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.

[IanD]

Some interesting info in the PDF. Many thanks for the link

[ryuwulf]

WOWSERS!!!!!!!!

thanks, i own the S900 and ive been trying to tweak the crap out of it for a while. I even went so far as to buy a Sypder to calibrate my monitor.

This should help. Thanks!!!!!!!!!

[iwatkins]

Excellent info.

I actually tried method #1, i.e. "Enable ICM" (even though it goes against everything I've read in the past). The results are a lot closer to what I see on screen compared to using the the same settings but with ICM off. Blues and greens are especially much better without having to resort to boosting the colours or intensity slider in the print driver.

Sorry, Photoshop CS to Canon i9100.

Cheers

Ian

[Robesse]

This is too funny. I just spent HOURS experimenting with color management in PSE 2 and my S520 to find out that doing what the ICC profiles guide reccomends is what works best. Oh well, I least I can attest to the fact that it is indeed what works the best!

-- Rob

[Dale]

If you use Qimage for your printing with the i9900 grab this:
http://www.photokaechler.com/files/Qimage_i9900.pdf

[maderito]

Some updated thoughts after re-reading my original post of April 2004.

The Canon ICC profile guide is intended for Canon printers that come with print media ICC profiles, which are specific to Canon papers and printer driver settings.

PR1 = Photo Paper Pro (print quality level 1)
PR2 = Photo Paper Pro (quality level 2)
SP1 = Photo Paper Plus Glossy (quality level 1)
MP1 = Matte Photo Paper (quality level 1)

I have the i950 printer which is not supplied with these profiles. So I downloaded and installed the i960 printer driver (the printers are nearly identical), which has the profiles. I configured my computer to use the i950 driver as my default printer driver. All this just to get the Canon media profiles! Now I can soft proof and print with Photoshop using the profiles. I have a calibrated monitor.

My test:

I used an Adobe RGB color space image file PDI Target_AdobeRGB.jpg and isolated the babies in the image to compare skin tones.

Images were printed on a Canon i950 with Photo Paper Pro and "Source Space: Document: Adobe RGB" selected in the Print with Preview color management options dialog.

1. Print space: printer color management
Printer driver color mgt: auto

- Results in a print with desaturated colors - which is to be expected when printing or displaying an Adobe RGB color space image on an sRGB device. This printed result can be visually duplicated by soft proofing (View>Proof Setup>Custom), selecting any profile, and checking "preserve color numbers." In other words, the printer assumes the image is in sRGB and thus performs no color space conversion.


2. Print space: printer color management
Printer driver color mgt: manual, enable ICM

- Good result, the same as if the file was converted to sRGB space - which apparently is what the printer driver does.
- This result may differ for i960/i9100/i9900 printer drivers. Maybe the newer printer drivers convert image data directly from the Adobe RGB image space to the print space specified in the Canon media-specific profiles. I don't know.

3. Print space: PR2 ICC profile (there are several options for rendering intent - see below)
Printer driver color mgt: Print Quality High (2); turn off color management (see my first post)

- Perceptual rendering - best result; slightly more saturated colors than #2
- Relative colorimetric - IMO oversaturated colors
- Each rendering intent can be set with or w/o black point compensation. I preferred the conversion w/o black point compensation.
- The printed images have a good match to my CRT monitor with soft proofing against the Canon ICC profiles.

Conclusions:
If working with Adobe RGB files,

1. Follow Canon's recommendations in the ICC profile guide. If you choose the "enable ICM" workflow, results may vary depending on whether your printer driver can use Canon's media-specific ICC profiles. If not, the image file is apparently converted to sRGB before printing and then printed with a generic Canon ICC profile.

2. If you use Canon or third party media-specific ICC profiles, you may have to try different combinations of rendering intents and black point compensation. The Canon guide suggestion - perceptual rendering with no black point compensation - worked well on the image I was using (using the Canon profiles; results probably differ with other profiles).

