insight have you to share with us?

[Hector]

Hello Ejjacobs,

If the images are printing darker than what you see on the screen it can be based off of screen calibration or the color management options selected when printing. To test the hardware, you can try printing a nozzle check using the steps provided in the link provided HERE to see if there are any problems with the way the ink is getting to the paper. If any of the colors are missing or printing with lines thought them, you can try a cleaning use the steps provided HERE.

If the nozzle check is fine, I would need some additional information to assist further, If you can reply to this message with the information below, we can provide further assistance.

1. What version of the Mac or Windows operating system are you using on your computer?
2. Which specific Canon paper are you printing on?
3. What paper settings/color management settings are you selecting when printing?
4. What program are you printing from?
5. Is your screen calibrated and have you soft proffed any of the images from the computer?

[ejjacobs]

Hi Hector,

Here are my answers to your questions...

1. Windows 10

2.  Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II and Canon Photo Paper Pro Platinum

3.  I am selecting 'Photo Printing', 'High Quality', and then one of the paper types listed above

4.  I mostly print from Lightroom on my iPhone, but also from Lightroom on my desktop and directly from my desktop without 

     Lightroom

5.  No my screen has not been calibrated; I have utilized the soft proof feature in Lightroom without much luck

[Kadman59]

hi Hector,

Thanks for jumping in to the thread.  Re screen calibration,  I've NEVER performed any kind of screen calibration that'd be relative to a printer, ie I've adjusted contrast and brightness of my monitors from time to time and of course I'm aware that in doing this, the photo's appearance on the monitor may differ slightly from that of the photo's printed hardcopy.  That said, the darkness I'm observing is NOT consistent with ANY adjustments I've ever made to my monitors.  To explain this in a slightly different fashion, I can print the same photo from the same app onto the same Canon Glossy II plus paper to both my IP8720 and my TS9120 printers.  The photo's hardcopy printed by the 8720 is significantly darker than the same photo's hardcopy printed by the 9120.  And the 9120 hardcopy is almost identical to how the photo displays on my monitor.  This behavior is 100% consistent with EVERY photo I've performed this "test" with.  I have not altered ANY of the printer settings ie setting custom colors for example...as a rule I go with the factory defaults of every device I've ever used, as much as is possible to provide the desired end result, in the over 30 years of time I've spent in the IT profession.  Moreover and lastly, I have NEVER observed this type of "behavior" by any brand-new right out of the box Canon or other brand of printer. 

[jcm744]

I set up a new iP8720 today and I am experiencing the same dark prints as described by others in this thread.  My "old" printer is a Canon Pro-100 and I never had a problem with prints not matching what is on my screen.  With the ip8720, the prints are MUCH darker than what appears on my screen.  

Would someone from Canon please respond to this thread and let us know how to correct this issue?  It's not right to have to artificially brighten an image before printing just to make it look like it should.  I am satisfied with everything about the new iP8720, except for this dark printing issue.  I did run the nozzle check and the printout of that looks good. 

I am running the latest drivers for MacOS Big Sur.