I am printing from Microsoft Photo Gallery as I do with all my other pictures I've printed successfully from this printer.
I am using Canon Pro Luster 13x19
I don't know what you mean by profile. It is whatever is default and has been used successfully on all printing prior.
If you aren't using color profiles then it sounds like you may have been getting lucky with your prints (getting good results, but not knowing why). Often times if the printer just knows it's printing on glossy vs. matte paper and it manages it's own colors it may be close enough to accurate results that you haven't noticed anything wrong.
Each type of paper has it's own characteristics w.r.t. how it absorbs the inks. e.g. printing on gloss vs. printing on matte for example -- but even two different types of glossy papers would behave differently.
To compensate, you can use color printing profiles. It's a bit like calibrating a display, except you probably use the same display every day. With a printer, you could use a different type of paper for each print.
If you select a wrong profile, you can get some very poor color matching results.
If you have not already done so, download and install Canon Print Studio Pro:
https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/professional-large-format-printers...
This provides a plug-in for Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop... it ALSO installs all the ICC profiles for all the Canon papers. These profiles are installed to Windows ... not specific to any application. In other words any time you print (regardless of which photo application you use), you'll have the ability to select one of these profiles.
On that same page, you'll also find "PRO-10 series ICC Profile Ver. 1.0.0 for Art Paper Printing (Windows 10/10 x64/8.1/8.1 x64/8/8 x64/7/7 x64/Vista/Vista64/XP)" download. This contains ICC profiles for many popular 3rd party papers (if you use any 3rd party papers).
Basically a "profile" is designed for a specific printer + ink + paper combination. If any of those three things change, you would need a diferent profile.
Having installed these, you'd want to pick either of these two ICC profiles... the names are:
Canon PRO-10 <LU> 1/2 Photo Paper Pro Luster
Canon PRO-10 <LU> 3 Photo Paper Pro Luster
The difference in these two is the quality level you select. E.g. if you pick "Standard" quality ouptut then use the "1/2" (that's print quality "1" or print quality "2"). If you pick "High" quality, use the "3".
The "LU" in the name is to match your paper type (you'll notice the box the paper comes in says "LU-101").
There are some advanced topics w.r.t. profiles (you can build your own and there are reasons why that's sometimes a good idea -- you can, for example, build a profile that compensates for the color cast of the lighting where you intend to display your print). This requires a calibration device (such as an X-Rite "i1 Studio" -- not a bad thing to own since this helps you manage color accuracy all the way through the workflow... it calibrates your monitors and your printer/paper profiles (and scanners and projectors if you use them) so that the colors you shoot with the camera can match the color you see on your monitor and match the color you get on your printer.)
There are also topics regarding how the printer deals with colors that it can't actually reproduce (colors that are out of gamut). Some photo printing applications let you pick the printing "intent" (relative intent vs. perceptual intent) which controls how the printer deals with out-of-gamut colors.
Without going into those details (and confusing the topic), I'll just suggest you start by making sure you have installed and can select the correct ICC profile for your paper type. Just know that even doing this ... there are reasons why prints can come out not quite the way you wanted (although it generally will be pretty close) -- and ways to deal with those nuances.
Also make sure that when you evaluate the color accuracy, do it in neutral lighting. My office has a "warm" light bulb which gives off a bit of a yellow cast. Prints wont look correct in that light. I have a neutral (daylight balanced) bulb in a lamp that i switch on when evaluating prints.
We don't know precisely what your print was supposed to look like... only that you aren't getting the blacks you expected.
You can download and print a test sheet: http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html
That sheet has images and color swatches designed to test the accuracy of the printer. The web page mentions what you should be looking for in each of the images.
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
