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[FIX] Darker prints and color shifts when printing from LR2

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Samoreen

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Joined
Jun 12, 2008
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206
Location
Samoreau, France
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Hi,

The problem

When printing RAW or TIFF files from LR2, you get a printer output that is much darker than it should be and that presents various color shifts.

I'm using an Epson Stylus Pro 38'' with the latest Windows driver (6.5' - which is rather old by the way). The workaround described below works for me under Windows XP SP3. It should also probably work with other systems/printers/drivers. Use at your own (minor) risk.

The "official" and recommended procedure for printing from LR is as follows:

1. Do not let the printer manage colors and select "Other..." from the profile dropdown list and select the ICC/ICM paper/printer profile that you want to use.
2. Click on Print... in LR which opens the Print Settings dialog.
3. Select the options you need and the paper you're using.
4. Disable the color management on the driver's side (in Epson's drivers, "Mode | Custom | No Color Adjustments").
5. Print

Unfortunately, this doesn't work for many of us and this produces a print that is dark and has color shifts as mentioned above. Note that the same image prints correctly from QImage or Photoshop CS3 (that is, the printer output corresponds to what you see on your calibrated display).

Note: If you decide to let the printer manage colors, you'll get even more problems.

Apparently, although color management has been (allegedly) disabled in the driver, there's something wrong between LR and the driver which makes that both LR and the driver are still trying to manage colors. In other words, the "No Color Adjustements" option of the driver doesn't seem to work with LR.

The workaround (found after hours of hair pulling and paper and expensive ink wasting):

In step #4,

1. Instead of selecting "No Color Adjustments", set Mode to "Custom | ICM"
2. Click Advanced...
3. Check "Show all profiles".
4. Select Driver ICM (Advanced)"
5. Set both the "Input profile" and the "Printer profile" fields to the very same profile that you specified in LR.

That is, if you specified Pro38 PGPP (Premium Glossy Photo Paper) in LR, then also select Pro38 PGPP in both "Input Profile" and "Printer Profile". This has actually the same effect as disabling color management in the driver (what "No Color Adjustements" should normally take care of).

That's it. When printing, you'll get exactly the same color results as when printing from QImage or Photoshop. No more dark prints. No more color shifts.

One might think that the bug is in the Epson driver but in that case, QImage would have the very same problem. So I tend to think that the bug is on the Lightroom side.

Note: Although Photoshop CS3 produces a correct printer output, it demonstrates the same problem as LR when using the "Match Print Color" option for soft proofing. But in that case, only the preview colors are wrong. The printer output is ok. Which also tends to demonstrate that Adobe has the problem, not Epson. Or maybe both...

Don't ask me why some users have the problem and others don't.

Hope this helps.

Update

According to my experience with LR3, this problem has apparently been fixed by Adobe (at least, this is what I observe when printing with my Epson Stylus Pro 38'').
 
My personal printing breakthrough

I've been struggling to get predictable output from what I see on screen onto paper for a long time. It seemed like every print was a one off, with plenty of wasted prints along the way. Color cast, overall dark and other color matching issues always seemed to be there.

I think I may have finally had a breakthrough. I had been using Huey as a display calibrator and it is fine for what it does. However I just got a Pantone Colormunki Design and calibrated my papers and display to each other by creating my own ICC profiles. Now letting LR control color management and turning off Color Management in the Print Options takes care of the color matching and cast issues. The darkness in the end was my operator error. Although Huey will measure ambient light and adjust the brightness level to match it, it can be trumped by going into the Display Preferences (Mac) and telling the OS to keep it at maximum brightness. By manually setting the brightness of the display, the image too would have to be adjusted to result in matching output on paper. So with the addition of more exposure, brightness or fill light to compensate, the result is exactly what I am looking for.
 
Thanks for posting this Patrick!
 
Hi,



The workaround (found after hours of hair pulling and paper and expensive ink wasting):


Hope this helps.

Thanks!.... I've just been through the same process wasting ink & paper, now at least my LR2 prints look like my Qimage prints pre-custom tweaks.

Regards,
Alan
 
Just to add the Patrick's great advice, the process is just slightly different if you're using a Canon MX series printer.

