Comes out differently at the printers…

J
Posted By
jyeager
Sep 27, 2006
Views
289
Replies
7
Status
Closed
Here’s the sitch: I’ve been designing for close to 13 years; most of them involving home design printed at a professional print shop. So I am aware of the usual caveats that come with that relationship; most notably, the subtle differences in hues from screen to print, or from screen to screen even.

However, this week, I’ve encountered a problem for the first time ever, and have no idea how to solve it. In short, a file I worked on and saved as a flat image (TIFF) opens fine on every computer I tested it on (some without Photoshop installed on them), but when I open the file at the print shop, all of the blue hues come out as magenta/purple.

I’ve tried it at two different print shops and the same thing happened at both; while refusing to open any way but properly in all the home computers I tried opening it on.

But wait, it gets even more weird : the file’s thumbnail comes out as normal (blue) at the print shop… it’s only the the file itself, when opened, that seems to dance to the beat of the wrong color palette.

The profile I’m working with is the default Photoshop one. Namely :

Color Settings: North America General Purpose 2
RGB: sRGB IEC6196602.1
CMYK: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
Gray: Dot Gain 20%
Spot: Dot Gain 20%
Color Management Policies: Preserve Embedded Profiles

Could this problem be due to the ICC Profile checkbox during Saves being checked? It’s checked and saved as U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2. Would unchecking this box and re-saving the TIFF file potentially help cure the problem?

Note: I tried JPG instead of TIFF and the exact same thing happens. Opens normal (blue) on all computers except at the print shop. Print shop shows thumbnail previews correctly, but not the image itself once opened.

I thought including the color profile with the save (checking the ICC Profile box) was supposed to help ensure this sort of thing didn’t happen. Am I better off unchecking it?

PS: I’m not physically present when the printer opens the file. So if he’s prompted for a missing or different color profile, I don’t know what his actual response is. I figure these guys don’t need me to tell them how to handle that (never did before) so the problem must be on my end.

Help!

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

Y
YrbkMgr
Sep 27, 2006
So the question is… what are you and they opening them in. The first thing I’d want to verify is that they (the printer) are color managed. Are they looking at it in Photoshop or something else, and if something else, what? Are they viewing it in a Color Managed application?

Since you put it on several "home" computers, and it looked fine, but it doesn’t look fine on the printers color managed system, the question for you is, have you calibrated your monitor using adobe gamma – i.e., are YOU following a color managed workflow?

If you save for web and choose JPG, if you don’t explicity tell photoshop, it will not embed the color profile. If you do that, and that file looks fine on your end, how does it look on their end?

Peace,
Tony
J
jyeager
Sep 27, 2006
I know that at least one of the two printers opened in Photoshop, and tried it on both Mac and PC… and the file came out magenta/purple on both (when it should have come out blue, as it does on all 4 PC’s we tried it on when we heard of this problem).

All 4 PC’s used to open the file belong to 4 different people living in 4 different parts of town. Half the PC’s (2) had Photoshop installed, the other half didn’t. So it’s not even a matter of which version of Photoshop opened it : two of those PC’s were almost fresh WinXP installations, and opened the TIFF with whatever default preview application Window uses to display images.

JPG was not "saved for web". It was simply "Saved As…" and JPG was selected as the format. The ICC Profile was therefore embedded, since that checkbox is checked by default.

Because I have no idea where to even begin solving this problem, I just re-saved the file without the ICC Profile (going out of my way to make sure that box is left unchecked) and will test how this one opens at the printers later today. But I can’t imagine it working better than before. If anything, it should be worse. I’m excluding important color information.

Perhaps the two printers with the problem were simply discarding color profile info upon opening the file? I will have to find out. I wasn’t physically there when they opened it; someone else was. When they call me later today, I’ll ask them.
B
Bernie
Sep 27, 2006
Perhaps the two printers with the problem were simply discarding color profile info upon opening the file?

In which case saving without the embedded profile will give the exact same result.
J
jyeager
Sep 27, 2006
In which case saving without the embedded profile will give the exact same result.

But also in which case asking them to STOP would fix the problem with the original file that has the profile embedded.

And if they weren’t doing that at all, then the second version without the embedded profile may work.

Either way, we’ re about to find out.
Y
YrbkMgr
Sep 27, 2006
Because I have no idea where to even begin solving this problem,

That’s why I said to use Save for web. That will strip all extraneous information from the file. The same net result is achieved by saving the file without a profile. The point was to determine if it was a printer monitor calibration issue.
DJ
Debbie_J_Leone
Dec 13, 2006
I’m no expert, but I was having a color "issue" a few days ago and found out from our IT guy that it was the printer driver causing the problem, so I switched to the Post Script printer driver. (This may have nothing to do with your problem.
B
Bernie
Dec 13, 2006
Would unchecking this box and re-saving the TIFF file potentially help cure the problem? No, and it could potentially hurt you.

The thing to do is to check what colour settings the printer is using and making sure he honours the embedded profile.

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections