I have problems printing images containing flesh tones on an Epson 4800 when using PS to manage color and using a printer profile. The flesh tones contain banding. The problem the one described in an earlier topic:
Buko, "9.0.1 printing problems" #1, 18 May 2006 8:38 am </cgi-bin/webx?14/0>
However, I’m using PS v9.02 with OS 10.4.8. This is supposed to fix the problem. I have uninstalled and reinstalled all PS components several times with no change. Reverting to PS 9.0 doesn’t solve the problem as it did for some in the thread noted above.
Printing from PS without a profile and allowing the Epson driver to manage color gives smooth flesh tones. The problem isn’t the printer.
Printing from Aperture 1.5 with the same profile I’ve been using in PS gives smooth flesh tones. Likewise, printing from Lightroom beta 4 with the profile gives no banding (although, as reported by others, the prints from Lightroom are a bit dark). The problem isn’t the profile.
I’m using is the classic Photo Disc target for my testing. The head of the Caucasian child in the lower right has orange banding when printed from PS. The image of the woman in the digital dog test target shows the same problem. The problem isn’t the image.
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I would like to think so, but what setting could cause banding in flesh tones only? Print with preview in Photoshop is simple to set up and I haven’t had this problem before (most of my past experience is on Windows).
As I can print on the same computer and printer from Lightroom and Aperture without a problem, it isn’t a printer setting, and I use the same printer presets in Photoshop.
In Photoshop I’m opening the image using the embedded Adobe RGB profile (my normal space is Prophoto so Photoshop asks on opening). Then File>Print With Preview, Print set to Document (Profile: Adobe RGB), Option set to Let Photoshop Determine Colors, profile selected correctly, Rendering Relative Colormetric, Black Point Comp is on. In the printer setup the correct paper and options are selected, and printer color management is off.
Yes, I’m using the ACE. I tried it with colorsync as well, and get the same problem.
I have placed screen shots of the color settings and the steps in photoshop, the printer settings, and a scan of part of the printed problem page here: <http://rsmyth.ca/psprintproblem/>
The paper is Epson Premium Semimatte Photo Paper (roll). The ink is Epson K3. The profile is the one provided by Epson with the current printer driver. I have also tried a custom profile built with a Gretag Macbeth eye-one photospectrometer and while the custom profile is better in a number of respects, the banding is the same. Note that I can make a print without any banding using this ink, paper and profile using Lightroom or Aperture.
Your settings seem OK, unless I missed something obvious.
Unless Photoshop is accessing some old cache that Lightroom and Aperture do not, I can’t understand what the problem could be.
There is, of course, a very strong red cast to the overall image. Just look at the hand or anything else for that matter. Since you say the printer does OK from Lightroom and Aperture, we can’t blame clogged nozzles for this, nor the paper profile. :/
On the outside chance that it is a cache problems, I might try cleaning all your caches with a utility like Cocktail, etc.
IF you’re getting banding in 9.0.2, you’ve made a mistake in your settings.
That’s what you said about about 9.0 and 9.0.1 — has something changed to fix this problem in 9.0.2 with the Epson 4800 driver?
I did an Erase StartFromScratch with only Photoshop and Epson and still got the exact problem being discussed — and my settings are correct.
Further, the problem was duplicated by an Epson consultant on other 4800 Epsons here, and Epson duplicated the problem in Long Beach on their 4800 printers.
I see your are using ProRGB – this might be excessive? I’d try printing it with sRGB. Maybe the banding is a artifact from converting up to the larger color space? The original may have been compressed down to sRGB and now you are expanding it into ProRGB.
cvt
wrote:
Hi Chris,
I would like to think so, but what setting could cause banding in flesh tones only? Print with preview in Photoshop is simple to set up and I haven’t had this problem before (most of my past experience is on Windows).
As I can print on the same computer and printer from Lightroom and Aperture without a problem, it isn’t a printer setting, and I use the same printer presets in Photoshop.
In Photoshop I’m opening the image using the embedded Adobe RGB profile (my normal space is Prophoto so Photoshop asks on opening). Then File>Print With Preview, Print set to Document (Profile: Adobe RGB), Option set to Let Photoshop Determine Colors, profile selected correctly, Rendering Relative Colormetric, Black Point Comp is on. In the printer setup the correct paper and options are selected, and printer color management is off.
