Canon Print Studio Pro - is it worth installing?

[Rufus]

I have been keeping a watchful eye on printer deals for the last year and recently purchased a Canon Pixma Pro-10S at 30% discount and it cost me even less than that because I could use some gift vouchers, too.

I am still working on getting the setup right in PS and LR but before I go too far down the road I am wondering whether I should incorporate Canon's Print Studio Pro as as an add-in to PS and LR.

If you use Print Studio Pro has it changed your workflow in terms of how you prepare an image for print in the Adobe products? Does it replace the Print Module in LR or come after it as an extra step? Is it a glorified print driver?

[Manfred M]

David - I know of one Canon print maker that uses Print Studio Pro, but he has a wide carriage printer with roll feed and does commercial work. His printer has all the bells and whistles and probably can take advantage of the features of that package.

If you are just starting out, stick to something more basic while learning the fine art of printmaking. The workflow that he uses is actually quite similar to mine, which means its all in the prep work, the typical stuff, sharpening, noise reduction, dodging and burning; a lot more than I would ever do in a digital image simply because the print resolution is so much higher than a digitally displayed image.

Once you are at a solid level in your printing and understand the ins and outs, then you might want to consider using the Canon print software.

[DanK]

David,

I agree with Manfred. I am not as experienced a printer as Manfred is, but I have printed a lot over quite a number of years and exhibit my prints. Unlike Manfred, I print with Canon printers. I current print with a Prograf 1000, but I have printed with at least 3 other Canon printers. In all this time, the number of times I have used Print Studio Pro is zero.

I recently posted a video by Mitch Boyer, a professional printer, about setting black point compensation. He prints with a Canon printer (a larger, higher-end Prograf), and he mentioned that he uses a higher-end Canon product, Professional Print and Layout, as a plugin in Photoshop. He clearly knows his stuff, so I looked for descriptions on the Canon website. From a quick look, it does some things that the Adobe software doesn't do, but none of the things I found were things I would do. I didn't install it.

If you are a novice at printing, I recommend that you start with Lightroom, not Photoshop. It's quite a bit easier, and most of what you learn with Lightroom is fairly easily transferred to Photoshop if you decide to change later. I've decided not to change, for the most part. Photoshop gives you greater control over resizing and output sharpening, but when I did a test recently, I found no appreciable difference in uprezzing quality, and I have found the output sharpening in LR to be quite good. I'm not arguing that long run, you should do what I am doing, and I am pretty sure that Manfred would say that you shouldn't. But regardless of that, in the short run, you can get very good prints out of Lightroom with a good bit less work.

That aside, I agree with Manfred: avoid extra software and concentrate on the basics. In addition to the editing that he mentions, there are printing-specific things you have to become comfortable with, like softproofing and using ICCs for the combinations of paper and printer you use.

Dan

[Manfred M]

Agreed Dan - above all figure out which papers you like and learn all about them. What works well, what doesn't work well and the only way to do that is to print. I try to print a minimum of once a week (i.e. get a final print done, not just test prints).

Don't be afraid to make test prints; lots of them as you are learning. While sticking with Canon papers is likely a good start, Canon has a very limited number of papers, so try some of the third party ones. There are some really interesting papers out there.

[DanK]

And I'd add that every paper manufacturer whose papers I have wanted to try has ICC profiles for the Canon printers.

Several of the manufacturers have sample packs, which are a good way to try a lot of different papers. I bought them from Moab, Red River, Canson, and Hahnemuhle.

[LenR]

David, the Pro 10 is one of 2 Canon printers I currently use. I would echo the comments above and have not found it necessary to use the Print Studio Pro plug in. Lightroom's print module is versatile and is also my preference. Mention should probably be made that for good print results it is also desirable ( should you not have already done so ) to calibrate your monitor. Settings of 5000k and luminance of 80 to 120 cd/m2 are generaly considered appropriate for printing.
Good luck.

[DanK]

I would strengthen what Len said; if you don't calibrate your monitor, it's just a roll of the dice whether your prints look like your screen. I've calibrated quite a number. Some were very close to accurate right out of the box, but others were not even close. If you use an X-Rite device to calibrate your monitor--I assume this is the same for datacolor devices, but I have never used one--the default calibration will take care of all color settings. I don't recall whether the default luminance was correct, and I can't check because my current monitor uses proprietary NEC software, and using that I set the luminance manually. People differ in terms of where in the range Len posted they like to work. I have ended up around 110 cd/m2.

Good luck, and post questions if you get stuck.

[Manfred M]

I would strengthen what Len said; if you don't calibrate your monitor, it's just a roll of the dice whether your prints look like your screen. I've calibrated quite a number. Some were very close to accurate right out of the box, but others were not even close. If you use an X-Rite device to calibrate your monitor--I assume this is the same for datacolor devices, but I have never used one--the default calibration will take care of all color settings. I don't recall whether the default luminance was correct, and I can't check because my current monitor uses proprietary NEC software, and using that I set the luminance manually. People differ in terms of where in the range Len posted they like to work. I have ended up around 110 cd/m2.

Good luck, and post questions if you get stuck.

I agree Dan and the only caveat I would add is that the computer screen must be either sRGB or Adobe RGB compliant as calibration and profiling will not make a non-compliant screen into one that can reproduce the full colour space.

If the spec sheet for the computer screen does not say 100% sRGB compliant or close to 100% Adobe RGB compliant, you can safely assume it is not.

[Rufus]

Thank you for the replies everyone, with such valuable information.

