Help, where am I going wrong?!

[adam351]

I have had my 20D about a week. I have Adobe Elements 3.0 and Windows XP.

I have taken some photographs that look great on the screen. I have a Canon S750 and Epson Photo 825 printers. No matter how I try the resulting prints have awful skin tones and appear quite noisy compared to the magnificant result on the screen.

I have tried the following: (all to 6x4's):

Using Canon Pro paper on the Canon printer.
1) Use Canon printing software (Easy Photo Print)
2) Direct from Adobe - tried in Print Space "Same as Source" and "BJ Color Printer Profile 2000. - No Exif to try.

Using Epson paper and Printer.
1) Only from Adobe, With Exif checked, tried "sRGB IEC..." and "Stylus Photo 825".

All prints look the same, orange skin and noisy.

I haven't done any reduction in size of the original JPG, is that where I am going wrong?

Please help!!!

PS With my old point and shoot 2M pixel Nikon the 6x4's were great, just used Easy Phot Print and the Canon printer. Is this telling me that I need to use Elements or something to reduce the resolution of the jpg?

[robertwgross]

Tell us how your entire computer system is color calibrated.

If your monitor is "off," then it might look right there and deliver bad results at the printer.

---Bob Gross---

[adam351]

This is a HP Pavilion lap top, how to calibrate the monitor? By the way, the prints I am trying to print are untouched by Elements..

Sorry for by ignorance on the monitor calibration..

[jukas]

You can either Calibrate your monitor with software which relies on your eye by using Adobe Gamma. Otherwise you are looking at a hardware calibration like the Colorvision Spyder2 or the Greg MacBeth Eye One. These give much more accurate results but are in the $200 range.

Lastly I've found that even after hardware calibration my laptop gives drastically different results than my desktop CRT. At this point I only use my laptop for review and culling, and do all my post processing on my desktop.

[adam351]

What is confusing me is that the screen looks right (untouched/edited) by Elements. I just took a picture of my daughter, behind her is a wallpapered wall that is a light creamy coloured brown/gold, on the screen it looks exactly like this. Printed I get a mucky green/grey. The whole image looks darker than the screen and darker than the real life subject..

Looks like Adobe Gamma isn't part of Elements but part of Photoshop. Is there a standalone or addon for Elements?

Although my laptop monitor may be a bit out of whack it sure looks more natural than the prints I am getting!

[adam351]

Oops. Sorry, found Adobe Gamma, will try it out.

[adam351]

Ok, I tried Adobe Gamma and there isn't much difference afterwards. Maybe due to the lack of controls for this laptop.
I did reduce the above mention picture to 6x4 with Adobe, selecting 220dpi and no color space. I then printed it with Canon Easy Photo Print on to "Glossy Paper" (it is nice HP paper), same paper as last, this time the print was a little lighter and the wall closer to reality, but still not there yet.
I'll get some prints made at a photo store to see how they compare, should I reduce them down or leave them at the maximum size/resolution?

[mkh]

PS With my old point and shoot 2M pixel Nikon the 6x4's were great, just used Easy Phot Print and the Canon printer. Is this telling me that I need to use Elements or something to reduce the resolution of the jpg?

If the Nikon pictures were printed using this laptop and the same printers/paper then it isn't a monitor calibration issue as that would affect both cameras.

I don't hae a 20D so I'm streching a little here - what colorspace is the camera using?

[adam351]

Both cameras use sRGB colorprofile (from EXIF info). The little Nikon seems to get a higher resolution ISO rating on similar indoor shots (400 vs 53?!, resolution 70 vs 300).

It still seems to be a printing issue as the Cancn pictures look life-like on the screen (just as the Nikon). I will be getting some Walgreens prints back today of the same pictures I am trying to print for comparison. I'll post the results.

[adam351]

I got the 1-hour photo prints back from Walgreens (I had reduced them to 300 dpi which it turns out is unecessary). The prints, although not on great quality paper (very light, Kodak), are very good and match the image viewed on the laptop very closely.

