Canon Pro9000 and Spyder Print

[Cantab]

I've recently purchased the Canon Pro 9000 printer and will soon acquire a Spyder display calibrator. For a short period of time, the manufacturer has a significant rebate on its SpyderStudio suite, which includes Spyder Elite as well as Spyder Print. I'm still at the stage of experimenting with different print papers but will likely end up using Canon, and Ilford Smooth Pearl or one of the Hahnemule papers, with ICC profiles from the relevant manufacturers.

My question: Is it worth purchasing obtaining the Spyder Print so I can prepare my own ICC printing profiles or am I likely to be happy simply using the relevant ICC profiles?

I'm an amateur and will never do printing professionally.

[DanK]

I can only half answer. I have a 9000 II and have had excellent results with the paper manufacturers' ICC profiles, but I don't use the papers you mention. I use almost entirely Moab and Red River papers.

[arith]

I suppose it could be useful Bruce; for things like superior quality paper being given away by the local High st stationer because they never sell any, as happened to me with buy one box get two free.

Trouble was I didn't get a single good print because I couldn't find a profile for HP(amazing sharpness though), and now I exclusively use Ilford Premium Pearl 270gsm paper with the Ilford manufacturers profile, which is mostly accurate enough for my needs since I only choose to print one A3+ a month.

Canon Paper Pro II is much higher in resolution but gloss doesn't suit me, however it was easier to use even though I have a profile simply because I PP under a mixture of natural and tungsten light but view the images under natural light. For some reason the Canon Pro II didn't need any adjustment but the Ilford was too green and this was adjusted using a pattern print.

So it all depends on the price really, and if you change paper types often I suppose.

[Macmahon]

Bruce
I have a Pro9000 and use Ilford Smooth Pearl a lot. I never found the Ilford profile satisfactory (blues were always 'off'), but I used a vast amount of paper and ink trying to make better profiles using a Spyder Print 3. Never got a good screen print match. Finally purchased a Colormunki Photo and got an acceptable match first time. The Pro9000 makes beautiful colour prints on IGSP, but making a good profile is key. Spyder couldn't do it for me. Your mileage may vary: some folks report good results. I suspect quality control issues in the Spyder manufacture.
Tim

[Cantab]

Many thanks to the three of you for your comments. For the time being I'm going to save my pennies and buy just the Spyder 4 Pro. Once I've more experience printing I may have to revisit whether I should get something for doing printing profiles, but I hope not!

[Macmahon]

Bruce
Good luck! Hopefully Ilford have updated their 'canned' profiles with the newly re-packaged and priced papers. BTW You do realise that the Colormunki Photo can profile both screens and papers?
Cheers
Tim

[Cantab]

the Ilford was too green and this was adjusted using a pattern print.

Steve, what media choice do you use when printing on Ilford pearl? I've tried several choices including the Canon semi-gloss, plain photo paper and glossy but none provide an entirely satisfactory. I probably shouldn't have been, but I've been surprised by the difference that is made by the choice of media even when using the paper manufacturer's profiles.

A second question: What pattern print did you use for making what were presumably manual adjustments to the colour?

[arith]

Hi Bruce; I just use Photo Paper Pro II. While mostly I just take a chance and print straight out at default and it is ok, sometimes it isn't and I've had to change from relative to perceptual intent, which I don't think should make a difference.

Make sure the profile under Colour Management is shown and I print small changes in all directions; it is never exactly right since it looks different under a tungsten to under daylight and I found it looks completely different in my brothers house.

So I just go for daylight, and I don't think I choose exactly the same adjustment every time but mostly add Cyan and take away Yellow and Magenta.

[Macmahon]

Steve, what media choice do you use when printing on Ilford pearl? I've tried several choices including the Canon semi-gloss, plain photo paper and glossy but none provide an entirely satisfactory. I probably shouldn't have been, but I've been surprised by the difference that is made by the choice of media even when using the paper manufacturer's profiles.

Bruce
I tried a lot of different media settings when struggling with the Spyder, and I found none better than Ilford's recommendation of Photo Paper Plus Glossy. That's the media setting I used subsequently when profiling with both Colormunki and i1Pro with excellent results.
Cheers
Tim

[Cantab]

Steve and Tim, many thanks the info on what media choices you use. I'll try them both -- and use a suggestion I found somewhere to print just part of a picture in a corner of a sheet of photo paper so it can be run through the printer several times (with the photo in a different location each time) with different settings.

