Lightroom to Canon MP640 printer

[wommby]

Hi Everyone,

Been some weeks since I posted but now I have a question in regards to printing from Lightroom to a Canon MP640 printer.

The Canon MP640 has its own software to print a photo which does not allow me the flexibility you have in Lightroom. It appears to produce a nice photo matching my screen really well, however I want the flexibility of using Lightroom but do not know what icc profiles etc I should be choosing to get a print of the same as what the Canon software produces.

I have a number of icc profiles to chose from but have no idea which one I should be choosing or whether I need to chose more than one. I am using Canon Semi Gloss paper.

Does anyone know how to use Lightroom to print a good colour matching print from this printer?

Any help will be much appreciated.
Deb

[Myk]

Have you tried letting the printer manage color from LR? Pick your paper in your printer driver under page setup.

[wommby]

Hi Mike,

yes I have tried this and the photo comes out much darker than when done by the canon software.

Deb

[Macmahon]

Hi Everyone,

Been some weeks since I posted but now I have a question in regards to printing from Lightroom to a Canon MP640 printer.

The Canon MP640 has its own software to print a photo which does not allow me the flexibility you have in Lightroom. It appears to produce a nice photo matching my screen really well, however I want the flexibility of using Lightroom but do not know what icc profiles etc I should be choosing to get a print of the same as what the Canon software produces.

I have a number of icc profiles to chose from but have no idea which one I should be choosing or whether I need to chose more than one. I am using Canon Semi Gloss paper.

Does anyone know how to use Lightroom to print a good colour matching print from this printer?

Any help will be much appreciated.
Deb

Deb

I use another Canon printer: not the MP640, but to use the Canon profiles from LR, click on the drop down called "profile" under 'Color Management' in the 'Print Job' panel of the 'Print' module. You should see profiles for your printer as well as the option 'Managed by printer'. If there are no entries that look like the list below, click on 'other' which should take you to the directory on your system where the profiles installed with your MP640 driver should be stored.

The profiles will look like
Canon Pro9000 PR1 or Canon Pro9000 GL3. The letters refer to the papers, and the numbers to print quality, with 1 the highest quality.
PR1 Photo Paper Pro (Quality Setting 1)
PR2 Photo Paper Pro (Quality Setting 2)
SP1 Photo Paper Plus glossy (Quality Setting 1)
SP2 Photo Paper Plus (Quality Setting 2)
MP1 Matte Paper (Quality Setting 1)
SG1 Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss (Quality Setting 1)

You should be looking for something like Canon MP640 SG1.
If you choose this route you have to make sure you don't let the driver apply any further colour management: how you do that in detail depends whether you're a Mac user or Windows user.

However, if you've been happy with printing from Easy Photo Print, you'll probably get comparable prints just by selecting "Managed by printer".

Whichever way, remember to select 'Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss' under the print quality setting in the printer driver.

Keep us posted!

Good luck

Tim

[Macmahon]

Deb
Just saw your response to Myk. The key test is which print looks most like the picture on your screen. If your monitor is reasonably well set up you should get tolerable agreement using 'managed by printer'.
If it's really bad, either you have a wrong media selection in the printer driver, or your monitor is too bright.

Have a look at www.fromcameratoprint.com for some bg on colour managing on monitors and printers.

Cheers

Tim

[wommby]

Hi Tim,

Thank greatly for your help. This was exactly what I needed to know. I calibrate my monitor with a Spyder and have just printed some images at settings with "Manage by printer" and by choosing the icc profile. I only have the SG2 not SG1.

I still just prefer the one that was printed with "Manage by printer". At least now I know and I can get on with printing some other images.

Thanks again - it's great to get information from others with more experience and CiC is just wonderful for this.

Cheers - Deb