Sorry, I meant to say – using ProPhoto RGB as your working space.
cvt wrote:
I see your are using ProRGB – this might be excessive? I’d try printing it with sRGB. Maybe the banding is a artifact from converting up to the larger color space? The original may have been compressed down to sRGB and now you are expanding it into ProRGB.
cvt
wrote:
Hi Chris,
I would like to think so, but what setting could cause banding in flesh tones only? Print with preview in Photoshop is simple to set up and I haven’t had this problem before (most of my past experience is on Windows).
As I can print on the same computer and printer from Lightroom and Aperture without a problem, it isn’t a printer setting, and I use the same printer presets in Photoshop.
In Photoshop I’m opening the image using the embedded Adobe RGB profile (my normal space is Prophoto so Photoshop asks on opening). Then File>Print With Preview, Print set to Document (Profile: Adobe RGB), Option set to Let Photoshop Determine Colors, profile selected correctly, Rendering Relative Colormetric, Black Point Comp is on. In the printer setup the correct paper and options are selected, and printer color management is off.
I just posted my own topic on this very subject. I am definitely doing everything correctly, profile and workflow wise, but am getting the banding out of CS2 and 10.4.7, but not from CS1. It’s most definitely a problem with PS CS2. I’ve spent the better part of two days trying to troubleshoot, double and triple checking ALL my settings, profiles, everything, including power cleaning, only to find out that CS1 is fine and 2 is not. I’m on a 9800, but it’s basically the same.
like I said you are not alone…the baby face on the right of the PDI target (I released) shows the problem consistently printing from Photoshop using the Epson NCA workflow (PGPP) on the 4800 I setup here…
If there is any remaining problem, it has to be in the OS, or in the printer driver. 9.0.2 is doing everything Apple says to make it behave the same as 9.0, and it does act the same as far as we can tell.
Has anybody seen this (new) problem on an Epson 2200 or 2400 at all?
I keep nervously checking my prints with a stronger loupe every time and I’m wondering if I’ve somehow missed it. I don’t think so, because the scan of a PDI test target print posted here by Roy Smith in #5, is very unambiguous, even glaring, but one never really knows.
"If there is any remaining problem, it has to be in the OS, or in the printer driver. 9.0.2 is doing everything Apple says to make it behave the same as 9.0, and it does act the same as far as we can tell. "
I’m using the latest Epson driver version for the 9800, and simply switching back to CS1 eliminates the banding/posterization using the same driver. The only variable here seems to be the version of Photoshop.
I tried a couple of suggestions from this discussion. First, cleaning up the computer using Cocktail made no improvement to the prints from Photoshop 9.02. I have been using Mac Janitor regularly, so I doubt that there was a problem with caches or whatever. And my disk permissions are all OK
Second, printing from InDesign 4.04 gives good results. The print is very similar to the one made using Lightroom. A bit darker and more saturated than a Photoshop print but no banding in the flesh tones. It is good to know that I can print from InDesign, but it is a pain to add a step to making a print.
Chris, I know it is disappointing to have a problem crop up again, but it seems clear that it is related only to PS 9 and only when printing with a profile. Could Apple have missed something in the fix? Is there code in OS X or in Epson drivers that is specific to Photoshop 9.x? Note that when I reinstalled PS a few days ago, I tried printing from 9.0 and I had the same banding problem that I see with 9.02.
I don’t know if this is related, but after upgrading to 10.4.8, I suddenly can’t get a decent print with profiles generated with Printfix Pro on a Canon iP6000D.
Prior to 4.8, I had no problem. Afterwards the prints come out reddish and oversaturated. I’ve tried reprinting the profile tiles and generating new profiles to no effect. Printing with the printer in control produces passable results. I have a tendancy to use non OEM papers and inks, so doing my own profiles seemed like the way to go.
Macbook Pro 2.16/ 2gigRAM/ 10.4.8/ PS9.02/ HP f2105/ Spyder2Pro-Printfix Pro/ Canon iP6000D w/latest driver.
