Advice on getting my pixma pro 9000 setup properly

antc

antc

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Anthony
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Hi All,

I am trying to get the above printer setup properly once and for all.

I am looking for some advice in the best ways to do this.....so far I have....

1. calibrated my monitors with a spyder 3 elite
2. using genuine canon ink (for now although looking for thoughts on 3rd party or ciss systems or just to use genuine which is what i have been told to do to get best results)
3. whatever paper i use i must use the correct profile for it (currently trying out wex semi gloss paper with their profile for my printer)

Ok, so what else do i need to do to ensure what i see on my screen is what I get on my prints?
 
coldpenguin said:
What is the problem that you are seeing?
Dull colours, incorrect colours, blocks?
Click to expand...

Slightly off colours. Certain parts of images will have a bit too much magenta/red cast to them but its not the whole photo.

For example I have a shot of a rock with water flowing around and over it, and the rock is brown, yet it comes out slightly browny red if that makes sense.
 
But the water itself around the rock is OK?
Are you using the colour management/printing program from Canon within photoshop, or are you printing in some other fashion?
(not that I have the printer, but have been reading a lot about it, with the thought of getting it at the end of the month).
 
I know there are better ways of doing it, but in the photoshop print plugin there should be a 2x A4 page test sheet that you can print out, it prints out the image on screen with a multitude of different colour & contrast & other settings in the driver, you then eye those up to your monitor to get a close match and use those settings in the driver.
When I had my 9500 (same features in the plugin as the 9000 iirc) I got some really good results from it and it's a doddle to do, just make sure you are viewing the test shots in good light.
 
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Make sure ICC is OFF and you have photoshop set to manage the colours. that ensures the printer is not trying to over ride anything.

Default profiles are a hit and miss anyway. Best to get a custom profile.

I buy Fotospeed papers and use their CIS for the Espon R2400. Works very well.
 
Theres a good review of the 9500, HERE , which mentions printing with the photoshop plug-in.

'Using the Photoshop plugin - Canon Easy PhotoPrint Pro' about 1/3 of the way down, just after the colour test charts. (y)
 
Thanks for the help and suggestions so far guys.

I have a bit more of an update -

Had a good play with this today and have printed 2 different photos, one of a motorcycle shot and one of a landscape shot. Now for whatever reason when i try and print direct from lightroom it takes ages and ages to i assume try and spool the document. Lightroom appears to send the image to the printer as a tiff file. this then eventually comes up with "error" but doesnt say anything else.

So what i have then done is used lightroom to "print to file" as a jpeg, then opened the jpeg in photoshop cs5 and printed from there setting exactly the same print settings as i would have done in LR. This then prints fine in terms of getting a picture on my sheet of a3 paper.

What I have now found it that to get the closest result so far to whats on my screen I have to add +1 stop exposure to the jpeg file before printing from PS. This then comes out with something i am about 80-90% happy with in terms of accuracy. The actual print quality I am happy with.

Any thoughts on this or how it can be changed for the better? I would really like not to have to export to file then open in ps and bla bla, i would rather do everything from LR which is where i do 90% of all my work anyway.
 
antc said:
Thanks for the help and suggestions so far guys.

I have a bit more of an update -

Had a good play with this today and have printed 2 different photos, one of a motorcycle shot and one of a landscape shot. Now for whatever reason when i try and print direct from lightroom it takes ages and ages to i assume try and spool the document. Lightroom appears to send the image to the printer as a tiff file. this then eventually comes up with "error" but doesnt say anything else.

So what i have then done is used lightroom to "print to file" as a jpeg, then opened the jpeg in photoshop cs5 and printed from there setting exactly the same print settings as i would have done in LR. This then prints fine in terms of getting a picture on my sheet of a3 paper.

What I have now found it that to get the closest result so far to whats on my screen I have to add +1 stop exposure to the jpeg file before printing from PS. This then comes out with something i am about 80-90% happy with in terms of accuracy. The actual print quality I am happy with.

Any thoughts on this or how it can be changed for the better? I would really like not to have to export to file then open in ps and bla bla, i would rather do everything from LR which is where i do 90% of all my work anyway.
Click to expand...

Not sure about your Lr problem. Works fine for me. What profile are you using and what resolution is set?

Regards the exposure - the problem is almost certainly one of monitor calibration and printer/paper profiles.

