Datacolor User to User Support Group.

Hello everyone, would appreciate a little help with my print calibrating. I'll try to cover all the details of what I have done, so please bare with me.

Last week I completed calibrating my LCD monitor with Spyder2Pro (Gamma 2.2, 6500K) and the view of my color test JPEG looks great. The image looked too bright before. This test JPEG was shot with my Canon 30D of a variety of objects, colors, textures and an 18 percent gray card in daylight. The AdobeRGB color space was used. My office ambient lighting is low to moderate and close to 5,500 degrees Kelvin when doing color work on my Mac.

First, I printed the shot via the default printer driver (printer color managed) and it looked good, just a bit too bright and saturated. Next I ran Spyder3Print version 3.5b and printed the 225 patch target, waited 24 hours and then sampled the print with the Spectrocolorimeter. Once I had my profile, I did a test print on the same Canon Photo Paper Pro / Canon ink / Canon i9900 printer. When compared to my monitor image and the actual objects photographed, the print looked rather dark, and the colors were over-saturated and blocked up -- almost no tonal gradations. I carefully printed the target and measured again, as well as followed all the printing instructions (printer color calibration off, etc.) and got the exact same results, viewing the print in both ambient light and daylight. 

After many trials, I made the following adjustments to my printer profile, and now almost everything looks spot on: Brightness +20, Contrast +5, Saturation -10 (no shadow, highlight or color adjustments). The resulting prints look very close to my monitor view (prints are just a bit darker) -- and have more accurate colors and gray-card than printing through the printer driver. 

The only area that is not printing as it appears on the monitor and in real life is the color green -- still too dark and dull. In the first "control print" I did with only the default printer driver, the greens printed good, just a bit light -- so I know the printer/ink/paper combination is capable of printing accurate green. Another curious thing is that Soft Proofing in both Spyder3Print and Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac look terrible (washed out), even though the prints turn out good. 

Are there further Spyder3Print adjustments that I can make to my profile to get the greens right without throwing off the other colors? Are the extreme adjustments that I had to make to my color profile indicative of some other problem?
Thanks.
Rich

On Mar 22, 2009, at 7:25 PM, chi_cruiser wrote:

> Hello everyone, would appreciate a little help with my print  
> calibrating. I'll try to cover all the details of what I have done,  
> so please bare with me.
>
>

<snip>

Rich,

The place to get help with this is via a support ticket on our web site.

If you can go there, open a support ticket, and email me off-list
at dmiller@... to let me know what the ticket ID # is, I'll
go in and follow up on it with you there.

The most likely problem is that you're not printing the target  
correctly;
turning color management off with Canon drivers can be tricky. We can
go over all the details there and then give the group a summary of what
the problem was after we've solved it.


David Miller
Senior Software Developer, Digital Color Solutions
Datacolor

You should not have to make adjustments of this magnitude. How do the  
SpyderProof images look printed from the original, unedited profile?

Most likely cause is that color management was not turned off in the  
driver when the target was printed.

C. D. Tobie
Global Product Technology Mngr.
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
Datacolor.com
CDTobie@...

On Mar 22, 2009, at 7:25 PM, "chi_cruiser" <richpate@...>  
wrote:

> Hello everyone, would appreciate a little help with my print  
> calibrating. I'll try to cover all the details of what I have done,  
> so please bare with me.
>
> Last week I completed calibrating my LCD monitor with Spyder2Pro  
> (Gamma 2.2, 6500K) and the view of my color test JPEG looks great.  
> The image looked too bright before. This test JPEG was shot with my  
> Canon 30D of a variety of objects, colors, textures and an 18  
> percent gray card in daylight. The AdobeRGB color space was used. My  
> office ambient lighting is low to moderate and close to 5,500  
> degrees Kelvin when doing color work on my Mac.
>
> First, I printed the shot via the default printer driver (printer  
> color managed) and it looked good, just a bit too bright and  
> saturated. Next I ran Spyder3Print version 3.5b and printed the 225  
> patch target, waited 24 hours and then sampled the print with the  
> Spectrocolorimeter. Once I had my profile, I did a test print on the  
> same Canon Photo Paper Pro / Canon ink / Canon i9900 printer. When  
> compared to my monitor image and the actual objects photographed,  
> the print looked rather dark, and the colors were over-saturated and  
> blocked up -- almost no tonal gradations. I carefully printed the  
> target and measured again, as well as followed all the printing  
> instructions (printer color calibration off, etc.) and got the exact  
> same results, viewing the print in both ambient light and daylight.
>
> After many trials, I made the following adjustments to my printer  
> profile, and now almost everything looks spot on: Brightness +20,  
> Contrast +5, Saturation -10 (no shadow, highlight or color  
> adjustments). The resulting prints look very close to my monitor  
> view (prints are just a bit darker) -- and have more accurate colors  
> and gray-card than printing through the printer driver.
>
> The only area that is not printing as it appears on the monitor and  
> in real life is the color green -- still too dark and dull. In the  
> first "control print" I did with only the default printer driver,  
> the greens printed good, just a bit light -- so I know the printer/ 
> ink/paper combination is capable of printing accurate green. Another  
> curious thing is that Soft Proofing in both Spyder3Print and  
> Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac look terrible (washed out), even though  
> the prints turn out good.
>
> Are there further Spyder3Print adjustments that I can make to my  
> profile to get the greens right without throwing off the other  
> colors? Are the extreme adjustments that I had to make to my color  
> profile indicative of some other problem?
> Thanks.
> Rich
>
>
>
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