Canon i9900, output comparisons, ??? Can I get a little help

[BCdives]

Just got my 9900 and thus far I will say it is AMAZING.

I have read everything I can get my hands on regarding settings, print space, etc.

But, I have this observation, and wanted some professional guidance.

Open file : embeded sRGB
Convert to space : AdobeRGB

When printing I now have several Canoni9900 print space options to choose from under manage color, MP1,PR1,PR2,SP2.

Between these I can tell NO difference in the test photos....BUT, what I do know, is they all seem to be "Softer, and RED'er" than the screen. Looks ok, but not great.

Now, when I print the test photo again, this time using sRGB as the print space, it is a razor sharp, spot on match to what I'm seeing on the screen.

I know at the end of the day, this all comes down to "Does it look good, yes or no"

I'm wondering if I'm missing any obvious steps or settings, or should I stick with what works and leave it at that. I just want to make sure I'm getting the most out of this wonderful printer.

Thanks for any help............ (Scottes :wink: ) and anyone else with a thought or two.

Cheers,

BC

[Scottes]

Open File: sRGB
Convert to Space: AdobeRGB
Process
Save

View... Proof Setup... Custom.
-Profile = MP1, MP2, whatever
-Intent: Relative Colormetric is generally best for printing.
-Check Use Black Point Compensation is also generally best.
-OK

View... Proof colors. Watch them change.
View... Gamut Warning. Colors that can't be reproduced on the printer will be grey. Fix those colors, generally by desaturation. (Printers can not print Red 255, for example, so desaturate the reds until they're in Gamut and still look right against the rest of the image.)

Or don't fix the out of Gamut, and PS will, but you lose control. However, there's not always a lot you can do anyway. But large OoG areas may very well cause a crappy print. Small points here and there are probably too much work to fix.

Check/uncheck View Proof Colors (Ctrl-Y) while doing some more processing. Same with OoG (Ctrl-Shift-Y) Don't go crazy processing, because your printer can not reproduce all of those colors you see on the screen.

Image... Mode... Convert to Profile: i9900 MP1/whatever. Check and uncheck the Preview box to see changes.

Save this under a new name, like xxxxx_5x7-print-i9900.tif

File... Print with Preview.
Click Show More Options.
Source Space: Proof Setup, which should say "i9900 MP1" or whatever you chose. (Since you've done proof setup. If you didn't have to do all that color proofing and Out of Gamut checking you can choose Document which should say "Adobe RGB".)

Print Space: Same as Source (if you did Proof Setup) or switch it to i9900 MP1/whatever if you left it in AdobeRGB.

Print that sucker!


Expect some color shift anyway, unless you have the monitor calibrated AND the printer calibrated to the monitor. But this should be close enough.

Experiment. Test. Expect to go through a set of paper and a half set of ink until you *really* like what's going on. Don't go printing a 16x20 the first time out.

Do not expect the very first print to look great. If it does look great, then you probably have low standards. :-) If it looks like complete crap, then lower your standards. :) :) :)


Others may very well have other opinions. This is what I do and it seems to work for me. I'm not so concerned about color match to monitor (I need a new printer, a new monitor, a calibration unit, and a custom profile or 2 to make me *really* care...) but I'm very concerned with color match to itself. So if the final print looks good I'm happy, even though the color may be shifted from the monitor.


Since you seem to care about the color match, you have a road ahead of you all about learning color spaces. If you know some now there's a lot more to it now that you're printing. (Did you think photography was easy? :) ) I very highly recommend Blatner & Fraser's "Real Word Photoshop CS" - truly an excellent book, especially for color management and printing, and there's very very little in there that isn't relevant to digital photography.


Did you *really* think photography was easy? :-)

[BCdives]

Scottes, YOU are the MAN!

Please send me an invoice, I'll be happy to pay it. :lol:

I will start some more testing with your prceedures in place.

I'm not so "Hung up" on matching the screen per se, it's just that often times the pic on the screen looks fantastic. (19 ViewSonic Flatscreen) I agree with you, in the end, does the PICTURE look good, great, or OK.

Thank you so much for your time and sharing your smarts, I really appreciate it.

I'll let ya know how it turns out,

BC

[dn7elson]

(Printers can not print Red 255, for example

Is this still the case with the new 8 tank printers such as the i9900 where Red has been added (along with Green) to the cartridge lineup?

[Scottes]

Please send me an invoice, I'll be happy to pay it.

