Need help with a printing problem

I’ve been struggling to get decent prints out of my HP Photosmart c309 off and on for a year now (mostly off due to frustration), and finally decided to ask for help. Help! My prints all have a horrible color cast to them!

My environment is an HP Pavilion laptop (dv4) running Vista. The laptop display is not calibrated or profiled. I use DPP and sometimes Gimp for editing. My photos on screen look okay, especially after I do custom white balancing. I’m making 4x6 prints using HP Advanced Photo Paper. I just want the prints to come *close* to the display (and real life). I’m not after ultimate print quality; but I should be able to get something decent from this setup. I’ve been through most of Rene’s links, searched many threads in this forum, and visited a variety of other sites trying to educate myself on color management. It’s much tougher than I ever imagined.

Based on all the test images, my display can’t be that far off. I can see all the shades of black and shades of white in all the test images. Easily. The gray blocks all look neutral. I downloaded the test image from this site(http://www.jirvana.com …rEvaluationImag​e_V002.zip) and it looks fine on screen. When I print it, it actually looks very good. Much better than my prints. There’s just a slight orange cast to it compared to the display. I’d be thrilled if prints of my photos matched as closely.

For a long time the prints of my photos had a terrible yellowish cast to them, from whatever application I used to print – DPP, ZoomBrowser, Gimp, Windows Photo Gallery… The paper type is chosen correctly, there are printer .icc files loaded, and the Color management was set to ColorSmart/sRGB.

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Buckeye88,

Sounds as though your laptop is the weak link. Try printing a test image without manipulating the image for white balance or anything else and see how the printer copes. My first guess is that the orange/yellow cast is something you have unwittingly introduced yourself.

Yes, colour management can seem like a minefield at first, but keep reading all the info you can and eventually it will begin to start slotting into place.

One thing. You have checked to see that your printer is printing correctly? I use an Epson, and regularly run quicky nozzle check prints that give me a small chequerboard pattern from each of the eight inks to make sure everything is clear.

Good luck.

The images in that thread are a bit on the warm side…

Also, you have set your monitor profile in DPP as "sRGB", which it isn't. Even if you didn't calibrate, Vista probably uses something else as monitor profile. Try setting that in DPP and see how images look in DPP then (the prints should not come out any different, but DPP will show the images somewhat closer to the print hopefully)

I'm assuming the printer profile is the correct profile for the paper you're using.

Rene is perfectly right, I missed that on my first look. Your monitor profile IS NOT the colour space you are using, it's a special piece of software designed for your monitor only.

I happen to use Abobe RGB rather than sRGB when I print, but I have a unique monitor profile that slots into that spot even so.

René Damkot wrote in post #13507474
The images in that thread are a bit on the warm side…

Well rats. That’s one reason I started the other thread – to find out if my WB work was correct. You were the first to give me the feedback I (sort of) wanted. By basing WB on a white sticker on a white bib in those photos (and not on how things looked on screen) I was hoping my display was removed from the equation. That it looked okay on my display was a bonus. (It looked the same on another laptop too.) I think my next move is to get a white balance card, something I should have done long ago, and run some more controlled tests.

René Damkot wrote in post #13507474
Also, you have set your monitor profile in DPP as "sRGB", which it isn't. Even if you didn't calibrate, Vista probably uses something else as monitor profile. Try setting that in DPP and see how images look in DPP then (the prints should not come out any different, but DPP will show the images somewhat closer to the print hopefully)

I'm assuming the printer profile is the correct profile for the paper you're using.

Here are my profile choices. The only other profile that makes any sense is Adobe RGB. When I selected it in DPP, the display looked even further from the print. Much *less* warm!

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My suggestion as a temporary fix would be to approach the laptop manufacturer and ask them what profile they use.

I know that Samsung have a profile for my monitor because when I browse the same folder that you have copied above it shows up. I actually use a profile made by my eye-one display 2 monitor calibration kit, but thats solving your issue right now even though its probably the best long term solution to your problem.

Certainly, sRGB or aRGB are always going to make the problem far worse because they are not profiles.