Printer Settings
1. Open Printer Properties and select the (Canon) paper you're using ie Matte, Glossy, Plus Glossy etc.
2. Set print quality to High
3. Set Colour/Intensity to Manual and click Select
4. Click the Matching tab and select ICM, and select Adobe RGB (1998 from the Drop Down box
5. Make sure that none of the boxes are selected under the Effects tab
6. Save all these setting as a Custom Profile if you wish

Lightroom Settings - Print Module
1. Select Media type to match the paper type entered into the Printer settings ie Matte or Glossy
2. Colour Management Profile - select Other and you will be presented with the profiles for canon papers. To decode, use the following guide

R1 = Photo Paper Pro (print quality level 1)
PR2 = Photo Paper Pro (quality level 2)
SP1 = Photo Paper Plus Glossy (quality level 1)
MP1 = Matte Photo Paper (quality level 1)
MP2 = Matte Photo Paper (quality level 2)

SG2 = Photo Paper Semi Gloss (quality level 2)
GL2 = Photo Paper \Glossy (quality level 2)

so if you're using Canon's MP-1'1 Matte paper then select MP2 for example. You should then see something like Canon MX85' series MP2 for the Profile

3. Select Perceptual as the Rendering Intent

The above process has worked well for me, and as with Patrick after wasting a lot of ink and paper, but what I see on my screen now very closely resembles what is printed (well for me at least) :cheesy:

If it helps, I'm running XP SP3, a Dell SP2''8FP monitor, an nVidia GeForce 86''GT card and calibrated with a Spyder2Express.

Hope this helps
 
Thanks for adding that Chris!

I'm going to sticky this thread, and transfer the appropriate posts into Tips & Tricks.
 
CB357;2'999 said:
Just to add the Patrick's great advice, the process is just slightly different if you're using a Canon MX series printer.

Printer Settings
2. Set print quality to High
3. Set Colour/Intensity to Manual and click Select
4. Click the Matching tab and select ICM, and select Adobe RGB (1998) from the Drop Down box
Hope this helps


I followed your instructions, with no luck. The things that confuse me:

Printerquality high: most tell me to choose manual.
Most tell me me to NOT select ICM, but following your instructions I did. But there I could not find any drop down box to set the colorspace, so that may well be my problem: all things you did don't change anythng for me: too much magenta.

You've opened another opportunity for me: the colorspace in the printerdriver. I will search for that and if I find something will let it know here. For te time being om my next free 2 hours or so I will build a new profile with the spyder print module, that is the only thing that helped me. If I succeed in that I will try to make the profile available, but don't expect it in a few days: busy time, even no time to do any photographing (I even take my camera with me in my car now, just in case ....).

Thanks for your help.
 
Hi Willem

1. Printer quality should be on the Main tab (just under Media Type etc - I'm assuming you're using a Canon printer) , and you need to select High (quality)
2. You get to ICM via Color/Intensity. Select Manual and the the Set button will take you to Color Adjustment. Don't select anything there, but click on the Matching tab. There you can select ICM and then Adobe RGB 1998 OR select None (you may need to experiment to see which gives you the 'best' results - I found if you're using Adobe RGB 1998 as the color space for LR2 and Photoshop, this gives good results, if you're using ProPhoto then None is the way to go
3. The only other thing you need to check is you paper size, orientation and quality.
4. Perceptual will give a slightly 'lighter' print than Relative (in my experience)

Making sure you're using the right paper profile is absolutely essential

Hope this helps

Chris
 
Would it be possible to have the advice given here translated for a Mac user, please? Thanks in advance.

I've been following this and other threads on this forum on printing from LR2 closely as, since upgrading to LR2 and buying a new Canon Pro9''' printer, I haven't been getting the quality of prints I would expect from these two quality products. Prints come out too dark, with color cast and non-vibrant colors. For example, black & white prints come out with a reddish/blue color cast; yellows and reds are far less vibrant than what is on the screen.

Suspicious of LR2 and frustrated by the amount of paper and ink I've wasted, I tried one more test and discovered something (although it wouldn't surprise me if others here were already aware and I'm only just catching up!). I exported to a jpeg from the print module (using Adobe RGB1998 color space) and used the Canon Easy-Print utility which came with my printer to print the image. It came out perfect!!

I have my monitor color calibrated and printer paper profiles - so what can it be, it can only be something in LR2, right?
 
achrysos;215'' said:
Would it be possible to have the advice given here translated for a Mac user, please? Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Look at this page (bottom of the page):

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr_13_print/lightroom_print.htm

What they are doing is similar to what I did under Windows, I guess (although I never worked with a Mac). The difference is that we do not have ColorSync under Windows.
 
