Printing help needed: LR2 vs PS

Hi all. I just got a Canon MP980 multifunction printer today. I was testing out some printing and I'm having a serious issue.

Just FYI, my monitor is calibrated with Spyder2 Pro. I don't have any experience doing my own prints.

Anyway, if I print in LR2, the print itself looks like I took the image and moved the saturation down to -60.

If I export as a jpg (sRGB, 100 quality) and then print the resulting jpg in Photoshop, using the same exact settings, my print looks fine, almost indistinguishable from my display.

This was the image I was using to test with:

What settings in LR2?

Software or printer manages colours?

What OS? PC or Mac?

I'm not in the vicinity of the printer at the moment.

Anyway, I'm on a PC, these tests were done on Vista 64bit Home Preium. I used the same settings for each one. I went to "print", chose the printer, the paper, let the printer manage colors... that is all I can recall at the moment.

I made sure to use the same exact steps for both. Of course when I was printing from photoshop, I was printing the exported jpg with the sRGB profile.

I've learnt the hard way not to let the printer manage anything, because it always manages to mess it up. It's unlikely to cure your problem, but I'd still suggest you let Photoshop manage it.

Photoshop worked as expected, the picture was nearly identical to the display.

It was Lightroom that was giving me the issue.

Jim,

When I looked at Lightroom when it was still in one of it's early Beta forms. Adobe let it be known that the softwares interpretation of "colour" was done differently to Photoshop and subtle differences might be apparent.

I've written this here before and been shot down in flames for doing so, but that's what Adobe wrote at the time, and no amount of criticism is going to change it.

Now the operative word is subtle, so don't go expecting it to be the cause of large colour changes.

And surely you can also tell the printer driver that you want LR to manage colour? I never liked LR, so I know nothing about how to tell it to do anything.

The final answer to your problem has to lie with the preferences you have set up in each programme. I don't see how it can be anything else.

Thanks Lowner.

I've never really done any "self" printing where I was concerned about color accuracy, so this is a first for me. I bought this thing because I thought I'd like to first of a few 4x6's every once in a while, rather than numerous round trips to Costco.

I need to pick up some more photo paper, then I can experiment more. I personally love Lightroom. I probably use it 95%+ rather than photoshop, but until yesterday I've only been using the library and develop modules. This was my very first venture into the print module.

The problem might be that Lightroom is trying to print running in 64bit mode - to do this you need a corresponding 64bit driver. Try running LR in 32bit mode and see if it cures the problem.

paddycook wrote in post #6799606
The problem might be that Lightroom is trying to print running in 64bit mode - to do this you need a corresponding 64bit driver. Try running LR in 32bit mode and see if it cures the problem.

As in installing the 32 bit version of LR2?

Not sure how it works in Windows but on the Mac it's merely a question of unchecking a box and re-starting. Maybe in the preferences?

paddycook wrote in post #6799606
The problem might be that Lightroom is trying to print running in 64bit mode - to do this you need a corresponding 64bit driver. Try running LR in 32bit mode and see if it cures the problem.

I think you might have been exactly right. I copied the catalog onto my notebook, Win XP MCE (32 bit), printed the same photos from LR2 on that machine and they look as I expect them to. Same exact printing steps and everything.

Thanks.

Pleasure