I have one more printer hooked up to my wife's computer, an HP all-in-one, that I decided to try. Due to my inexperience on it I printed one picture on the wrong side of their premium plus paper (my last free sample) and one on the cheap freebies that come with Elements 3, both prints turned out with much better colour than the ones on my other two printers, pretty close to the Walgreens prints. I used an HP utility to make the prints.

So what is up with the other printers? Do they go off with age (they are older than the HP)? Something is still up!

[GAJulie]

My old Epson Stylus 820 started to go crappy on me. I don't know if had anything to do with I had started buying generic ink from Ebay for it. I foisted it off on my husband when I bought a HP 8150. Got it at Fry's for $100. Prints come out great. I only use genuine inks from now on.
Julie

[adam351]

This is the only logical reason I can think of, I am a little surprised as I used to get nice prints from the Canon printer, the Epson I use only for work so I don't know how it really was new.

I am looking at new printers now and have been thinking about HP's due to the benefit of new print heads on the cartridges, the only thing I don't like about HP's is they tend to install gigs of progams on your computer including ones lurking around and running in the background, they kind of take over. One time I wanted to print on my wife HP over the network and over the network it installed 40mb (no driver is that big) before I could print!

I am getting a new camcorder in the nearish future, one of the potential candidates is a Canon that would give me $70 off a PIXMA printer. Maybe worthwhile...

[J Rabin]

Adam. Just a thought. Many of us experience "color mgt." learning curve frustrations. with off color casts, muddy tones, yellows. Sometimes that indicates somewhere in the process you are TWICE setting a print space color profile for the image. Either turn it off in whatever program, or turn it off in the printer driver and test what happens. Best of luck. Hang in. No one ever said digital saves time. Gets great results after the curve. Save time. Nahh..J

[adam351]

I can't see how to turn it off in Elements (Exif isn't available for me for the Canon Printer) and in the options there is always one selected and no "None" available.
In Windows in the Canon Properties it is set to Automatic, the list only has one profile, "CNBRPRN2", which would be the case if selected Automatic or Manual. I guess I could remove it, would that be what you are suggesting? Is there a way to turn of the colour management in Elements?

By the way, "muddy" perfectly decribes the prints with the Canon and Epson printers!

[adam351]

There is this option in Elements (see attachment), should I be setting it here to "No Color", will that potentially cause problems if I send a file to be printed at an outside source?

[J Rabin]

There is this option in Elements (see attachment), should I be setting it here to "No Color", will that potentially cause problems if I send a file to be printed at an outside source?
We may be getting somewhere now. I re-read your first post, and I think right here 2) is where you're doubling the CM:
Using Canon Pro paper on the Canon printer.
1) Use Canon printing software (Easy Photo Print)
2) Direct from Adobe - tried in Print Space "Same as Source" and "BJ Color Printer Profile 2000. - No Exif to try.
I work with PSCS, not Elements, but that looks like the color management button to me. My experience is it's best to let PS handle the color management, and turn this tab OFF in the printer driver. YMMV. Canon has a tutorial, which they have as a Sticky on this site, but I also saw a book with an example turning off CMgt in the Epson driver. Let's try Canon workflow example:
Print direct from Adobe Elements. Use Canon Photo Paper Pro. In that Print Space dialog, search and select the Canon iXXXX Printer PR1 or PR2 print space color management driver.
THEN, when the print dialog comes up TURN OFF CM in the driver. You'll get there!

[robertwgross]

By the way, "muddy" perfectly decribes the prints with the Canon and Epson printers!

Muddy describes the prints that I got off my first two color printers until I started using Epson Premium Glossy in my Epson printer. Also, getting the correct printer driver going for that paper is critical.

Now, when I show some of my prints around, people say, "Where did you get that printed?" (meaning: what lab printed it?)

---Bob Gross---