Thanks for all your help - however, I'm still very frustrated by this. I looked at the page you refer to Patrick and followed the instructions (in fact my profiles seemed to be set up correctly in the ColorSync utility). So I tried a print last night but it still came out dark, missing all the highlights and 'pop' seen on the screen.

So I've downloaded the trial version of PSE6 and will see what printing from there will do - I ran out of paper so couldn't try last night!

This is really frustrating - I love LR2, and I believe that the Canon Pro9''' is a really good printer, but they just don't seem to be working well together!! Is anybody else finding this or is it just me?

I guess the last thing I should try to do is to get a custom profile based on a color swatch printed out from the printer and use that instead of the canon provided profiles, but I don't have the appropriate h/ware or s/ware to do that. Before that, I'll see how the print outs from PSE6 look and report back...
 
The solution provided in this thread would probably solve my problems when printing from LR2 also. I watch the tutorials on NAPP and follow them religiously and always end up with dark color-cast prints. I've calibrated my monitor with Spyder2, downloaded the premium paper ICC profiles from Epson and still the prints suck. Can anyone translate these directions for an Epson SP22'' user? I can't seem to find the Mode/ICM stuff. Thanks for any help. Just joined the Forum today and I think I will be a frequent visitor. Thanks again.
 
emyri;22'71 said:
The solution provided in this thread would probably solve my problems when printing from LR2 also. I watch the tutorials on NAPP and follow them religiously and always end up with dark color-cast prints. I've calibrated my monitor with Spyder2, downloaded the premium paper ICC profiles from Epson and still the prints suck. Can anyone translate these directions for an Epson SP22'' user? I can't seem to find the Mode/ICM stuff. Thanks for any help. Just joined the Forum today and I think I will be a frequent visitor. Thanks again.

Mac or PC???
 
Hi Willem

1. Printer quality should be on the Main tab (just under Media Type etc - I'm assuming you're using a Canon printer) , and you need to select High (quality)
2. You get to ICM via Color/Intensity. Select Manual and the the Set button will take you to Color Adjustment. Don't select anything there, but click on the Matching tab. There you can select ICM and then Adobe RGB 1998 OR select None (you may need to experiment to see which gives you the 'best' results - I found if you're using Adobe RGB 1998 as the color space for LR2 and Photoshop, this gives good results, if you're using ProPhoto then None is the way to go
3. The only other thing you need to check is you paper size, orientation and quality.
4. Perceptual will give a slightly 'lighter' print than Relative (in my experience)

Making sure you're using the right paper profile is absolutely essential

Hope this helps

Chris

Right, thank you.
After choosing ICM I cannot find any way to adjust the colorprofile. If I do NOT click ICM I can choose "PrintType" and "Brightness".
 
I wonder if, given that correctly following a method which is supposed to work, results are still not correct, that it might not be a good plan to back up one step to the calibration of the monitor.

Using a Spyder system, you might end with a slightly incorrect calibration if you are not extremely careful to follow instructions, some of which might be easy to misconstrue. I am working with a Viewsonic monitor which isn't bad, but isn't pro level. It works for me. I found that it is important in the extreme to set the monitor to factory settings before beginning to calibrate the RGB factors. This is especially important regarding constrast and brightness. Once set - this factor must never change - and it is easy to reset the thing when cleaning with a light cloth between calibration, or bumping the buttons &c. The choice of brightness and constrast controls and whether your monitor is backlit or not is also significant.

I'm not saying that this is a solution, but it might help someone, and I offer this post in that spirit.
 
Hi everybody,

I'm back after some more testing and would really appreciate some Guru help here as I beginning to believe that the problem lies with LR2 and how it does it's color management (I didn't have this problem with LR1.x).

I followed the advice given by everybody here and followed the link given by MainSoft to Ian Lyons' page and followed that advice but to no avail. I have some screen grabs for you all to see as that helps to illustrate the problem I'm having. I set up according to all the advice and press the print button, but instead of printing I select 'Preview' from the dialogue. The rendition that comes up in the Preview app accurately reflects what I get from the printer (I hope that I haven't violated any color management laws by doing so!). I've chosen a B&W image that I've been working with recently as it shows the effect most obviously.

The first screen grab shows what I get when I let LR2 manage the color profile (you can see the settings I used):

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/~acc/LR-managed.png

The washed out effect is clear to see (clicking the softproof button on/off has no effect). Now when I let the printer manage the colors I get the following:

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/~acc/Printer-managed.png

There are some subtle differences (as you would expect!) but it is much-much closer to what is on the LR2 screen! eh?!