How about if I send you a couple 120 MB TIFFs and you send me back some 11x17s?
:)


This might actually make for a cheap tutorial. Hopefully some of our PS gurus will comment on the above with suggestions. My methods haven't been perfected really, so I'm constantly looking for suggestions, too.

Man, I really want a new monitor and printer and calibration device... I'm stuck with simple inaccurate tests on my current printer and expensive test prints from the local semi-pro lab.

[BCdives]

Hey Scottes, Tell ya what, I have a whole Box of 13X19, send you can upload your Tiff to my FTP server and I will print it out and send it to you if you like.

Seriously! That would be a fun experiment!

On a follow up note, I did exactly as you insturected and everything looked good with the previews, I did a very minor desate on the red this time.

Then the output of the 9900 PR1 color space is still really red by comparison. I KNOW that looking at a posted pic is NO WAY to tell really, but here is a Pic of the Pic's side by side taken just a few minutes ago with the MKII

Good, Bad or whatever, I think you can clearly see the difference in tone. Or should I have my eyes checked by the doctor.

????


http://bc.kf4oal.com/Profile-Test.jpg

I also just noticed the stripes on the blanket are green'er with the canon profile also...THIS was NOT, in the preview, I swear.

I'll buy a book!

I'm dying to bust off a 13X19, I'll do one for you if you like, tube it and mail it back to you. Lemme know!

And many thanks again for the advice!

BC

[Scottes]

Then the output of the 9900 PR1 color space is still really red by comparison.

So you did the Preview and OoG checks and things looked good?
Then when you did Image... Mode... Convert to Profile did the colors change? They shouldn't change to what you posted.

If so, that's bad and I'm wrong.

If so try Image... Mode... Assign Profile.


There is where I get hazy when I'm in work and not with *my* setup at home....

[BCdives]

No, no change when I converted, I looked carefully. It's is a little bizare if ya ask me, but thats what makes all this stuff so much fun. :roll:

Anyway, I'll keep screwing with it. In the meantime the sRGB looks pretty darn good on the Ilford paper.


Thanks Scottes!

BC

[Scottes]

Anyway, I'll keep screwing with it. In the meantime the sRGB looks pretty darn good on the Ilford paper.

I'm not sure what the different color profiles (MP1, PR2, etc) mean, but it's not surprising that sRGB looks good. However, sRGB is probably not the best that the printer can do. However, this may be one of those things where you spend 20 hours to get the print to look a *little* better.

And if you're happy with the print.... :wink:



And now I have to go take a picture of something worth 13x19" so I can take your offer... I just got stuff printed yesterday, so I'm all out of the good pics.

[drandy1]

I also have been playing around. I too noticed a reddening when I use the supplied ICC profiles. In the end, I just took the simple approach:

Used "Printer Color Management" in the Print Space selection.

Selected the correct paper and quality in the Printer Set-up. I now leave ICM OFF and just print. Sometimes flesh tones can be a little weak so I may bump up the saturation setting to +7. For nicely saturated images you shouldn't need to increase saturation.

I did also try printing with the ICM ON (as Canon suggest) but this gave an oversaturated and slightly reddish overtone - not quite as much as you show.

So, my best approach is to keep it simple and see how it comes out.

LOVE the printer!!

[maderito]

I previously posted this thead (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29530) which summarizes Canon recommendations for print settings in Adobe PS and in the Canon printer driver. There is a Canon publication on the use of ICC media-specific profiles which is also referenced in the posted thread.

MP1, PR1, etc. refer to the ICC profiles for the different Canon print papers.

It's simplest to use ARGB or sRGB as the source color space and Printer Color Mangement for the print space. Then let the printer driver do its thing. It will determine which of the media profiles to use based on the media you select in the printer driver dialogue. The Canon publication actually recommends that you enable ICM - contrary to everyone's intuition and advice. Once I did that, prints started coming out right -- at last.

If you want to bypass printer color management, you can have Photoshop do all the conversion from the source to print color space. That's the workflow setup outlined by Scottes. However, you have to disable printer color management (otherwise you get two conversions). It's not obvious how to do so. As I recall, in the printer driver under manual settings, you select "none" for print type. You also do NOT check enable ICM.

Personally, I just use the Canon supplied ICC media profiles to check for out of gamut colors when soft proofing. My system is not carefully calibrated enough to permit accurate monitor soft proofing. If I were doing this everyday (and for a living :) ), I would probably move to generating and working with dedicated ICC media profiles - specific to the batches of print paper on hand.

