I am on a G5 iMac and printing to a Canon iP6000D (7 color) printer. I am having the hardest time printing and getting a print that even SOMEWHAT resembles what is on screen. Now I've heard the whole "calibrate your screen" line but I'm not trying to be PERFECT and I don't have money to invest in that right now. All I know is that I can see detail in my shadows and nothing is "blocking" up on the screen, but on the prints the shadows are BLACKS. Very frustrating. Does my printer suck horriblely or can I get it to work for me?

My Canon 1D MkII is set to Adobe RGB 1998.

CONVERT TO PROFILE or ASSIGN PROFILE. When in Photoshop, what should I set this to? My profiles list Adobe RGB 1998, sRGB, Canon iP6000D MP2, PR1, PR3, SP2, SP3, BJ Color Printer profile 2000, among many others... I am confused! Too many choices!

PRINT WITH PREVIEW. Now, I can let the printer "determine the colors" or have Photoshop determine the colors. Who decides? THEN, I get to pick the profile again. Should this match the working profile? "Black Point Compression" check box? Huh?

I need help. Please don't tell me to calibrate my screen. I already know that part! : )

PLEASE HELP!

-Justin

Ok here we go.
1. BEFORE you print go to view in photoshop, proof setup, choose custom, device to simulate, choose your profile(printer and paper profile), black point compensation on, rendering intent is relative colormetric
2. Go file print preview, go page setup, format, choose printer and paper size/type of paper, then choose your print quality, last step is most important click off color controls

hoped this helped, this is typically my work routine when printing, some of your profiles and rendering intents will vary

Ok here we go.
1. BEFORE you print go to view in photoshop, proof setup, choose custom, device to simulate, choose your profile(printer and paper profile), black point compensation on, rendering intent is relative colormetric
2. Go file print preview, go page setup, format, choose printer and paper size/type of paper, then choose your print quality, last step is most important click off color controls

hoped this helped, this is typically my work routine when printing, some of your profiles and rendering intents will vary

Thank you! That is very helpful and I will try it tonight! About the "Assign Profile" under EDIT... do I do anything here? What should it be set to? And when printing on a home inkjet printer matter whether I am in RGB or CMYK?

Thank you very much for your suggestions! I can't wait to try them and they were very clear.

-Justin

There are a lot of on line places to check your black/white calibration.

I found this free wizard for color but haven't tried it yet. You may want to give it a go and let us know how it works. http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp

good luck

I am on a G5 iMac and printing to a Canon iP6000D (7 color) printer. I am having the hardest time printing and getting a print that even SOMEWHAT resembles what is on screen. Now I've heard the whole "calibrate your screen" line but I'm not trying to be PERFECT and I don't have money to invest in that right now. All I know is that I can see detail in my shadows and nothing is "blocking" up on the screen, but on the prints the shadows are BLACKS. Very frustrating. Does my printer suck horriblely or can I get it to work for me?

My Canon 1D MkII is set to Adobe RGB 1998.

CONVERT TO PROFILE or ASSIGN PROFILE. When in Photoshop, what should I set this to? My profiles list Adobe RGB 1998, sRGB, Canon iP6000D MP2, PR1, PR3, SP2, SP3, BJ Color Printer profile 2000, among many others... I am confused! Too many choices!

PRINT WITH PREVIEW. Now, I can let the printer "determine the colors" or have Photoshop determine the colors. Who decides? THEN, I get to pick the profile again. Should this match the working profile? "Black Point Compression" check box? Huh?

I need help. Please don't tell me to calibrate my screen. I already know that part! : )

PLEASE HELP!

-Justin

OK, heres another thing: you should get profiles for your printer/ink combination. The entire stream from beginning to end should be controlled by profiles. Profiles do the best job they can matching the colors and gamut of each device to each other. Even with a calibrated monitor, printing can come out lousy.

First, Adobe includes a FREE simple but pretty effective software screen calibration tool with PhotoShop and maybe (I don't know for sure) with Elements. Try it.

After that, for the printer/ink, try some of the free printer profiles supplied with the printer itself. Sometimes, they do an excellent job, sometimes they stink.

I went the trial-and-error method years ago and wasted more money in ink and paper than it would have cost to do it right. The other option is to send the stuff out to be printed. But again, a calibrated monitor is needed for that as well to get the best results.

Hi Justin,

A calibrated monitor is the only way you can guarantee reliable results on the paper/ink. Your printer should have a printer profile, but without a calibrated monitor your screen and printer will have different values for each color. What you can do in the meantime is find the printer profile from Canon that matches your printer, and then soft-proof using that profile. Once you are done editing, CONVERT to that profile, and then print. It should be a bit closer.

I don't print at home, it was too costly and I didn't want to spend my time learrning yet another skill. I did spend the money on a Sypder calibration tool, and then moved up to a Eye-One Macbeth calibration tool. It was the best money I ever spent because the prints from monitor to paper were always consistent because I used the same method above using my printer's icc profiles and then converted the files to a final.

Loren

There is another comman problem, ink refills. There are fine for charts and text but using non-printer brand ink for photos is not a good thing! My cowork tried one self refilled ink cartridge once and once only, he said the color balance he had went out the window, and it took alot of brand name ink to get the correct colors back, he had a Canon Printer. Also the paper can make a big difference. I used some CG Glass Photo paper in my Epson C-80, and the B&W prints were blue! Also when I tried some Kodak semi-gloss the B&W prints were RED. I never have had a problem with color shift with Coated or uncoated mat paper or plain paper with and color balance problem, only with the gloss papers have I had color balance problems.

So my sugguestion is to make sure you have real OEM ink, and use OEM gloss photo paper. Make sure you print suffenct drafts or proofs to fush out all non-OEM ink from the ink lines to you print head if you were using thrid party inks. (Canon and Epson, ink tank printer only) HP and Lexmark the print head is in the ink cartridge.

I forgot, are you setting the paper type in the printer driver? As if you do not you could have very bad looking prints.