Calibrating new Pixma printer and monitor unsuccessfully

merv

merv

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Mervyn
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Just got a new Pixma IP8750 printer and used Colormunki to calibrate the monitor with the printer. Used the easy method. I have done it several times and every time the prints are noticeably different from the monitor. It is disappointing. What is a blue sky on the monitor is more of a purplish blue on the prints.
When I go into the printer profile list in CS6 in the print menu there's a whole stack of profiles. At the top of the list are 10 Canon IP8750 profiles and if I select any of these I get better results than using Colormunki and creating new profiles for my Canon paper. How can that be?
If I didn't have a Colormunki what profile would I select in the printer profile window or is it a matter of trial and error.
What's killing me is that calibrating properly I get poorer results than not bothering at all.
I read that I'm meant to restore the monitor to factory default settings before calibrating but I'm not doing this. Is that important and if it is can someone tell me how to do it on a HP Touchscreen?
Sorry so many questions but am very disappointed with my calibration efforts. I know the Colormunki is probably the best
Advice would be appreciated
Merv
 
Are you soft proofing before you print. If not it might be worth doing so to see if the soft proof matches the print you are getting. I'd also suggest resetting to factory settings, as this gives the calibration device a "clean sheet" to work with. I can't help with resetting as I don't know the machine.
 
Almost every time this question comes up it's caused by user error as I found out myself a long time ago.

The most noticeable thing about your post is that you didn't say much about the paper e.g. which paper are you using and which paper profile? You also didn't mention what application you're using to print and which print settings you are using.

The only way to almost make sure your printer is accurate is to use one of the manufacturer papers along with it's associated profile in the print preferences. This could also depend on other certain things like your ink cartridges for example. If they're genuine then great, if they're not you will need to profile your papers again. If you're using any other paper type you will need to profile them anyway because your printer won't support them out of the box (the paper may state a rough match but nothing exact).

Can you tell me more about the paper, inks, settings etc. you are using?
 
The colour managed workflow is not always as easy as it first seems and even when everything is done correctly differences will still be visible, a consumer printer is just not capable of matching even a run of the mill monitor.

A few things to check

We assume you are printing from software that can use ICC profiles, Photoshop, Lightroom etc.

Are you telling the software to do the colour management and using the profile you created and not using one already on your system in error.

To the printer, you are using the same settings you used to produce the profile test prints, including telling the print driver to turn off colour management as you printing application is controlling that, otherwise you will get double profiling.

Also as said above use soft proofing this will show how the print will look after the profile has been applied, or have a good go at it.

The colour gamut of the printer will be a lot smaller than you monitor can display.

Double check you settings all the way through the process and then report back
 
Hi Chappers I'm going to sound very stupid but how do I soft proof? Have been trying to find out how to reset the monitor but so far no luck. It's a HP Touchsmart all in one computer. Model 10522UK, Serial no 3CR9100PDL
Connersz, my printer is three days old and I am using Canon semi-gloss satin genuine paper SG 201 I think it is. Now is the paper profile not the one I obtain with the Colormunki and is now in the drop down menu I get in the CS6 print menu. There's a host of profiles here, Fuji, Epson and about 8 Canon ones for my IP8700 series. When I select any one of these 8 Canon ones I get better prints than after using Colormunki! Where do I get the actual profile for that paper I'm using if I don't measure it ? My ink is genuine Canon and I won't use anything else.
I am printing for semi gloss paper, max quality, relative colorimetric, perceptual? Sorry away from home at moment so can't check those terms.

My prints are really good except that Blues eg the sky has a slight purple tinge, but enough to annoy me. I feel if I go to trouble of calibrating I should get near perfect match with the monitor.

I would be much happier if I could figure out how to reset the monitor to factory defaults then I would be doing everything by the book

Hope that info helps you
Merv
 
merv said:
Hi Chappers I'm going to sound very stupid but how do I soft proof? Have been trying to find out how to reset the monitor but so far no luck. It's a HP Touchsmart all in one computer. Model 10522UK, Serial no 3CR9100PDL
Connersz, my printer is three days old and I am using Canon semi-gloss satin genuine paper SG 201 I think it is. Now is the paper profile not the one I obtain with the Colormunki and is now in the drop down menu I get in the CS6 print menu. There's a host of profiles here, Fuji, Epson and about 8 Canon ones for my IP8700 series. When I select any one of these 8 Canon ones I get better prints than after using Colormunki! Where do I get the actual profile for that paper I'm using if I don't measure it ? My ink is genuine Canon and I won't use anything else.
I am printing for semi gloss paper, max quality, relative colorimetric, perceptual? Sorry away from home at moment so can't check those terms.

My prints are really good except that Blues eg the sky has a slight purple tinge, but enough to annoy me. I feel if I go to trouble of calibrating I should get near perfect match with the monitor.

I would be much happier if I could figure out how to reset the monitor to factory defaults then I would be doing everything by the book

Hope that info helps you
Merv
Click to expand...
Don't worry about your factory defaults it won't make much difference unless you have ever dramatically adjusted them.

I think I know what's going on here, it's the Canon papers. I had the same problem when I started using them and noticed they had a lot of added magenta. Simple answer is get some other paper. The permajet ones would be a good choice.