With a brighter than normal monitor your prints will be darker....
 
antc said:
I am looking for some advice in the best ways to do this.....so far I have....

1. calibrated my monitors with a spyder 3 elite

Ok, so what else do i need to do to ensure what i see on my screen is what I get on my prints?
Click to expand...

EOS_JD said:
Regards the exposure - the problem is almost certainly one of monitor calibration and printer/paper profiles.

With a brighter than normal monitor your prints will be darker....
Click to expand...

Is the custom profile loading correctly? Theres a common problem with Vista and Win7 where the custom profile loads at start up but then dumps back to the default setting. My laptop does this and the screen goes quite dark initialy (as the custom profile loads), then seconds later it becomes much brighter. Others have reported the change happening after locking the computer or the screen saver being on... theres a few more too. Theres an easy but annoying work around if needed :thinking:
 
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For both my 9000 and 9500, I simply bring the image into Canon's DPP software (RAW, TIFF or JPEG format) and then print via the Easy Photo print Pro plug-in. Within the plug in, I select the paper size, paper type, quality setting and also ensure that within the colour management tab, "Auto" is set for the paper profile. I only use Canon paper and inks, so have found that the supplied ICC profiles have worked very well. One thing I did find however, was that if I shot with an Adobe RGB profile, this always gave a slight muted look to the prints, whilst in sRGB, the prints looked fine and vibrant.
 
EOS_JD said:
Not sure about your Lr problem. Works fine for me. What profile are you using and what resolution is set?

Regards the exposure - the problem is almost certainly one of monitor calibration and printer/paper profiles.

With a brighter than normal monitor your prints will be darker....
Click to expand...

Well I am not sure its a paper profile issue as I am using the correct profile for the wex paper that I have downloaded from their site. Interesting thought on the monitor profile though, however the images look fine on screen and others screens and they project fine at photo club evenings on a professionally profiled laptop/projector setup?


singlespeed said:
Is the custom profile loading correctly? Theres a common problem with Vista and Win7 where the custom profile loads at start up but then dumps back to the default setting. My laptop does this and the screen goes quite dark initialy (as the custom profile loads), then seconds later it becomes much brighter. Others have reported the change happening after locking the computer or the screen saver being on... theres a few more too. Theres an easy but annoying work around if needed :thinking:
Click to expand...

When i boot into windows you can see the spyder software come up and kick in the profiles for each screen which all seems to be working fine.


Canonman II said:
For both my 9000 and 9500, I simply bring the image into Canon's DPP software (RAW, TIFF or JPEG format) and then print via the Easy Photo print Pro plug-in. Within the plug in, I select the paper size, paper type, quality setting and also ensure that within the colour management tab, "Auto" is set for the paper profile. I only use Canon paper and inks, so have found that the supplied ICC profiles have worked very well. One thing I did find however, was that if I shot with an Adobe RGB profile, this always gave a slight muted look to the prints, whilst in sRGB, the prints looked fine and vibrant.
Click to expand...

I am using canon inks but not canon papers so not sure if using dpp will work.
 
The monitor brightness should be set to represent the brightness of the viewing conditions.

You should be able to set the screen brightness with the Spyder. Don't necessarily accept the Spyder's default level. A value of between 120-140 Cd/M2 is fairly normal. Look and see what the Spyder is using.

As far as Lightroom is concerned I have no problem printing from it. Check though you do have the Page set up and the print set up set correctly. It's could be as simple as the wrong paper size being selected, although I have found that all that happens is you get a wrong size image..

Canned ( manufacturers profiles ) can be both good and bad. I have found the Ilford's and Hanhnamulhe profiles are quiet good. Can't speak for WEX as I haven't used them.

I'd get the printing density sorted first, then look at soft proofing prior to printing. Soft proofing shows you , on screen, what the final print will look like when the printer/paper profile is applied. This may be where you may see a slight difference between screen and print image.

Unfortunatly you can't soft proof in Lightroom ( yet) but you can in Photoshop.

Go to View and select Proof Setup. Select custom and navigate to the WEX paper profile.Now if you toggle Cmd/Ctrl K it will switch between soft proof on / off. This will enable you to see the effect the paper/printer profile is having. It should resemble what you are currently getting ( density adjusted.)

To compensate for the profile, make a duplicate of the image, and adjust this using Photoshops controls to match the orriginal. When happy print the duplicate
 
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