[Macmahon]

That's a clever idea Bruce.
Keith Cooper at Northlight Images has a file especially for media evaluation - and instructions as to what to look for. See here.

I've somehow managed to print it 4 times per A4 sheet: once in each quadrant.

Good luck

Tim

[bob32]

I have a Canon Pro9000 MarkII...love it. I use Ilford Smooth Pearl paper as well. I use Photoshop elements for printing. I need help with using the Ilford ICC profiles and/or down loading. I'm an amateur as well.

Hope someone can help.
Bob32

[James G]

Bruce, I use Spyder Print and generate my own profiles. I started doing this because I like to 'experiment' with paper and media not specifically created for digital imaging so vendor supplied profiles are irrelevant.

More recently though, I started using Lyson inks in my Epson R3000 and I'm now generating profiles for standard papers like the Ilford Gallerie, Harman Crystaljet etc. (And getting better results than previously!)

The economics are interesting. For my non standard media printing, generating my own profiles is the only way to 'find out' the best calibration for the printer/ink/paper combination. I reduce my 'test' print costs significantly and do not waste ink and paper through trial and error.
With respect to vendor supplied ICC profiles, the returns are not much in economic terms. I have found that generating my own profiles gives me a 'polish' to my prints since I get better colour matching from screen to print. Also since I use the ProPhoto RGB profile when processing the image I find profiling for myself allows me to exploit a wider gamut when printing.

I would guess that to most people viewing my printed images, these 'improvements' are all but invisible, but they definitely are 'known' to me. (I would need to have comparison prints available.)

So, I would use vendor provided profiles with their papers to start with. If you are really unhappy with the results, I would try using some of the companies out there that offer one-off profiling and see if their profiles give you any improvement, before you invest in your own system. (check costs first)

Then again, if you are like me and want to control the workflow from beginning to end youself... Spyder Print is prboably nowhere near the cost of any one of your lenses?

[loosecanon]

I have a canon 9000 II and also use a spider print.
I also use not only other papers but also other inks, so published profiles are not a lot of use.
Printing the way I do I can produce an A3 print for under 50p.
The spider you mention is soon to be replaced, hence special offer.
I bought a spider because it is a single stage calibration, so one can print out the target, let it dry (an essential step) and then scan and produce a profile. This I use with CS6 or lightroom.
It works well - and enables me to produce from camera to print correct colour ( using SpyderCHECKR for camera profile)

The newer software works much better and allows quicker scanning than the previous version - I had to pay for update, but worth it, I would presume you would get updated in a new purchase.

I thought long and hard before purchase, but the saving on inks and paper make the cost (then £350) well worth it, I saved that amount on a single exhibition where I printed about 15 square metres of photographs ( set of Canon inks about £100, = 40 A3 prints, Jessops paper A3 38p sheet)

I looked at the Color Munkie but it was multi stage to get calibration

I think where people go wrong is in how they apply the colour profile produced and this is the reason why the system seems not to work well.

[arith]

My Canon Pixma Pro 9000 has started printing dark greens as brown. I always use Ilford Pearl paper and the only thing I can think could be doing it is a driver update. Can't check my theory out for a bit, lack of cash but I think the Spyder would be useful.

[James G]

Steve, I'm in Birmingham, not far from you, if you want you can 'borrow' my spyder print and generate the profiles you need to see if it fixes the issue.

[arith]

Cheers James, got to get some paper first but this month is a bit costly so I'm skint. I will get some paper in future and if just using the old driver doesn't work I will keep your fantastic offer in mind. First I will see if printing a good one I've already printed comes out the same, then use the old driver and see if that makes a difference.

[Cantab]

I have a Canon Pro9000 MarkII...love it. I use Ilford Smooth Pearl paper as well. I use Photoshop elements for printing. I need help with using the Ilford ICC profiles and/or down loading. I'm an amateur as well.

Hope someone can help.
Bob32

Bob, my recollection is that when you download a profile from the Ilford site, you also receive specific instructions on how to install the downloaded profile. At what point in the download/install process are you running into a problem?

[James G]

Steve, no prob, just let me know when.....