Thanks for the suggestion, but the workaround didn’t work for me. I followed it carefully and made a screeenshot of my print settings so I could double-check that I had done it right.
The only way I can print from Photoshop (9.0, 9.01 or 9.02) without banding in flesh tones is to let the printer handle all the color conversion. I have not tried reloading version 8.
I can print from Lightroom and InDesign without any problem using the same profile and print settings that cause grief with photoshop.
Problem finally solved. The gremlin is ColorSync (even though ColorSync should not be doing anything when printing with a profile, using Photoshop to manage color and setting the printer driver to No Color Adjustment).
In summary, if the ColorSync default profile for the printer is not set to "Generic RGB Profile.icc," ColorSync can mess up the color even though it shouldn’t be involved in the process. On an Epson printer the flesh-tone banding happens when Epson’s "standard" profile (for example Pro4800 Standard) is selected in ColorSync. Using the ColorSync Utility to change the default setting to "/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/ Generic RGB Profile.icc" makes the banding disappear.
There seems to be something very wrong with the way ColorSync behaves. It is also a puzzle why Epson printers sometimes have something other than Generic RGB set as the default profile.
You and others reading this may first think like I did, why would that
matter when we have checked "No Color Adjustment" in the colorsync dialog. I assure you it does, and despite the fact that NCA is checked there is, at least for me, there is some degree of interaction here at some level. In my case, the profile listed in the summary window when using PS was "Generic RGB" which was present when the profile was created. In the ID summary, however, "Epson Standard" was listed, and that indeed skewed (until changed to Generic RGB) the print results using the custom profile in the usual and normal manner. >Good Luck, Ed
That is very messed up (if true), an Epson NO COLOR ADJUSTMENT workflow should make ColorSync settings irrevelent.
I have had the Photoshop-Epson "flesh-tone banding" problem for some time now and can’t recall ever moving my ColorSync settings off their default because I don’t use the ColorSync CMS/CMM.
The next time I try to print out of the Epson driver from Phtoshop CS2, I will check my settings and give it a try (I gave up printing from PS and Epson some time back because of the banding problems in reds flesh tones)…this is very useful information to me if true — thank you for posting it here.
In any case, something (apparently) is dragging Mac Photoshop into the problem because the problem clears for me here outside of Mac Photoshop and the Epson driver — and Epson told me the problem doesn’t duplicate for them on their PCs.
I don’t know how this relates to a problem I’m having with a Canon printer, but it’s worth a shot.
I’ve been trying to print with a Canon iP6000D using a custom ICC profile with no success. I have PS set to use PS color management as "Let PS Determine Colors" and the ICC profile selected. In the printer driver I have color correction set to "None".
When checking the image in preview it has a strong amber color cast and is overly saturated, which I have been told is normal as it is using the raw data from the file with no correction. If printed through photoshop as described above, the print matches the preview image and not the PS screen image.
So far, I have not found anywhere to select "Generic RGB Profiles.icc" as the default Colorsync profile. Not in Colorsync Utility, PS, or the printer driver. In fact, Colorsync Utility didn’t seem to have much in the way of controls at all.
Prints come out OK with the printer handling things.
This is driving me nuts. I seem to be doing everything as prescribed. Monitor callibrated, latest update everything, clean install everything, new printer, new ink, etc., etc., etc.
When checking the image in preview it has a strong amber color cast
IGNORE the colors in the Print With Preview thumbnail. It’s NOT color managed and it’s there for placement purposes only. It will look like , so just ignore it.
You don’t want to use ColorSync at all. Use ACE, Adobe Color Engine, and set your color settings accordingly.
Yes, I’m aware that the preview image is not color managed.
In PS Color Settings I have the Working Spaces, RGB, set to Prophoto RGB, Color Management Policies, RGB, set to Convert To Working RGB, and Conversion Options, Engine, set to Adobe(ACE). Intent is set to Relative Colormetric and Use Black Point Compensation is checked.
In PS Print, Color Management, I have Print, Document checked and in Options I have Color Handling set to Let Photoshop Determine Colors, Printer Profiler set to the custom profile, and Rendering Intent set to Relative Colormetric and BP Compensation checked.