As I'm using Canon printers as well and getting a pretty much perfect match to my monitor, here is my steps when creating profiles of paper (also colormunki photo):

1) Before printing the first colour swatches, choose the correct printer settings...
-Paper type = If Canon it should be listed, if another manufacture they will tell you the closest match for your printer (often inside the paper pack or online).
-Photo Printing
-Quality High
-Colour/Intensity manual adjustment ->Matching - Set to None (Very important!)
2) Save those settings before clicking OK and name it as the paper type then you can be 100% sure you are using the correct settings next time.
3) Print your first swatchines, run the colunki over it etc.
4) For your second swatches go into the printer preferences and select your previously saved settings for the same paper.
5) Print your swatches, do the sliding bit.
6) Save your printer profile

When priting from lightroom click page setup and choose those saved settings from the profiling then and click ok out of those menus. In the print options on the right choose perceptual and select the profile you created and saved in the profiling process. You may need to browse for it in the main list.

Print your image. Note: I often save the show preview option when saving my paper print settings so I can preview it in the Canon manager thing. At this point I usually change the brightness to light because in most cases clients homes wont have the correct intensity of light to view the images properly. This makes a better match.

When profiling your monitor, turn off all of the light sensing stuff and select the average lux level.

As I said before I wouldn't bother with the Canon paper. I never had any luck with it.
 
Phew thanks for that! Away from home till tomorrow so will try again.
I started using my Fotospeed lustre paper which I like and did the calibration thing but didn't like the results. That's why I went and got Canon papers as had read quite a lot of reviews saying best results came with Canon paper.
Will have to hang in here to getthis cracked
merv
 
merv said:
Phew thanks for that! Away from home till tomorrow so will try again.
I started using my Fotospeed lustre paper which I like and did the calibration thing but didn't like the results. That's why I went and got Canon papers as had read quite a lot of reviews saying best results came with Canon paper.
Will have to hang in here to getthis cracked
merv
Click to expand...
They have the best results for people who can't profile their paper because they have been profiled already. You can use almost any paper because of the colormunki but you have to make sure you use the recommended "best match" paper selection, for example I believe Permajet Oyster paper suggests for a Canon pro 100 that you use PPPSG (Canon Photo Paper Plus Semi Gloss). That will get you some way there before profiling them yourself as an additional step.
 
Hi Connersz - that worked a treat! With those settings, probably the MATCHING- NONE one I have got nearly perfect matching between monitor and print using Canon paper.
However, I have a box of 100 Fotospeed Lustre which I didn't want to chuck so ran the whole profiling process again for it. Lo and behold the prints are near as damn it identical to the Canon paper. I'm chuffed. What annoys me about Canon is you can only buy packs of 20 for £10 while I can get a 100 box of Fotospeed for £38. We'll see how it goes and maybe not rush to Canon.
Just noticed your Permajet for 100 is cheaper again at £37. Do you use OYSTER?
Thanks for your help
Merv
 
Chappers meant to ask how do you do this soft proofing?
 
Connersz you say you usually change the brightness to LIGHT. Do you do that when you're editing under Image/brightness-contrast. I find I need to set the brightness to anything between 30 and 50. Does that make sense?
Merv
 
merv said:
Connersz you say you usually change the brightness to LIGHT. Do you do that when you're editing under Image/brightness-contrast. I find I need to set the brightness to anything between 30 and 50. Does that make sense?
Merv
Click to expand...

Glad to hear your'e getting better results. I will address your last few questions...

I never use Canon papers, I use a few different types but it's important to get one where the manufacturer has specific the Canon equivalent to choose when printing that's how you get a closer match. I used permajet as an example because I know they cover most common photo printers but FYI I use Permajet Pearl for some things.

I don't edit the image brightness I change it using the printer driver when printing. When first setting up those saved paper types in the printer properties I check the box "print preview" so that each time I print the print preview window is shown. It varies from printer-to-printer but in there I have the options: light, normal, dark. I choose light as it tends to look better under peoples low power incandescent bulbs at home (I'm selling prints you see).

I don't see much point in soft-proofing. If you have profiled your paper to a non manufacturer paper then it's going to look wrong on your screen (when it won't print that way) because of potentially heavy colour compensation. When it's working and setup as it should then it only really provides you a preview of how much shadow detail you're going to lose through printing. I used to use it when sending photos away to a lab but never touch it now. When you have you're own profiles for your own papers you will be much more confident that they're going to come out of the printer perfect every time.
 
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Thanks Connersz for your time. Actually Permajet Pearl is very good value on Amazon. Cheaper again than Fotospeed for 100 sheets. I feel ripped off by Canon having to buy in 20 packs.
Merv
 
merv said:
how do you do this soft proofing?
Click to expand...

Soft proofing in Photoshop: https://www1.udel.edu/cookbook/scan-print/softproof/sofftproof.pdf (never done it myself so don't know how useful)

In Lightroom it's a button in the develop module :)

My experience is that soft proofing is more about contrast than colour. It allows you to tweak the image for the type of paper (matt vs gloss) usually by adding a bit of contrast (or dehaze if you have LRCC) for more matt type papers.
 
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