Custom ICC paper profile frustrations

[billtils]

Thanks to Dan my earlier post on Canon paper profiles is solved but it has been replaced by an even more frustrating problem.

Up until now all the papers I use have had icc profies for my Canon Pixma Pro-100S printer available from the manufacturer. However, my every day go-to gloss paper is Pinnacle Gloss 270 from Paper Spectrum and they recently added a Premium Gloss 300 which looked worth a go. Tried a sampe using the profile for the Gloss 270 and it looked good so time to get serious and load the correct profile, except there isn't one available on their website. Customer service replied "no problem we'll send you targets and make a custom profile for you free of charge".

Great ... until I got to the part in the process that says "Switch of colour management in the printer" and the suggestion to use Adobe Color Printer Utility to do this. Went to the download to be greeted by "This is not supported by your OS" (MacOS 11, BigSur).

OK, but I can print with the output set to "Printer Manages Colour" which bypasses applying the paper icc profile, so no worries, right? Not according to tech support at Paper Spectrum who explained that all printers have a degree of colour correction built in.

Searched for a work-around and came up with using Canon's Digital Photo Professional and Print Studio Pro, which allows an option for "No Color Correction" but I couldn't find whether or not that meant the in-printer colour management was switched off.

So, my questions are:
1: Does it really matter whether or not the printer's colour correction is on or off? Intuitively it seems to me that it should not as anything from the editing software will overlay whatever is built in to the printer driver and to the same extent in printing the icc profile target as for printing amy other image.

2: What does the "No Color Correction" in the Canon software mentioned above actually do?

3: If the answers to the above are "Yes" and "Nothing that makes any difference" how on earth can I switch the $%^&* thing off?

[DanK]

Bill,

I don't recall which operating system you use. The principles are the same regardless, but the details are different. I'll answer with Windows details, a few of which may be different.

1. Yes. This is not specific to a particular paper. You should always have EITHER the printer or the software controlling color, never both.

2. I'd have to look at that software, which I have rarely used and don't have on this computer. However, in the printer firmware for all of my printers, this has shown up as setting "color matching" to "none". I suspect this is the same thing. In windows, you do this in the printer dialog that pops up when you tell the software to print. This is what turns off the printer's control of color.

So this is the drill when printing from Lightroom or Photoshop under Windows:

1. In the software, change "managed by printer" to the specific profile you want to use.
2. In the printer dialog box, pick "properties". One of the tabs (the second, I believe" has a color matching section. Pick "none."

That's all there is to it. If you use a mac, someone else here will have to chime in to say whether #2 is different on a mac.

They want you to do the equivalent of #2 in creating a profile because otherwise, the profile will be wrong and will compensate for the printer's efforts at color management.

As this procedure is the same for all printers, you shouldn't need your work around once they send you a profile.

[billtils]

Thanks Dan

I think what you describe is the same thing (only the names are different) as I did using the Canon S/W, and setting it to No Color Correction so I feel reassured.

Everything else is good - if any of the editing programs I use allow you to set things so that the printer AND the software control color, they keep the how to do it very well hidden

I'm just back from the Post Office after mailing the targets so we'll soon see how it went.

[Manfred M]

Everything else is good - if any of the editing programs I use allow you to set things so that the printer AND the software control color, they keep the how to do it very well hidden .

Actually it is quite easy to have both turned on; you can turn on colour correction in the PP software (Lightroom or Photoshop) and if you don't disable it in the printer software your program will send over data with the profiling correction applied and then the printer will internally use its own profile. Not a pretty sight coming out.

The only caveat is that you should let the printer do the colour correction when printing B&W and have it disabled in your editing software, otherwise there will be a noticeable colour cast to your B&W prints.

[billtils]

... if you don't disable it in the printer software your program will send over data with the profiling correction applied and then the printer will internally use its own profile...

Thanks Manfred. I think I'm OK with where things are, or did until your reply, the quote from which goes to but does not answer the main question posed - how exactly do you disable the printer's internal s/w and will what I described in the para starting "Searched for ..." in the orignal post work?

For clarity, I have no problems with colour management in printing images from any of the editing programs I use, the issue was solely switching off anything the printer does under its own steam for this specific and hopefully one-off task of printing calibration targets (i.e. regardless of whether I tell it that the software manages colour or that the printer does it I can be sure the internal routine if off).

Knowing the how and why to deal with this is more of an annoying itch than anything since the specific paper-related issue that triggered things doesn't really matter other than by being intensey irritating.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Manfred. I think I'm OK with where things are, or did until your reply, the quote from which goes to but does not answer the main question posed - how exactly do you disable the printer's internal s/w and will what I described in the para starting "Searched for ..." in the orignal post work?

For clarity, I have no problems with colour management in printing images from any of the editing programs I use, the issue was solely switching off anything the printer does under its own steam for this specific and hopefully one-off task of printing calibration targets (i.e. regardless of whether I tell it that the software manages colour or that the printer does it I can be sure the internal routine if off).

Knowing the how and why to deal with this is more of an annoying itch than anything since the specific paper-related issue that triggered things doesn't really matter other than by being intensey irritating.

Unfortunately every operating system, editing software and printer driver has a different layout.

I always use Photoshop to print from, using Windows 10 on an Epson P800. I have printed from a Mac as well, so I do know the screens and work flow are different on that platform.


1. This is the screen in Photoshop. The two red arrows highlight important functions here;. The Color Handling lets me select whether Photoshop or the printer drive control the colour. This is the screen that pops up when I select the print command in Photoshop. In this case, I am letting Photoshop take care of the colour handling

The second arrow takes me to the print driver, which takes care of a number of other functions and unless I am printing with the same paper and same paper size, I need to click on to set the parameters that the printer driver needs.







2. This is the printer driver pop up. This is where I take care of some of the other critical settings. The red arrow shows that I have disabled the printer control over colour adjustments. As you can see, this is an easy step to mess up.

[billtils]

Thanks for tkaing time to reply Manfred.

Your first screen is very familiar and has its counterpart in other S/W, but it is the second one that is most relevant to my question. There's no equivalent (or if there is, I can't find it) for the Canon PIXMA line printers. However, the wording "Off (No color adjustment)" looks akin to what I can get with the Canon programs mentioned in my original post. There were no nasty side effects.

I think that the root cause may be the Mac's reliance on ColorSync - you can switch it off but only if you select Canon (or whatever printer you have connected . it's the flip side of your "Don't print with both selected" as the OS forces you to make a positive choice, ColorSync ot the Printer.