In the printer driver window there are no options other than the defaults for the Colorsync controls. They are relegated to Color Conversion: Standard and Quartz Filter: None. Color Options, Color Correction, is set to None and the Quality & Media options are set apropriately.
The monitor is calibrated with the Colorvision Spyder2Pro. The printer is new and has the latest driver.
The prints come out matching the preview image and not the PS screen image, so it seems like the printer isn’t accessing the ICC profile or something. The profile is in the Profiles folder in the User Library.
I’d be glad to, but haven’t figured out how. I’ve looks around and can’t find any obvious tools for adding attachments. That’s why I attempted to do it verbally as well as possible. But, a picture is worth…
Just upload your images to an FTP site, such as the one provided by your ISP, or the free <http://www.pixentral.com/> , then paste the URL as part of your message.
The problem is that your description is incomplete.
Finally got it. The first one shows the preview image in the background. When printing, the print comes out matching the preview image and not the PS screen image.
And thanks for the Pixentral tip. Nice little tool. Think I’ll toss a few bux his way.
First, an important tip about Pixentral. After you upload your image successfully, place your cursor inside the field labeled HTML and hit Command+A to select ALL the code in that field, then copy the whole field and paste it into your post. This will place a clickable thumbnail in the post itself that leads to your image. Like this: < http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1fZYALXy83MBkJZeYo mmzOfkY4o1m0>
Now we need a screen shot of your color settings under the Edit menu > Color Settings.
Then tell me what that strange profile (ICC 1306.icc) in the other screen shot is all about. Is that the specific PAPER profile for your specific combination of paper/ink/paper? Who supplied it to you? The paper manufacturer? Hopefully the answer to both question will be YES.
Here’s the color settings. The profile is self generated using Colorvision’s PrintFix Pro 2.01, which also includes the extended grayscale profiling. I tend to experiment with different paper/ink combos and can’t justify the expense of the high-end profiling systems. The PFP profiles should produce good enough starting point profiles for a hobbyist, it seems.
I’ve also been in a continuing dialog with a fellow at Colorvision regarding this situation.
When I softproof, there is a slight shift in the opposite direction as to what I’m getting in preview and the prints. Nothing objectionable and would be a good starting point to tweak to a final profile.
With the prints and preview, there is a very strong amber shift to the entire image.
With softproofing, the image does a slight green shift and becomes somewhat muted. The latter I would sort of expect if the idea was to recreate how the image would look on a print, which is reflected as opposed to transmitted.
I would be quite happy if the prints were coming out like the softproof image. If the softproof reflects how PS is handling the profile, then it looks like the profile is OK and something is screwing up on the way to the printer. I’m not sure how preview factors in all this.
BTW, we’re assuming your monitor is accurately calibrated and profiled.
How old is your monitor profile? One needs to calibrate regularly and often,
There is something weird with the colors on your screenshot. I can’t get the blue theme buttons to appear correctly, but then your screen shots are untagged.
Another thought: have you tried printing from CS instead of CS2?
Printer is new. I’ve used Epson’s in the past, and got tired of clogged heads and using a good portion of the ink in the head cleaning process. Maybe thing have improved. I also didn’t like the idea of the on cartridge chips, especially when they were programmed to require cartridge replacement before the ink ran out. I see that Canon is now going that rout, so one less argument. I hear what your saying about the crappy drivers though. They could be forcing up to date Mac users into migrating to the new printers.
The monitor is an HP f2105 that is regularly calibrated. The screen shot probably looks funky, colorwise, due to just running a quick jpeg off for an example of the management panes. Not sure how well the Grab app maintains color either.
Haven’t tried CS. Already have CS2 and CS3 on the MBP and loading CS seems like a bit of a pain just to check printing, only to have to get rid of it again. If you think it might tell us something, guess I’d give it a go.
I’m also working with the fellow at Colorvision on this. Thanks again for sticking with me.
When you make a screen shot, the OS embeds your monitor profile into the resulting image. It looks like you stripped the profile WITHOUT first converting to sRGB before uploading the image.
Don’t know if you’re still following this, but hopefully so.(Guess you got the short straw)
Just had an odd conversation with a rather obnoxious tech rep at Canon. He informed me that the problem was a compatibility issue with the profile. This in and of itself sounds reasonable enough, but he went on at length that the problem was I was using a custom profile and not one of the canned ones. He stated that ICC profiles are device dependant.
