color profiling with colorvision....

[Joytek]

Hello,

I have a 10d and recently bought a printer (i960) and a color profiling package from Colorvision (spyderpro with printFix). I have been trying to get the print match the monitor for a week now. I have called the support line but no solution has been found as of yet.

Does anyone have personal experience with this colorprofiling system. I have profiled my monitor with the spyder and then have printed out a color chart and scanned that with the printfix device. I made a profile out of this and tried to get the print match the monitor with no luck. I have been very careful in preparing all the tests. The light was off when I did the spyder monitor profile. The colorchart theat was printed had ample time to dry before it was scanned and the printer was on for a while before I printed the chart too. The profiling process was repeated a few times and each time the print is quite off. There seems to be more magenta in it and the shadows are usually of a different hue than in the monitor image.

Help please. Frustrating!
i use win xp prof, ps cs 8, spyderpro, printfix.

Thank you in advance!

w.

[maderito]

If you can provide the following, several people here could probably help you:

1. What application are you using for printing?
2. If you're using Photoshop, what are the color management options you've selected for image editing and printing?
3. What selections/settings have you made for the Canon print driver?

It sounds like your prints are being color managed twice - once by an image editing application and once by your print driver.

[Jesper]

Did you remove Adobe Gamma before installing OptiCAL and making a monitor profile with the Spyder?

OptiCAL loads at startup, just like Adobe Gamma, and corrects the colors on your monitor according to the profile. You shouldn't have Adobe Gamma and OptiCAL installed at the same time, because they will interfere with each other and the colors on your monitor will most likely not be correct.

[Joytek]

Adobe gama is uninstalled.

yes I am using Photoshop for printing. In PS CS 8 I open up a file converted into 16b tif by the FileViewer Utility form canon (I like the quality enventhough the speed blows). I shoot in adobe rgb. In FVU I convert to sRGB. Once in photoshop I use a profile made with a spyder (very carefully) as a working color space. When I print I press the radio button (Document... untaged rgb) for source and a printer profile that i made using PrintFix from colorvision following their instructions. In the options the printer is set to print matte since for now that is what I use (the printfix procedure required that )but how can I now use the profile to convert from my spyder-made monitor profile to the printer profile made with printfix?

If that makes any sense to anyone at all....argg :(
w.

[maderito]

You are using the wrong working color space in Photoshop. You're printer settings are possibly wrong.

1. Under color settings, set your PS working color space to sRGB (since that's what you're using in FVU). Adobe RGB is also acceptable. Just make sure that there's a match in color space from FVU to PS. See: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps8-colour/ps8_1.htm . It may make your hair hurt, but once you get it, you'll save yourself a lot of misery.

2. First try printing without your new printer profile:
- PS: source = sRGB printer = "Printer Color management"
- Print driver: Media = Photo Paper Pro (or whatever you're using), color adjustment = auto.

If you're not using Canon paper at this point, it's hard to predict what you'll get. If you are, the results should be good. If not, possibly the monitor is not calibrated well enough.

Once you get #2 working OK, then turn to your customized print profile. I'm assuming that you have created a profile for the specific paper (again, hopefully Canon Photo Paper Pro) you're using. As I understand PrintFix, you use matte paper to generate a color target for profiling, but eventually PrintFix allows you to create specific profiles for the printer/paper combo you will be using.

3. Using the correct printer profile:
- PS: source = sRGB Printer: select your custom ICC profile
- Print driver: select correct media, manual color adjustment, "print type" = none (which means no color management)

If this is not working, then you'll have to revisit the PrintFix documentation and make sure your profiles are being generated properly for the media you are using.

Finally, make sure you're working with a good print that is well exposed and requires no color adjustments in PS. You can only edit safely in PS for printing if the monitor color profile and printer profile are set up correctly.

Hope that helps.

[Jesper]

I shoot in adobe rgb. In FVU I convert to sRGB. Once in photoshop I use a profile made with a spyder (very carefully) as a working color space.

First of all, do NOT use your monitor profile as the working space in PS. Use a standard color space, such as sRGB or Adobe RGB - best is to choose Adobe RGB. The monitor profile is a device-specific profile - it describes the way your monitor displays colors. You don't want to convert your images to the device-specific profile of your monitor. First of all, it changes over time (you need to re-calibrate your monitor every few weeks) and if you ever buy a new monitor, you don't want to be stuck with images saved with the profile of your old monitor.

Unfortunately, Canon cameras don't tag JPEG images with the Adobe RGB profile if you set your camera to Adobe RGB. That means that if you shoot in Adobe RGB, you have to *assign* (not convert) the Adobe RGB profile to your images in PS.

[scottbergerphoto]

Maderito,
You got me out of a jam on this in the past. Thanks again for that, and for the great link above. I just printed it out. And yes sometimes color management in Photoshop CS can make my hair hurt.
Regards,
Scott