Canon i9900 settings for best color matching

[drandy1]

Just hooked up this amazingly fast printer!! Output looks excellent on first pass. Just used basic High quality/Photo Pro setting on Epson glossy paper with Photoshop Color Management set to sRGB output workspace (as per Deke McClelland) Output is very rich and saturated in color. Going to go home tonight and tweak settings more. Interested in settings used by other forum members:

Use of supplied icc profiles?
Settings used in "Print with Preview" option in CS
Printer settings used

Initial photos printed are pretty close to my calibrated screen view aside from color richness and saturation. I notice the whites have a little pink in them too - not quite a pure white.

Any help greatly appreciated. By the way, I RECOMMEND this printer highly!!

[maderito]

Just hooked up this amazingly fast printer!! Output looks excellent on first pass. Just used basic High quality/Photo Pro setting on Epson glossy paper with Photoshop Color Management set to sRGB output workspace (as per Deke McClelland) Output is very rich and saturated in color. Going to go home tonight and tweak settings more. Interested in settings used by other forum members
I'm curious where you read that Deke McClelland recommends sRGB as a print output color space. He's one of the most knowledgable guys writing about Photoshop. He occasionally goes against standard opinion and advice - with good justifications - but what you've quoted him as saying places him is at odds with most recommendations.

sRGB is a good all around image capture and image editing color space. Some printers have color spaces that a similar to sRGB. However, sRGB is primarily used for web display since most CRT monitors are designed for calibration to specs compatible with sRGB.

Adobe RGB, a larger color space than sRGB, is good for capture and image editing if you intend to print. A print color space is then used which is optimal for the printer and selected print media. Many printer color spaces can take advantage of the larger Adobe RGB color space.

sRGB is a "output" ICC color space specification - and the usual intended ouput device is a CRT monitor. Printers have their own ICC output profiles.

For more info on using Canon printers and ICC profiles, see this post as a possible starting point: http://www.photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29530

[PacAce]

I have to agree with Woody. The i9900 has a wider color gamut than sRGB so why would you limit the output by using sRGB instead of one of the profiles provided with the printer?

[dn7elson]

The i9900 has a wider color gamut than sRGB so why would you limit the output by using sRGB instead of one of the profiles provided with the printer?

Even my S9000 gives me the option to setup the printer color management to use AdobeRGB 1998. Seems to keep everything the same with my DRebel, C1, PSCS and S9000 all set to the same color space.

[drandy1]

I have the Deke McClelland book "Adobe Photoshop CS - One-on-one" and on page 428 I quote....

"I have yet to encounter an inkjet printer that is calibrated to use a color space other than sRGB, the standard RGB space embraced by all varieties of consumer-level hardware. To accommodate this popular trend, click the Profile pop-up menu in the Print Space area and choose the lengthy sRGB IEC61966-2.1"

He uses an Epson 1280 as his default printer. I have tweaked my new i9900 this evening and realised the best way forward is to default to Printer Color Management and then just set the paper type and quality and press Go. Out pops wonderfully accurate print super-fast with no other color management set up. Just don't want to stop printing now!!

[maderito]

I have the Deke McClelland book "Adobe Photoshop CS - One-on-one" and on page 428 I quote....

"I have yet to encounter an inkjet printer that is calibrated to use a color space other than sRGB, the standard RGB space embraced by all varieties of consumer-level hardware. To accommodate this popular trend, click the Profile pop-up menu in the Print Space area and choose the lengthy sRGB IEC61966-2.1"

He uses an Epson 1280 as his default printer. I have tweaked my new i9900 this evening and realised the best way forward is to default to Printer Color Management and then just set the paper type and quality and press Go. Out pops wonderfully accurate print super-fast with no other color management set up. Just don't want to stop printing now!!

I like McClelland becaues he always gives good, practical advice. His book was released before the i9900. Canon claims that it can print a larger color space than sRGB, i.e. colors in the Adobe RGB gamut. Canon makes the statement Together with Digital Photo Professional software, the Easy-PhotoPrint software is now capable of identifying colour-space information automatically and transferring it accurately to the Canon i9900 photo printer. Easy-PhotoPrint v2.1 software enables image data obtained in Adobe RGB with a broad colour range to be faithfully reproduced on the Canon i9900 photo printer.
and back it up with examples in their Canon ICC Profile Guide (http://homepage.mac.com/renard/ls/Canon_ICC_Profile_Guide.pdf) with examples.

If you take McClellands's advice and if you're starting with and Adobe RGB image in Photoshop, it would be "squeezed" into the sRGB color space and would undoubtedly look fine but, if you believe Canon, some colors might be clipped.

As you are doing, select "Printer Color Management" in Print Preview. That's what also has given me the best results. Let the printer do it's own thing. That's the recommendation in Canon's Profile guide (along with some others). Do read it; very helpful.

[John_T]

I agree with Woody, Leo and Dale. With my i9100, and now my i9950, that's the line I've followed. McClelland's phrase "I have yet to encounter..." I think says it. He hasn't encountered these Canons, while his own Epson 1280 is getting long in the tooth and I don't think Epsons don't have as wide a gamut anyway.

Whenever I get a new printer, monitor, graphic card or whatever, I never use my own images to carry out setup, testing or exploring. I use test targets that are a known and constant quantity such as the PDI-Target, CTI_Target, Fuji_test_image, etc. These are professional "perfect" images that contain all the elements that are critical in imaging from skin tones to color charts. They are made to the highest standards of color accuracy and clarity that is possible.

Once my setup displays and prints these images correctly I have a known quantity, and after that, anything that doesn't display or print correctly must be due to something other than my system. I have found that if I don't do this, and check it regularly, I end up like a dog chasing his tail.