Canon ICC Profile Guide - Something New for Canon Printers

[maderito]

Today I again set out to update my previously fruitless search for Canon documentation on use of ICC profiles. To my surprise, I discovered this thread (follow the thread for a couple of posts).

The author of the thread summarizes his frustrations with Canon non-documentation, promises to contact Canon directly, and gets a PDF document from Canon which he helpfully posts.

Wow! The Canon ICC Profiles Guide is the first I have seen from Canon that addresses issues of color management when using generic or dedicated ICC profiles in Photoshop.

Canon suggests the following Photoshop settings when printing:

In Photoshop "Print With Preview":

#1: When NOT using dedicated, printer/media specific profiles:
1. Source space: Adobe RGB (or sRGB)
2. Print space: Printer Color Management
3. Print Driver: Select correct media, choose desired print quality, check manual color adjustment, select "Set...", and check "Enable ICM".

#2: When using a dedicated media-specific profile:
1. Source space: Adobe RGB (or sRGB)
2. Print space: Select the media-specific ICC profile*
3. Printer Driver: Select correct media, check manual color adjustment, select "Set...", and select "None" for "Print Type". Do not enable ICM.

*Check here for free media-specific Canon ICC profiles for the S900/S9000, probably OK for the S820/S800, and possibly good for current models i950/960,i910/i9100.

The second workflow makes sense and is commonly recommended. Color management is disabled in the printer and left solely to Photoshop.

The first workflow is a bit of a surprise since it is commonly suggested to bypass ICM - operating system color management. It is consistent with the recommendation by Bruce Fraser ("Photoshop Color Management") for Epson printers when using generic profiles.

Background
Until recently, Canon provided only a generic profile with their printer driver software. This profile appeared to be used by the printer driver. The generic profile was selectable in Photoshop for soft proofing and printing, but did not seem to work properly. That is, the generic profile did not function to permit a smooth and accurate workflow from soft proofing to final print. Users were therefore driven to ad hoc solutions, typically turning off printer color management and using custom printer driver settings. I had opted to use default print driver settings ("auto" color management) after experimenting by trial and error with other approaches and getting unsatisfactory results.

Most frustratingly, there was NO Canon documentation on these issues...until now. 8) 8)