My understanding is that while the profile is based on a printer/paper/ink combination, it is not bound to a particular device in order to work at all. The worst that can happen is a poor print, not a breakdown with the printer’s ability to use the profile.
He then went on to say that few people use custom profiles. When I begged to differ with him on that, and the fact that ICC profiles are shared across platforms with many different printing devices and workflows, he got offended and blew me off.
Was he blowing smoke, or is there something in it?
I’m also still waiting to hear from Colorvision again.
Hi David I can check your custom profile for you. It can be a fault in your profile, if you want you can send it to my e-mail as an attachment and I will do my best to figure out the problem. My e-mail address is
Has anyone ever managed to get a neutrally-toned B & W print out of a Canon printer from an RGB file?
I tried this recently on somebody else’s Canon PIXMA iP6600D (using the Canon-supplied Profiles with their paper and inks) and found it to be impossible the images inevitably printed with an exceedingly unattractive heavy purplish-blue cast.
This morning I go to make a print. and now everything has a magenta cast. It looks like I’m double colormanaging but I’m not. Everything looks fine on screen. I did make the image in CS3 and place it in ID but I’ve done other images in CS3 and have not had this problem.
I’m seeing the same issue now with a 3800! It’s shown up before too and others have reported it. It is NOT the OS Chris I’m pretty sure because if you print out of InDesign, the issue goes away. It’s something in Photoshop (CS2 as well as CS3). It’s a very subtle but noticeable issue that shows up in reds like skin tone. I have plenty of examples and I’ve sent all kinds of files and such to Adobe with no resolve. Lightroom doesn’t suffer this issue (beta 4 or RC1). Whatever this is, it’s only showing up for some folks on some printers. But the issue absolutely exists and if is the OS, how come you can send the same file through other app;s using the same settings, get the same color but with this read aliasing issue?
Did you try the ColorSync fix described above? It has worked for some of us.
In summary:
– run the colorsync utility – select devices – find the list of profiles for the printer you are having problems with – the default profile will have a blue dot beside it. – click on the name of default profile – you will now see "factory profile" and "current profile" listed for the default – change "current profile" to point to /System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Generic RGB Profile.icc
Your printing problems with reds and skin tones should go away.
This is an OS/ColorSync problem. Why it affects only Photoshop I do not know. Why it only shows up on some systems I do not know. Why no one will take it seriously is also a mystery.
What is interesting is that before you change it in ColorSync/Device, the printer is picking its Standard Profile from ~Library/ColorSync/Profiles instead of from System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Generic RGB Profile.icc
Is this an OSX bug or is it an Epson issue? (And maybe a Canon one too?)
I did try the fix and it did work which doesn’t explain why Lightroom and InDesign didn’t have any problems. Also odd, after the fix, I reselected the original Epson profile that caused the problem and couldnt get the issue to show up again. Anyone else find this is the case?
–>What is interesting is that before you change it in ColorSync/Device, the printer is picking its Standard Profile from ~Library/ColorSync/Profiles instead of from System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Generic RGB Profile.icc
My Epson profiles are in neither location (they are installed in a Package deep within the Library). But at least the fix works, why I can’t say,
It seems to be more complicated than that. Really, ColorSync shouldn’t be doing anything when you print from Photoshop with a profile and turn printer color management off. Whatever the default ColorSync printer profile is set to shouldn’t matter.
However, ColorSync does seem to get into the act and from what I can learn searching the web, there is some sort of kluge that has been added to OSX which requires the Generic RGB Profile as default to make ColorSync leave the data alone. It also seems specific to Photoshop.
My guess is that the default profile gets set to something else when a printer driver is loaded. The printer manufacturers are probably just doing what Apple tells them to do.
I once ran across a comment from the late Bruce Fraser in a forum where he commented that the way ColorSync and Generic RGB works is "bound to break." I can’t find the reference now.
Andrew,
Join the ranks of the mystified. I’m glad that someone with a reputation can attest to the problem and that the infamous Generic RGB profile is involved.
You’d think turning of color management would turn it off but that’s apparently not the case. In fact, this is a quote I got from an Adobe engineer about all this awhile back:
–>Just because the application tells the OS that it’s managing colors does not mean that it’s going to turn off its management. Perhaps this problem will get fixed in a future version of the OS, but I’m not holding my breath right now. We’re at the mercy of the OS here. The closest I can get is to ask the driver what color space it’s using, then tag the image with that same space, and hope that ColorSync is not going to convert the colors on me.
So Chris may have been correct but that doesn’t explain why some Adobe applications run fine while others are getting hammered by ColorSync. My theory is both parties are somewhat responsible unless someone can come up with a better explanation.
I wonder if Photoshop has been hardwired to always tag images with Generic RGB when it wants to take over color management, and other applications do as the Adobe engineer stated: ask and tag with the profile the driver says will be used.
In any case, it seems that ColorSync does not co-operate well with applications that try to do their own color management.
Tried the Generic RGB/Colorsync trick, to no avail. Prints still look like color management is being ignored by the printer.
I did find something on the canon support site regarding using custom profiles with the iP6000D. It shows the Photoshop path as well as letting the printer access the profile, which is done through Colorsync. I tried that and finally got a print that looks like the soft proof.
So it seems that there is nothing wrong with the profile itself. There is something that is preventing the profile from being accessed by the printer in the Photoshop workflow. I’m going to see if I can get hold of someone competent at canon one more time. The statement by the last guy that their printers required device dependant profiles is bugging me. If that were so, I wouldn’t have had success with the one print.
I also ran tests on a PPC machine running 10.4.8 and CS2. Same results.
–>Tried the Generic RGB/Colorsync trick, to no avail. Prints still look like color management is being ignored by the printer.
But the issue being discussed is the aliasing in some red colors. Were you seeing that prior to the switch because when you san ‘sill looks like color management is being ignored’ that sounds like a different issue.
The red shift is a symptom, not the cause, which is a defect in the way Colorsync is working with Photoshop’s ability to access the custom profile correctly.
While my symptom is different as well as the brand of printer involved, it seemed that it may be related. Luckily Ramon has been kind enough to indulge me.
And who knows, maybe in the course of trying to understand what is going on with my system, there might be some enlightenment in regards to the other situations. All indications are that Colorsync and Photoshop are not playing well together.
As a very smart feller put it so well – Always the beautiful answer that produces the more beautiful question.
Just to throw a monkey wrench into the mix, I also had this problem a few months back.
I first experienced it when I did the Photoshop 9.0.1 upgrade on a G4 tower. I had just bought 2 new Epson 4800 printers and built a few profiles in the corrupt print stream. I discovered the problem and downgraded to Photoshop 9.0 and rebuilt the profiles.
I could recreate the various scenarios that would cause the problem to appear in Photoshop, and successfully apply the various fixes.
What was strange is that I also had the problem with InDesign CS 2 and Illustrator CS2. This was true with my PowerBook as well. Nothing I tried would remedy the problem with InDesign or Illustrator though. Unfortunately, the hard drive failed in my PowerBook. After the drive was replaced and I reinstalled everything, the problem had disappeared.
However, since Apple released 10.4.8 the problem has since disappeared in all applications.
Another interesting note is I believe that the problem also affected MonacoPROFILER Platinum. Profiles I created by printing the Monaco patch pages through Photoshop 9.0.0 were slightly different than profiles that I printed directly from Monaco.
Andrew, check out my post to the ColorSync User’s Digest dated June 26 and titled "Photoshop 9.0.1 & ColorSync Bug and MonacoPROFILER".
Adobe – Must be an Apple problem or a Canon problem.
Canon – Must be an Apple, PS, or ICC profile problem.
All agree that according to my color management, I should be printing successfully with the custom profile via PS. Except for the dingbat at Canon.
My question now is, are there any detriments to having the printer handle the custom profile as opposed to PS? I am able to get a soft proof match when letting the printer handle things with the custom profile chosen in Current Profile in Colorsync.
I’m hoping that OS 10.5 in combination with CS3 corrects this fubar. In the meantime, I don’t want to start working with files in a way that will bite me later on.
Apologies for the paranoia and thanks for all the help.
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