Color management problem in CS 3: Printer profiles malfunctioning

In Photoshop CS 3, every time I preview my RGB files with a canvas printer profile active, some of the colors in Preview look extremely saturated, while the colors that were light in the file to be printed looking very pale, so the colors are way off.

I tried different printer profiles and it looks this way with all of them: Breathing Color’s matte canvas profile, Premier Art’s matte canvas profile, and Epson’s Premier Art Canvas profile.

If I have my Printer Profile set to Adobe RGB 1998, or sRGBIEC61966-2.1, then the color in the Preview window looks fine – practically the same as the color of the image that appears in the image that shows in the initial File > Print window, and in that workflow, the files print with nice colors on my Epson 7600 and Epson 2400 printers.

These garish and pale colors appear in Preview if I choose North America Prepess 2, or North America General Purpose as a color setting, so both are no good.

It occurs if I have Perceptual chosen, and also if I choose Relative Colorometric, so both of those settings also give bad results.
I always choose "Photoshop Handles Colors", Black Point Compensation is checked and then on the next set of options I choose "No Color Adjustment".
Robert

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:09:24 GMT, Robert Montgomery wrote:

In Photoshop CS 3, every time I preview my RGB files with a canvas printer profile active, some of the colors in Preview look extremely saturated, while the colors that were light in the file to be printed looking very pale, so the colors are way off.

I tried different printer profiles and it looks this way with all of them: Breathing Color’s matte canvas profile, Premier Art’s matte canvas profile, and Epson’s Premier Art Canvas profile.

If I have my Printer Profile set to Adobe RGB 1998, or sRGBIEC61966-2.1, then the color in the Preview window looks fine – practically the same as the color of the image that appears in the
initial File > Print window, and in that workflow, the files print with nice colors on my Epson 7600 and Epson 2400 printers.

These garish and pale colors appear in Preview if I choose North America Prepess 2, or North America General Purpose as a color setting, so both are no good.

It occurs if I have Perceptual chosen, and also if I choose Relative Colorometric, so both of those settings also give bad results.
I always choose "Photoshop Handles Colors", Black Point Compensation is checked and then on the next set of options I choose "No Color Adjustment".
Robert

If the Preview window you are referring to is Epson’s preview window, ignore it. It does not represent the final appearance of the print. Use Photoshop’s Soft Proof instead.

Mike Russell wrote:

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:09:24 GMT, Robert Montgomery wrote:

In Photoshop CS 3, every time I preview my RGB files with a canvas printer profile active, some of the colors in Preview look extremely saturated, while the colors that were light in the file to be printed looking very pale, so the colors are way off.

I tried different printer profiles and it looks this way with all of them: Breathing Color’s matte canvas profile, Premier Art’s matte canvas profile, and Epson’s Premier Art Canvas profile.

If I have my Printer Profile set to Adobe RGB 1998, or sRGBIEC61966-2.1, then the color in the Preview window looks fine – practically the same as the color of the image that appears in the
initial File > Print window, and in that workflow, the files print with nice colors on my Epson 7600 and Epson 2400 printers.

These garish and pale colors appear in Preview if I choose North America Prepess 2, or North America General Purpose as a color setting, so both are no good.

It occurs if I have Perceptual chosen, and also if I choose Relative Colorometric, so both of those settings also give bad results.
I always choose "Photoshop Handles Colors", Black Point Compensation is checked and then on the next set of options I choose "No Color Adjustment".
Robert

If the Preview window you are referring to is Epson’s preview window, ignore it. It does not represent the final appearance of the print. Use Photoshop’s Soft Proof instead.

Thanks, Russel.

I’m referring to Apple’s Preview. When I got File > Print > Print > I then press the Preview button. After a minute or so, my screen fills with the preview image.

I think I calibrated my screen well, because whatever I see in the Preview window, it looks basically the same way on paper on canvas. So if the Preview image looks bad, the printed print looks just the same, and when the screen images look good, the printed results are basically also good.

In Photoshop, I have View > Proof Setup set to Working CMYK – U.S. Web Coated (SWOP v2.

When I go View > Proof Colors there’s no change in the appearance of the Photoshop images, whether or not the check mark is beside "Proof Colors".

Also, I’m careful to choose the correct Media Type in Photoshop’s Print Settings
settings. For example, for Epson’s Premium Matte Canvas, it’s Watercolor Radiant White.