Much of the above also applies to sRGB image files. However, default ("auto") settings should work fine. In other words, in its default mode, my Canon i950 printer expects an sRGB file.

[kevinma]

I use Mac OSX and the Mac drivers have a different set of option to Windows e.g. no options re ICM. Does anyone have suggestions similar to the above for the Mac drivers?
Kevin.

[Darth]

I can't get any of the profiles to come anywhere close on my Canon 950i. I have gone through hundreds of photo paper (Kodak Ultima, and Office Depot Premium) with pretty much the same results. I used the PDI Target_AdobeRGB.jpg to eliminate any mis calibration on my monitor (which appears right on anyway).

Using the Canon profiles, I get yellowish green cast with a blue-green cast to the greys. Using any of the downloaded Office Depot profile suggested above (as well as a Kodak Pro profile from their web site) I get a strong yellow skin color (somewhat natural looking but not like the redish original) and still the blue-green greys.

All this is pretty much the same whether using the profile in Photoshop Elements with ICM turned off in the Printer driver or setting PSE to Printer profile and enabling ICM (set to one of the different profiles).

I have tried using the Printer driver sliders to compensate even to the point of turning the Cyan down as far as it would go (-50%) with no satisfaction. As a note, the sliders don't seem to have much effect until you get to around 30-40% .

Any ideas?

[maderito]

Originally Posted by Darth

I can't get any of the profiles to come anywhere close on my Canon 950i. I have gone through hundreds of photo paper (Kodak Ultima, and Office Depot Premium) with pretty much the same results. I used the PDI Target_AdobeRGB.jpg to eliminate any mis calibration on my monitor (which appears right on anyway).

I had similar problems until I got my monitor properly calibrated. Only then did I stop wasting paper. If you do enough printing, the investment in calibration and profiling hardware & software pays for itself. I thought my monitor was perfectly calibrated (by eye) also. It wasn't!

Even if it's not your monitor, you can only make progress on printing-related problems by controling for this critical variable in your color management workflow as you experiment with other variables.

[Darth]

Maderito, thanks for the answer, but as mentioned, I downloaded the PDI Target_AdobeRGB.jpg and printed it unmodified. Theoretically I could leave the monitor turned off (if I could remember the keystrokes)

The reason I am trying to correct the printer first is that it is so far off.

I refill my cartridges and I suppose that I could have put Cyan ink into the Photo Cyan cartridge, but I don't think so. I use MIS inks which I have read have a good reputation.

BTW Mr. Moderator, since this is a "sticky" thread, am I too far OT, and should this be moved to another thread?

[maderito]

Originally Posted by Darth

Maderito, thanks for the answer, but as mentioned, I downloaded the PDI Target_AdobeRGB.jpg and printed it unmodified.

OK - although printers are harder to calibrate than monitors. And printer calibration techniques have their own targets and calibration procedures. So I assume you're using the PDI Target just to see if you're getting reasonabe and pleasing tonal values. The baby skin tones in the target are useful for this purpose. But remember that you have no true reference point (since appropriately, you're ignoring your uncalibrated monitor).

Color management requires measurements and adjustments against some known standard. In the context we're discussing, that usually begins with good monitor calibration.

[johnleveritt]

Originally Posted by kevinma

I use Mac OSX and the Mac drivers have a different set of option to Windows e.g. no options re ICM. Does anyone have suggestions similar to the above for the Mac drivers?
Kevin.

The link above and below, gives instructions for Windows, and Mac.

http://homepage.mac.com/renard/ls/Ca...file_Guide.pdf

Go to section 4 and read 4-2

[Aqua2102]

Hi there,

really very useful post.

I also have a Canon i950.
If anybody ever comes across profiles for this printer info would be highly appreciated.

BR

[johnleveritt]

Originally Posted by Aqua2102

Hi there,

really very useful post.

I also have a Canon i950.
If anybody ever comes across profiles for this printer info would be highly appreciated.

BR

Do a "Google" search for the following:

i950, icc

And you'll get a bunch of profiles.