Datacolor User to User Support Group.

On Jun 24, 2008, at 8:03 AM, Jack Winberg wrote:

> > Hi:
> >
> > I'm attempting to profile a Canon iP4200 printer, Canon inkset, to
> > Office Depot high gloss photo paper. XP Pro system.
> >
> > The profile yields very reddish prints via QImage, seem somewhat
> > better with a profile slider adjustment of -25 red.
> >
> > I wonder if anybody calibrating the Canon iP4000 printers has run  
> into
> > anything similar.
> >
> > Thanks for any feedback............ Jack Winberg
> >
>
> Hi Jack!
>
> Sounds like a nozzle clog problem to me. But I'll do a visual check
> of the measurement file, if you like... just email it to me at
> davem@...
>
> David Miller
> Senior Software Developer, Digital Color Solutions
> Datacolor
>
> Hi David:
>
> THANKS for your response.  I'll hope and pray that it IS a clogged  
> nozzle, and send the file off to you shortly.  Meanwhile, I'll clean  
> the heads and check the nozzle pattern yet again.
>

Jack,

The easy answer is this:

Your nozzles aren't clogged.

BUT: you've printed the target -color managed-.

If you build a profile from this: you'll get a "do-nothing" profile,  
since the patches
that you measured were already color managed. So when you use the  
profile that you build
from this to print, later on... (and when you DO actually have color  
management turned
off in the driver)... you'll get what is essentially a non-color- 
managed print... (because
the "do-nothing" profile does exactly that: "nothing").

You can tell from a glance that the target was printed incorrectly.  
Either in the
small "embedded" preview in Spyder3Print, or in a Target window, with  
the display
mode set to "Measured" in the popup in the lower right corner, just  
look at the first
5 patches in the first row (the pure black patch transitions to the  
pure blue patch).

In a properly printed (non-color-managed) target, the transition would  
be from the
darkest black to a very dark blue (in fact, this is the darkest blue  
that your
printer/paper/driver settings combination is capable of printing). It  
should be a
"fully inked", non-color-managed blue. Those 5 patches stay very dark  
when the target
is printed properly.

(Look at one of your other target prints, from which you've built a  
successful profile,
and you'll immediately see this).

In an improperly printed (color-managed) target, the blue gets LIGHTER  
as you go across
those 5 patches. All of the patches are color managed, and you end up  
on a color managed
blue, which is going to be a "powder" blue, a pretty blue... which is  
lighter, and
not fully inked. That's what your measurements show.

(The same description applies to all of the patches in the target;  
everything is too light,
too perfect, to start off with because they're all color managed. But  
it's easiest to
glance at the target and see the problem by looking at that first row,  
as I've described
here.)

So: this is "driver error"...:-) (No, not the printer driver... the  
"you" driver...:-)
You didn't have the Canon driver set up properly when you printed the  
target, for whatever
reason. There's nothing you can do to "fix" this because once the  
target print is bad,
everything else (measurements, profile, and prints through the  
profile) will be bad.

Don't throw out that target print: mark it up, in bold, and keep it as  
a visual reference.
When you print targets in the future, compare them to the bad one and  
you'll know instantly
whether you've printed the targets correctly, or not, before you even  
start taking
measurements!