[Scottes]

If you want to bypass printer color management, you can have Photoshop do all the conversion from the source to print color space. That's the workflow setup outlined by Scottes.

DOH! I totally forgot about this. I'm sending my stuff to a printer and telling him to disable everything.

But I forgot to mention that step. Which is only slightly important.

Thanks, Maderito.

[John_T]

Hmm... I went through most of the above with my i9950 in the first days and now find I get the best results, including monitor close match, just using

Source Space > Document: Adobe RGB (or whatever)

Print Space > Profile: Printer Color Management

My motto is now Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS).

If I use Ilford or Tetenal papers, I roughly follow their sheet in the box with some small adjustments out of experience.

With this printer, I find can print almost anything glossy using the PPP setting and matte using the MPP setting with pretty reliable results. But I do look more at whether the print suits me than how well in matches the monitor, though it generally does.

Previously I got the Canon ICC Profiles Guide and followed it religiously, but I was not at all happy with the results. Though the i9950 printer driver superficiously looks the same as my previous i9100, perhaps it also is substantially improved.

[Scottes]

How does that work on an image with a number of Out Of Gamut sections? On my Epson 1280 I used to simply convert to sRGB and do print color management sRGB, but the color shifts drove me crazy. Not all the time, but often enough the image was saturated beyond the capabilities of the printer. Now, when I *really* care, I end up spending as much time processing for print as I did processing for display.

Maybe I'm too finicky...

[John_T]

Well Scott, after driving myself nuts through color management for ages, and after realizing, though the principles remain, that the majority of what you read about color management is out of date and that in the meantime it has become largely automated by software/hardware, I've grown philosophical about it.

If you will recall, you had tell the old color printer about everything it had to do 'cause it couldn't find it's ass with both hands. Photoshop grew up in that world and is still set up to give you the facility to do that. Many printers are still relatively dumb, so you still have to tell them what to do if you want the max out of them. Now the newest generation of better printers are pretty smart, and now the Canon i9900 is newer than PS CS, and it's printer driver is pretty smart, mainly because it's designed so that any idiot can print a decent image.

We have gotten so used to having to fix everything that we are now trying to fix things that ain't broke. We don't have to prepare for CYMK unless something is going to press 'cause PS and the printer driver are taking care of that far better than we can. I read somewhere that the i9900 has a wider gamut than our cameras and PS color spaces can currently use or we can discern. CMYK now has eight cartridges, which is something I'm not about to second guess. I've meticulously calibrated my monitor so I know that what I'm giving the printer is reasonably correct, so I let it do the rest. After all, that's what it's getting paid for.

I tweak and convert RAW to 16bit aRGB in ACR or ZB, do whatever else I think it needs in PS CS in the aRGB space, then throw it at Printer Color Management with the appropriate sizing and paper. If it comes out broke, which it rarely does, I fix it, but the fix is usually because of something I missed and not because of color management.

I think it is mainly about printers and printer drivers. If I find I have to struggle with both to get what I want at gun point, I'd rather shoot the SOB and get something more cooperative. I can't say what is happening with you, but I think either you are trying too hard to do it all yourself, or you need to shoot the SOB. I'm finicky too, but I'd rather be trigger-happy than a masochist. :lol:

(None of which really addresses your question... :wink: )

[maderito]

How does that work on an image with a number of Out Of Gamut sections? On my Epson 1280 I used to simply convert to sRGB and do print color management sRGB, but the color shifts drove me crazy. Not all the time, but often enough the image was saturated beyond the capabilities of the printer. Now, when I *really* care, I end up spending as much time processing for print as I did processing for display.

Maybe I'm too finicky...
I loved John_T's response - even though he avoided your question. :)

So what to do if on soft proofing, you find that many colors are out of gamut?

I'll assume you're talking about images edited in Adobe RGB color space in Photoshop. When proof set up is checked against a specific printer profile, you get gamut warnings. :evil:

I'll also assume you know most of this - so bear with me...

1. You could do nothing. The printer driver will take all colors that are out of gamut and clip or remap to colors within the printer color space. You do need to tell the printer what is the soure color space (e.g. Adobe RGB) and turn on printer color management.

2. You could edit the picture to eliminate the gamut warnings. Then you see something closer to what will be printed if you have a well calibrated monitor.