For completion, the next couple of images show what I get when I export the images to jpgs. In the first I use the standard AdobeRGB 1998 profile, and in the second I use the color profile of the canon paper (SP1) I'm using with my Canon PIXMA Pro9'''. I realise that this is the wrong thing to do but, again, it illustrates the problem I'm having:

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/~acc/export.jpg

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/~acc/export-sp1-profile.jpg

Sorry, I seem to have gone on a bit! I notice that there have been an increasing number of posts about bad prints from LR2 on this forum, so I just hope the screen grabs can help somebody who knows what their doing (..help us gurus!!!..) solve this for all of us! Certainly, Adobe should be laying in, shouldn't they (and I don't doubt that in the backgound, they are!)?

Cheers
Antonio
 
Just tried Pat's work around - EURIKA = it works.

Thanks
 
I just read the following post over at 'the other forum' :

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b673aa/'

The first post (by Don) says that most printer profiles don't work in 64bit mode. A large bell started ringing in my head – I have been running LR2 in 64bit mode - could this be the source of my problems? What effect does checking the '16bit output' box have in this context?

I'm away from home right now and so cannot try this for a few days - would be grateful if somebody could try.... please?!
 
Well, that seems to have been the source of the problem I was having. Finally got back home and switched LR2 from 64bit to 32bit and the prints came out.... just right!

Thanks all!

Until this is solved (this one is down to Canon I guess) it will be frustrating to switch between the two modes just for printing - but at least I'll get the prints I want!
 
Color shifts in Print Module with LR2

I too have the problem of not being able to print with the the color profile selected in LR2. (LR1 was okay).
To save paper and get faster results, select the "Preview " mode in the printer software. Then you can actually see the results on screen.
Curiously if you select "Draft Mode Printing" in LR, it does indeed use the printer profiles (I think - anyway the colors are correct).
Many thanks to the originator who also provided a wa. I think Adobe should know about this as it seems to be prevalent.
I will try the work around suggested.
 
Color shifts in Print Module with LR2

I tried several, if not all of the suggested work arounds to the color shift while printing from LR2. For the most part they did not work for my problem but they all had some affect on the output print.
While searching for ICC profiles, I came across this Tech note from Red River Paper:
Color Profile Usage Tech Bulletin
When using any ICC profile with Photoshop, DO NOT use your printer drivers print with preview function. We are NOT talking about Photoshop print with preview! We are referring to the printer software preview function that is available on most printers.
Photoshop's print with preview is necessary to use profiles and should provide you a sufficent view of what the print will look like. Using the Epson or Canon print with preview may cause your prints to come out with a pink hue.
You can find this on this website:
http://www.redrivercatalog.com/profiles/bulletin.htm
I de-selected the Preview before printing and it did the trick. I hope some of you can try this to see if it works for you.
 
Ken

If you look up at my post (9-14-2''8 ) you'll see that I've put some examples there which shows that the Preview (for a Mac at least) comes out with something which has little resemblance to what you see in LR2. The differences are especially dramatic when you ask LR to do the color management and when you let the printer do it. I realise that you shouldn't then print from the Preview, but I thought it illustrated the problem I was having well, and I was hoping that it would provide more clues for the experts here.

The real solution to my problem came in switching between 32bit and 64bit, and using LR2 in 32bit mode for printing. However, when I do the same thing with the Preview while in 32bit, I still get a very poor comparison with what I see in LR2.

Now I don't know if that is expected and that Preview does it's own color management which screws around with what LR2 did in preparing the image for the printer. Maybe I stumbled onto something, but maybe it's only a wild goose flapping after a red herring.

(sorry, it's late in the day here - time to go home!!)

Ant.
 
Re: color shift in Preview

It appears that you have several problems going on at once while I am dealing with only one, namely: Pink cast (color shift) if, and only if, "Preview mode" is selected in the Canon Pro9''' printer.
I feel that it is an Adobe problem - as it happens in both in CS3 and LR. To this end I have create a support case (#'18''436627) hoping that this issue will be addressed.
The reason why I feel it is a PS issue is because it only happens with those programs. Just for grins, I downloaded and installed Picasa3 and tried the print preview on my printer and it looks great - no noticable color shift.
Picasa, in case your are not familiar with it, is a freebee and designed mostly for the very casual picture taker. It is definitely not a program that I would reccomend but in this instance, it can be used to prove a point.
I am sure that I can also use the program "Digital Photo Professional" that came with my camera to achieve the same results but since it is Canon to Canon, I am sure it would work and that may not prove anything.
 
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