Robert

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:35:28 GMT, Robert Montgomery wrote:

Mike Russell wrote:

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:09:24 GMT, Robert Montgomery wrote:

In Photoshop CS 3, every time I preview my RGB files with a canvas printer profile active, some of the colors in Preview look extremely saturated, while the colors that were light in the file to be printed looking very pale, so the colors are way off.

I tried different printer profiles and it looks this way with all of them: Breathing Color’s matte canvas profile, Premier Art’s matte canvas profile, and Epson’s Premier Art Canvas profile.

If I have my Printer Profile set to Adobe RGB 1998, or sRGBIEC61966-2.1, then the color in the Preview window looks fine – practically the same as the color of the image that appears in the
initial File > Print window, and in that workflow, the files print with nice colors on my Epson 7600 and Epson 2400 printers.

These garish and pale colors appear in Preview if I choose North America Prepess 2, or North America General Purpose as a color setting, so both are no good.

It occurs if I have Perceptual chosen, and also if I choose Relative Colorometric, so both of those settings also give bad results.
I always choose "Photoshop Handles Colors", Black Point Compensation is checked and then on the next set of options I choose "No Color Adjustment".
Robert

If the Preview window you are referring to is Epson’s preview window, ignore it. It does not represent the final appearance of the print. Use Photoshop’s Soft Proof instead.

Thanks, Russel.

I’m referring to Apple’s Preview. When I got File > Print > Print > I then press the Preview button. After a minute or so, my screen fills with the preview image.

I think I calibrated my screen well, because whatever I see in the Preview window, it looks basically the same way on paper on canvas. So if the Preview image looks bad, the printed print looks just the same, and when the screen images look good, the printed results are basically also good.

In Photoshop, I have View > Proof Setup set to Working CMYK – U.S. Web Coated (SWOP v2.

When I go View > Proof Colors there’s no change in the appearance of the Photoshop images, whether or not the check mark is beside "Proof Colors".

Also, I’m careful to choose the correct Media Type in Photoshop’s Print Settings
settings. For example, for Epson’s Premium Matte Canvas, it’s Watercolor Radiant White.

Robert

My next suggestion would be to make sure you are not double profiling – for example configuring the Epson paper profiles in both Photoshop, and in the printer driver.

The Apple print drivers are, in theory, able to associate the print data with its profile, and avoid this problem, but there have been problems with this.

The SWOP profile you are using is probably of very little utility, since the Epson printer can handle significantly more saturated colors, as well as a wider brightness range. You’d probably be better off proofing with your Epson profiles as well, with or without paper white specified, whichever one you think gives you a better idea of the final print.

I’ve been researching this and I have a somewhat better understanding of it now
Thanks for the tip about Photoshop’s proofing (in the View menu). I had forgotten about that.

Do you know of any good online source of free training videos on ICC profiles
and color mangement for Photoshop CS3? I’ve been searching on the Web, but i t’s hit and miss – mostly miss.

These topics are incredibly complicated and overwhelming.
Robert

What’s really confusing me now is that I was instructed to go Window > Arrange > New Window before soft proofing.

Robert Montgomery wrote:

What’s really confusing me now is that I was instructed to go Window > Arrange > New Window before soft proofing.

Don’t do that. The whole idea of soft proofing is that Photoshop shows you a simulation of how the print will look, without actually convert your document to the printer color space, so there is no reason at all to soft proof a copy of the document.

What’s really confusing me now is that I was instructed to go Window > Arrange >
New Window before soft proofing.

This really complicates things, because now I’ve got two files to try to configure in
File > Print.

What are the settings for File > Print, when I’ve got those two windows open –
both the origianl fle and the proof fle?

And why do some tutorials demo proofing with only the one window open?

On Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:39:50 GMT, Robert Montgomery wrote:
[re soft proofing]

What’s really confusing me now is that I was instructed to go Window > Arrange >
New Window before soft proofing.

This really complicates things, because now I’ve got two files to try to configure in
File > Print.

What are the settings for File > Print, when I’ve got those two windows open –
both the origianl fle and the proof fle?

And why do some tutorials demo proofing with only the one window open?

New window does not create a second copy of the file, just a second view for the same file.

The idea of a soft proof is to replace a physical or "hard" proof, with a software generated proof. Two views, or toggling between soft proof and normal, makes it easier to see unexpected changes, such as loss of blue saturation.

While soft proofing can be a useful tool, there are a number of obstacles that prevent this technique from being very useful. Here are some:
1) Accurate paper profiles are difficult to come by
2) Most people have no idea how to properly view a soft proof
3) Monitor image will never look like a paper image
4) Monitors are not as good at rendering shadow detail as printers.