3. You could convert the image to sRGB since that will map all colors to a color space that is printable by standard Canon printers AND viewable on a well calibrated monitor. You can verify this by making the conversion (Image>mode>convert to profile), selecting the appropriate Canon profile under View>Proof setup>custom and checking Proof Colors and Gamut Warning. Any previously noted gamut warnings should be gone.

Finally - remember that almost all CRT monitors have a gamut approximately equivalent to the sRGB colors color space. So if your images contain larger gamuts, you won't see an accurate representation of that gamut on your screen. In capable printers, you'll see the wider gamut in the printer output tray.

Ain't this fun. :) :)

[Scottes]

I can't say what is happening with you, but I think either you are trying too hard to do it all yourself...

I think you nailed it!

I grew up on PS shortly after it came out on the Mac, getting images to print on a 4-color *proofing* printer, much like an Iris. I have spent days with a spectrophotometer measuring calibration prints. I've spent days with engineers working on undercolor removal formulas on a new batch of ink.

But that was 14 years ago.

Then add my brother into the mix - 29 years in the printing trade, working with 4-color presses. I learned a lot from him.

That was at least 10 years ago.

Since then I've barely done any color printing until very recently. So yes, I have been doing things the hard way - because that's all I knew. Because of it I have been quite upset at my Epson 1280 printer - reputed to be very nice - and I cursed it to no end because it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do.

This thread kicked me, and I did some research. I picked up an old thread from you, another from Maderito I think, and a couple off the web. I started printing samples with different settings. The last one I tried was an Adobe RGB image printed to the 1280 set on... <shudders> ...Automatic.

Guess what?

Well, it ain't perfect - I still lose some saturation in various colors, and it's a little bit - but not much - darker than I'd like. But it's a hell of a lot better than any print that I tried bullying into perfection. So rather than bullying, I now have some tweaking left.


Old dog, new tricks... I'm stubborn but not stupid.

[Scottes]

I'm finicky too, but I'd rather be trigger-happy than a masochist.


ROFLMAO!

[Scottes]

So what to do if on soft proofing, you find that many colors are out of gamut?

1. You could do nothing.

2. You could edit the picture to eliminate the gamut warnings.

3. You could convert the image to sRGB...

1. That seems wrong... :wink:

2. Which about achieves the same as 1, I know. But with a little more control after a lot more time.

3. Augh! The dreaded "Automatic" setting! ! ! I *simply* just can *not* believe that... Hmmm... Hey.... That looks pretty good...


Well, I'm gonna go upstairs, take an Anti-Masochistic Pill, and have supper.

:-)

[larsesp1]

Anyway, I'll keep screwing with it. In the meantime the sRGB looks pretty darn good on the Ilford paper.

I'm not sure what the different color profiles (MP1, PR2, etc) mean, but it's not surprising that sRGB looks good. However, sRGB is probably not the best that the printer can do. However, this may be one of those things where you spend 20 hours to get the print to look a *little* better.


Hi all,
Here you can DL the Canon ICC Profile Guide (PDF). It's has some really good explanations.. http://www.skreifiske.com/Data/Canon_ICC_Profile_Guide.pdf

Have fun! :lol:

-LEH-

[maderito]

Here you can DL the Canon ICC Profile Guide (PDF). It's has some really good explanations.. http://www.skreifiske.com/Data/Canon_ICC_Profile_Guide.pdf

If you have trouble donwloading from that site (as did I), here's another site hosting the same doc:
http://homepage.mac.com/renard/ls/Canon_ICC_Profile_Guide.pdf

[John_T]

I followed the Canon guide meticulously a few days ago. No cigar. The guide is from last year, so I don't know...

Back in May I was wandering around kicking tires waiting for my summer rubber to be mounted and snapped the shot below.

Got home and thought "Hmm! Let's see what the i9100 will do with this!"

Printed a nice A3 for the owner, checked the screen, not a bad match. Checked gamut after the fact, almost the whole car, a patch on the door at the back and a piece of the yellow marking, nicely gray, Out of Gamut says the sonorous voice of PS.

Spun over to the garage to give the owner the print. We layed it on the hood to check the match. Not bad, but no cigar. He liked the print color better than the car's.

Today I thought, hmmm, i9950! Let's try it again.

Load image, check gamut. The same Out of Gamut. Printed another A3. Matches screen.

Drove to garage. Matches car, or so damn close I can't see the diff.

Puff, puff. Nice Havanna. Must be that new red cartridge.

