Printer Profiles

[binthere]

I am having a little trouble getting my printer to reproduce the same colors on photo paper that are displayed on my monitor. I realize that they will never be exact but after editing in elements the colors a not quite as acurate as I would like for them to be. I checked with Canon about the profiles that the Canon software loaded into my elements software. The tech I got intouch with was clueless. He told me to contact Adobe I have a feeling that they are trying to turn me into a tennis ball. Could anyone please help.
I am using a Canon i960, Rebel 300d and Photo Shop Elements.

Thanks

[anonaboats]

Hummmm.... I, too, am on the verge of buying the highly appraised i960...I'll be watching the replies in thsi string. Cheers and good luck. BTW, how far off are the colors?

Anona

[w10d]

I don't know what is available in Elements as I use PS, but printer profiles will only start to be helpful as part of a Colour Managed workflow.

Do you have a hardware or software calibrated monitor?
What profiles do your images have embedded in them?
What is your working (editing) colourspace?

With this info someone more familiar with Elements should be able to help...

[binthere]

Anona,

I am being real nitpickie about the color and Canon is not being real forth coming with information. My printer came with a bad ink cartridge holder that gave me fits before they sent me a new one. All that said I would buy this printer again. In my experience, which is limited Canon beats anybody else in this price range printer by alot

binthere

[john_houghton]

I found this helpful posting by Cathy Stratton over on the DPReview forums:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=6618865

It describes Qimage settings but the printer driver settings will be similar when using Elements. For elements, you should select the profile in the pull down list in the Print Preview Printer Space options, along with Intent Perceptual.

John

[Jesper]

binthere wrote:
I am having a little trouble getting my printer to reproduce the same colors on photo paper that are displayed on my monitor. I realize that they will never be exact but after editing in elements the colors a not quite as acurate as I would like for them to be. I checked with Canon about the profiles that the Canon software loaded into my elements software. The tech I got intouch with was clueless. He told me to contact Adobe I have a feeling that they are trying to turn me into a tennis ball. Could anyone please help.
I am using a Canon i960, Rebel 300d and Photo Shop Elements.

Thanks

Just using an ICC profile for your printer / paper combination is not enough to get colors that match the screen accurately. You need to have a properly calibrated and profiled monitor. You only get really accurate color if you use a hardware device, such as a ColorVision Spyder, to profile your monitor.

See this article: "My prints don’t look like what I see on my monitor. What should I do?": http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/monitor_profiling.shtml

AnonaBoats wrote:
Hummmm.... I, too, am on the verge of buying the highly appraised i960...I'll be watching the replies in thsi string. Cheers and good luck. BTW, how far off are the colors?

Anona

I wouldn't base my purchase on what's in this thread, because the color mismatch is most likely not caused because the printer isn't good.... if you don't have a properly color managed system (scanner / camera / monitor / printer) it doesn't matter how good your printer is, you'll have a hard time reproducing colors exactly.

[john_houghton]

Jesper wrote:
I wouldn't base my purchase on what's in this thread, because the color mismatch is most likely not caused because the printer isn't good.... if you don't have a properly color managed system (scanner / camera / monitor / printer) it doesn't matter how good your printer is, you'll have a hard time reproducing colors exactly.
I think that is unnecessarily discouraging. Photoshop users do have a basic calibration option in the form of Adobe Gamma on the control panel. Not as good as a custom profile made using a Spyder or Eye-One spectrophotometer I grant you, but better than nothing. And I would guess that relatively few people have custom profiles for their cameras. I, for one, haven't, but that does not stop me getting prints that match what I see on the monitor, which is what I'm concerned about the most.

John