Simple question regarding printer profiles and CS4

A simple on I can't answer.

I've been having touble printing on my Ilford paper, all the colours especially skin tones come out darker and more saturated.

My monitor is colour calibrater with a Spyder 3 elite, I have the Ilford profile installed for my printer (Pixma Pro9000 II) and my proofing setup is in Monitor RGB.

I thought I'd try something different.

Usually to set the printer when I print in photoshop I click print, make sure photoshop handles colours, make sure the profile for colour management is the Ilford one and press print.

Today all I changed was instead of the 'photoshop handles colours' I hit printer handles colours instead and voila, perfect print.

This goes against what I was told pretty much everywhere I read that said it's best for photoshop to handle colours.

Can anyone explain this?

I'm using genuine canon inks.

When you want Photoshop to manage colors you have to both set that option in Photoshop and you have to also set it in the printer driver. I don't have your printer but there is an option in the driver to have the application manage I just don't know the exact location and wording.

I'm pretty sure if the printer did the color management, then it wasn't using the Ilford profile. It used whatever was the default profile for the media type selected in the printer driver.

What media type does Ilford recommend when using their papers on your Canon printer? With the ICC profile downloaded from Ilford, you should have gotten a PDF file with the recommended media type setting for the printer driver.

For Iford Galerie Smooth Pearl: IGSPP11_CANP9000 Mark II_PPPGIIn.icc
IGSPP11 - Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl Paper
CAN9000 Mark II - Your Printer
PPPGIIn - Media type setting is Photo Paper Plus Glossy II

Ilford suggests:
For Canon: In “Properties”, go to “Manual”, in “Color/Intensity”, press “Set” and select
“None” in the “Print type” menu. Note: Very Important, especially where Photoshop manages
colour.

Alternatively, you may want to try using the canned Canon profile for the PPPGII media type. This works for me on my HP printer. Rather than use Ilford's profile, I get better results with the canned HP profiles.

http://www.steves-digicams.com …-with-canon-printers.html

Go to the above then go halfway down the page and look at the dialogu box's and set your printer as these boxs and you will be fine, In photoshop print box set your printer icc profile to the ilford paper your using.

Hope this helps...

http://help.adobe.com …3e41001031ab64-77a0a.html

And here for your photoshop print/box settings.

Thanks guys, will have a look later, just going through some images with a client right now.

Will let you know how I get on.

Regards,
Gel

Well I don't know.

I just used the printer to handle colours and everything works fine.
Maybe I shouldn't rely on Ilfords printer profile after all, white is white I guess.

I've tried everything else suggested and all it did was make the colours worse.

You have still not told us which type of Ilford paper you're printing on and what Media Type you selected in the printer settings dialog. As I said earlier, if the printer is handling color management, you're printing with a Canon profile.

Why not try printing from Photoshop, but use a Canon profile instead of the Ilford profile?

Gel wrote in post #9852969
my proofing setup is in Monitor RGB.

That's not correct.
Have a read in the links about color managed printing and softproofing in the "color problems?" link from my sig.

René Damkot wrote in post #9868458
That's not correct.
Have a read in the links about color managed printing and softproofing in the "color problems?" link from my sig.

All due respect Rene, we've had this discussion before about my proofing.

ChasP505: Apologies, I'm using Ilford's Smooth Pearl. For smooth Pearl, if I set it to the settings you suggest (Photo Paper Glossy II instead of Photo Paper II) then the colours are wayyyyyy oversaturated using the Canon printer profile and even more so with the Ilford one.

If memory serves me rightly Ilford recommend the Photo Paper II for smooth pearl not the glossy version.

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Thing is this, with the Spyder 3 elite calibrating my monitor, Monitor RGB in photoshop for soft proofing and the printer handling colours everything comes out exactly as I see it on screen.

Could it be the printer is still using the Ilford driver even though in photoshop I don't enable it? Don't know, maybe if that is happening it would explain the saturation as when I ask photoshop to manage colours and site the Ilford icc they overlap.

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This is all with a fresh install of windows, only photoshop and printer driver install and my monitor calibrated.

If it's wrong that my soft proofing is Monitor RGB then what should it be exactly, if I select custom proofing to the spyder profile I get no difference whatsoever?

I'm happy, the prints now look right. I'm just frustrated that even though I'm doing what I'm supposed to do according to Ilford my prints came out looking like crap.

Gel wrote in post #9869922
If it's wrong that my soft proofing is Monitor RGB then what should it be exactly, if I select custom proofing to the spyder profile I get no difference whatsoever?

Softproof using the correct printer/paper profile.
The way I work (and I get a very good proof-to-print match):

Go proof > custom > select the printer/paper profile, simulate paper white ticked:

Gel wrote in post #9869922
I'm happy, the prints now look right.

That's most important

Thanks Rene for that. Will try it out and report back