I'm not going to go figure. I don't care, the match is there.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/hosting/data//3694/20945Ferrari.jpg

[Scottes]

I would *never* think that this would print anywhere close to correctly.

But I just pulled this up in PS CS, assigned sRGB, changed to 360 dpi, and printed with the printer on Automatic.

It's not close, but it's not far off, and looks a lot better than I was expecting.

[John_T]

Well, of course I was printing the TIFF that came off the CRW, plus that extra red cartridge. As I remember it, the red of the car on the i9100 print was a tad into magenta, whereas this i9950 one is RED.

If I check Proof Colors, shadow detail goes down, whereas the print shows the details as in the un-proofed display, or perhaps even better.

I'm going to do some more tests on a variety of images to check for consistancy, particulary for "out of gamut" and Proof Colors.

Supposedly PS is pulling it's gamut info from the printer driver, but I'm beginning to suspect that either PS isn't reading it right or the driver references aren't giving the whole story. It doesn't make sense that the identical areas would be reported as out of gamut with two substanially different printers. I've read some posts in other places where some have said that with the i9950/i9900 at last reds are really RED and greens are really GREEN and not a blue and yellow cocktail.

In the real world, it doesn't really matter whats going on in there, the display and the print agree with each other, as much as I believe they can being two different light mediums.

On this one the blue ball and some red in the feathers are reported as out of gamut by PS CS, whereas the blue ball matches the display, and better than that, the blue ball in the print matches the blue ball in real life. Either I or PS CS need a trip to the eye doctor. 8)

http://www.fredmiranda.com/hosting/data//3693/20945_RW_1382.jpg

[Scottes]

When I printed the car the Soft Proof showed a loss of true black. The grill inside the black part under the headlight was very apparent, but printed as very black. The red toned down a bit, becoming not very red, but printed nicely red.

I'm not believing my soft proof much either.

[BCdives]

I don't know what happened, but I guess the site "Stopped Watching" this forum for me, and I assumed it was dead after Scottes and I had our last conversation. Then I check to re-read and all this glorious information had been added.

Annnny way, thanks to everyone for posting, the ICC profile info from canon was very good. John T your input was huge as well.

Am I to assume (Danger) that I should be shooting A/RGB on the MKII and printing with Source, as to keep all the spaces the same ?

Also, any ideas if it is worth the money for Dry Creek to build me my own custom profile to match my papers, printer, etc. bla bla bla, or is this a tourist trap for the measurbaters.

You guys are the BEST! I couldn't get this info if I spent 60K on college!

BC

[John_T]

Aaabbsoloootely-loootely!!!

Adobe RGB, RAW, 16bit conversions and the whole deluxe package! The only thing it will cost you is a new super-cruncher computer and a Terabyte of hard drives, which of course you wanted anyway, along with a Sony Artisan. Your Mark II might otherwise get insulted and seek a new employer. :wink: :lol:

I personally print very straight using the printer driver stock paper settings. I even drop Ilford or Tetenal glossy in the monster, set to PPP and it comes out great.

The more Canon facilitates Perfect Printing for Idiots, the happier we can be. Before wandering up Cripple Creek, I would explore what you can do with what you have. Don't forget this printer is newer than PS CS, and perhaps maybe we can hope better at getting it right than we are used to. Why should you have to wash the dishes before you throw them in the dishwasher? Why should you have to hire a maid to put dishes in the dishwasher? It's about time! Rant and Rage, foam at the mouth!!! :roll: :wink: :lol:

[BCdives]

John, you are such a great contributor, your input is easy to read, makes perfect sense, and after following your steps....... it works just like you said.

You know, I've spent 25 years in the music business, and there is such a thing as going deaf, trying to get something mixed just right, the eq, the compression, bass, hi's etc etc etc. You listen back so many times that you don't even hear it anymore, at that point you just have to walk away let your ears cool off and come back later and start fresh.

Much of the same can be said for "overworking" photo's and prints, of course we want it to look it's best, maybe sometimes we overshoot, and go past that point. I guess now you should STOP going forward, and back UP!

Sometimes we are there at the edge of perfection, but we just didn't know it.

Thanks again John T, Thanks everyone.

BC

[John_T]

Thanks for the flowers! :oops:

Just havin' fun, pokin' fun. And yes, been there, done that on music. I remember very well the move over from analog to digital, still trying to do it the analog way. "Whar's tha patch bay oniss dang thang? Doan gimme no touch screen, gimme knobs! Dagnabbit!?!! :wink: