Color Matching on an HP DesignJet 800PS

DW
Posted By
David Windt
Dec 3, 2004
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2012
Replies
0
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Closed
I could sure use some help getting color matching to work on this printer. Here’s what I know and don’t know:

In PhotoShop CS/Windows 2000 I go to Print with Preview, and in the Color Management section of the dialog I choose "Document" for the Source Space. The choice for Print Space depends on the printer I select.

So I click Page Setup…to select the printer. There are two printers listed: "HP DesignJet 800PS3 42" and "HP DesignJet 800PS 42". I guess the first one is the PostScript version, and the second one is the raster version. If I select the first one, then all my ICM profiles for this printer are listed in the Print Space area on the
Print-with-Preview dialog. But if I choose the second one, the HP ICM profiles are not listed.

So I select "HP DesignJet 800PS3 42", and choose the ICM Profile for the paper and settings I have (e.g. HP 800PS, High-Gloss Photo, Best). And I choose "Relative Colorimetric" for Intent.

Now back to the Printer Setup dialog…

In the "Advanced Options" dialog of the printer "Properties" dialog, there’s an "Image Color Management" section, where I can choose for ICM Method: 1. ICM Disabled, 2. ICM Handled by Host System, 3. ICM Handled by Printer, 4. ICM Handled by Printer using printer calibration. Which of these do I choose and why?? Also, in the same Advanced Properties dialog, under "Printer Features", I can select either "Native" or "Standard Emulation" for Color Management, and either "Perceptual", "Colorimetric" or "Saturation" for Rendering Intent. What do I do here? How do these settings depend on what I choose in the Photoshop Print-with-Preview dialog? So far I’ve tried "ICM Handled by Host System" with "Colorimetric" intent, but the color is still a bit off.

And is all this stuff documented or explained anywhere??? The HP DesignJet reference guide has no info on this…

If I select the other (raster) printer, as I said, the ICM profiles for the printer are no longer available in the Print-with-Preview dialog. But I still have a bunch of color management settings available in the Printer Properties dialog (which of course is totally different than the PS printer dialog). For example, in the Color tab, under "Printed color control" I have "Vivid color", "Match screen", "No color correction",
and "User defined color correction (which requires using the Color Correction Wizard and choosing from ten different printed versions). I’ve tried the first three settings (though not this last option yet), but the colors I get are far different from what I see on the (calibrated) monitor.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-David Windt

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