I will give Print Studio Pro a miss as your practical experience has reinforced my intuition.

Yes I am definitely a novice (not only at printing!) so I shall continue to use Canon paper for the time being, moving up to try their higher quality once I have got to know the printer better. Using Canon paper also has the bonus of having the profiles already in the printer driver.

I do actually use and prefer Lightroom for printing and I find its Print module is generally straight forward. So I use LR for keywords, global adjustments and printing, but Photoshop for almost everything else.

I have been monitoring screen prices, too, particularly Eizo and Benq. 24 inch screens are what I have in mind to avoid utilising too much deskspace.

Unfortunately, my desk is not situated in good lighting conditions. I have a south facing window with a plain off-white vertical blind to one side that I close for editing and a ceiling light (5000k daylight and far too bright) just over my other shoulder for when it gets dark. This set up is clearly something else I should be tackling. Calibration for the two sets of conditions might help (I can borrow a Colormonki again), but the artificial lighting being so very bright is the major item for me to address.

[Manfred M]

David - your workspace seems to be far from ideal.

The main issue with an overly bright room is that your image will tend to look flat, regardless of how much you crank up the brightness of your screen. Think of what the screen on your cell phone looks like in the house and what it looks like outside on a bright day; same issue.

Your setup should be in a room that is no brighter than 70 lux and your screen brightness should be in the range of 80 - 120 candela / square meter (something that you can set when you calibrate and profile your screen with a Colormunki). My screen is running at 80 cd/sq m and that pretty well matches my print output for a "normal" image. Something that is low key or high key needs a bit more tweaking in the printing process.

[Rufus]

Manfred - I believe the Colormunki will also measure the amount of ambient light. is there an approximation that would convert 70 lux for ambient light into lumens that a lightbulbs are rated at? I am thinking that might help me move in the right direction for artificial light so that the Colormunki has a better chance of calibrating the screen brightness.

[Rufus]

I found a formula:

lm = 0.09290304 × lx × ft^2

if the distance in feet refers to the distance from the light source then for 70 lux:

70 x 0.09290304 x 70 x 5 x 5 = 162 lumens which is less than one bulb.

[Manfred M]

I don't know David - that sounds like the light source in very close to the surface that one is measuring at. The assumptions that go in to the formula need to be known to make a reasonable call on it.

My Sekonic L-358 incident light meter comes with a conversion chart that lets me determine the light level at the working surface. I have to switch my meter to output in ev. As you can see, I'm reading 3.9 ev at ISO 100.






I then go to my conversion chart in my light meter manual and I can see that a reading of 4.0 ev is 40 lux, so my work space is just slightly below that.








My working light comes from a couple of old 40W fluorescent lights that are behind me a bit, so the room is not really super dark. It would be eye-straining to read a lot, but is is not super dark. I know some other photographers that work in even darker conditions; just enough light so see the keyboard and be able to walk safely in the work area.

[DanK]

David,

My advice is that if you are using halogen or LED bulbs, put in a dimmer that is compatible and make sure that the total lighting is at least as much as you need. It would be hard to calibrate this using the brightness of the bulbs.

And keep in mind that too dark is a problem as well. Manfred pointed out that overly bright lighting will make the screen look flat. Dark lighting has the reverse effect--it will make your monitor seem to vivid, and prints will seem flat in comparison.

Dan

[Rufus]

Manfred - thanks, I may be able to borrow an incident light meter when social distancing restrictions are eased.

Dan - I had wondered whether a dimmer switch might help but dimmers usually change the colour of the light. That is certainly the case with the halogens we have. LEDs may be better for this. I will do a search to gain better background information.

[DanK]

I had wondered whether a dimmer switch might help but dimmers usually change the colour of the light. That is certainly the case with the halogens we have. LEDs may be better for this. I will do a search to gain better background information.

It depends on the LED. Some cheap LEDs have a pronounced color change when they are dimmed, and not just a change in temperature. I have a lot of bulbs in my house that get a slight greenish tint when dimmed a lot, which is very unpleasant.

That's why I splurged on very good bulbs for the room where I do photography. I use Soraa BR30 300O bulbs, which have very high CRI and R9 values. The engineer who recommended them to me said they maintain their color when dimmed. I recently tested that: I dimmed them about halfway when calibrating my monitor and took an ambient reading. The calibration software returned a color temperature of 3000K.

One can't precisely control brightness without dimmers because bulbs are available only at a handful of luminance values.

I decided in the end that what matters isn't a precise value--it's the brightness that allows you to produce prints that look like what you want them to look like. A good test of the lighting level is to view on screen an image that you have already printed so that you can compare what you see on the screen to what you see printed under appropriate lighting.

[Rufus]

That's why I splurged on very good bulbs for the room where I do photography. I use Soraa BR30 300O bulbs, which have very high CRI and R9 values. The engineer who recommended them to me said they maintain their color when dimmed. I recently tested that: I dimmed them about halfway when calibrating my monitor and took an ambient reading. The calibration software returned a color temperature of 3000K.

I have searched for this spec or close but sadly I have found nothing like it in the UK.

[Manfred M]

David - I have two separate sets of lighting in my workspace. The first is the working light that is on all the time that I am working. The second are my evaluation lights; these are just 3000K tungsten flood lights that are on a separate switch. I have been using 500 lux level as my evaluation lights.

I had been planning to replace them with Solux lights, but have not quite gotten around to it. I know of one printer who has installed the lights right about his printer's output tray so he can see what he is getting as the print is being made.