Canon Pro9000 ll colour shift noticeable in greys

[rodbam]

Emu, the 45mm borders are mandatory on all the Fine Art papers, it won't let us set anything smaller in colour or B&W. One work around when using fine art paper is to choose the Matte photo paper as the media. This is a silly restriction even though most photographers prefer this size of border on their fine art prints. Thanks for the link to the Print Pro tutorial I haven't seen that before.
Dave now you are using the IS inks why don't you print off a load of shots on cheap paper as the ink is very cheap & this will show if your problem has gone away.

 

[DSchell]

Having been provoked into action, I printed both photos, the blue poppy and the MatrixLarge from NorthLight Images.
You're right, refill ink is cheap, but photo paper is not, so I restricted my test print to 4 X 6.

I'm sorry to say that the defects are back; the blue poppy is quite magenta toned; the test image B&W is in shades of brown.

Does anyone have a good idea which ink cartridge I should swap out to Canon ink in order to solve the question of bad ink?
Keeping in mind, I guess, that the problem could be excessive magenta or a deficiency of cyan.

Dave S.

P.S. When I print to plain paper, with standard quality, there is no colour shift.
This leads to thinking of driver issues, but I thought I'd pretty much tried all of the colour balance features in various photo editors.

These last 2 prints were from Corel Paint Shop Pro X3, but I can also use Paint Shop Pro X, PhotoShop Elements 8 - with or without the plugins from Canon for EasyPrint Pro.

 

[stratman]

I'm sorry to say that the defects are back; the blue poppy is quite magenta toned; the test image B&W is in shades of brown.

P.S. When I print to plain paper, with standard quality, there is no colour shift.

1) Do you use a custom made ICC Printer Profile for printing the images on photo paper? Put another way, what ICC printer profile are you using?

2) Have you tried other photo papers? If so, what were the result in comparison?

3) If I understand your posts, the problem resolved after you flushed the print head and installed the OEM Canon cartridges?

4) There may be residual ink in the print head when you swap out a cartridge. Start with all OEM Canon cartridges installed and make sure you are printing proper colors first. Then begin the process of swapping one cartridge at a time with the Octoink-filled cartridges, testing several prints with that Octoink cartridge installed to see if it causes a color shift. Keep replacing cartridges and making several prints until you hit on the cartridge causing the issue. Hopefully it is just one cartridge. You will use photo paper which costs money. Bite the bullet and do the testing. Otherwise, you could alternatively drain and flush the cartridges and refill with proper ink and try testing that way.

5) If you are using a custom ICC printer Profile, maybe it is corrupt. Same with the OEM ICC Printer Profiles that came with the printer. Consider reinstalling the printer and it's profiles. This is doubtful your issue since you said the OEM Canon cartridges resulted in good color results.

6) Make sure you have not set a control to something weird. In other words, if you are using default printer profiles, make sure all controls are set to default for your testing. The Octoinks should perform well enough at default printer settings. Make sure you are using the proper paper setting as well.

 

[DSchell]

1) Do you use a custom made ICC Printer Profile for printing the images on photo paper? Put another way, what ICC printer profile are you using?

2) Have you tried other photo papers? If so, what were the result in comparison?

When I use Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy PP-105, of which I have quite a few 4 X 6, I can't find a profile for that one.
But I have tried Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss, and Classic Pearl, for which I have and use the downloaded profiles, and Red River Polar Pearl Metallic, Arctic Polar Luster, and Actic Polar Gloss, for which I hand and use the downloaded profiles.

The first paper where I observed the problem was RR Polar Pearl Metallic.
After that I only used Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy, until I changed the cartridges.
After that I had success with Canon and Ilford.

3) If I understand your posts, the problem resolved after you flushed the print head and installed the OEM Canon cartridges?

Yes, that is correct.

4) There may be residual ink in the print head when you swap out a cartridge. Start with all OEM Canon cartridges installed and make sure you are printing proper colors first. Then begin the process of swapping one cartridge at a time with the Octoink-filled cartridges, testing several prints with that Octoink cartridge installed to see if it causes a color shift. Keep replacing cartridges and making several prints until you hit on the cartridge causing the issue. Hopefully it is just one cartridge. You will use photo paper which costs money. Bite the bullet and do the testing. Otherwise, you could alternatively drain and flush the cartridges and refill with proper ink and try testing that way.

I wish there was a reliable way to know when the previous ink is all gone and the new ink is in use.
I'm thinking I'll do a deep cleaning between prints.

5) If you are using a custom ICC printer Profile, maybe it is corrupt. Same with the OEM ICC Printer Profiles that came with the printer. Consider reinstalling the printer and it's profiles. This is doubtful your issue since you said the OEM Canon cartridges resulted in good color results.

6) Make sure you have not set a control to something weird. In other words, if you are using default printer profiles, make sure all controls are set to default for your testing. The Octoinks should perform well enough at default printer settings. Make sure you are using the proper paper setting as well.

I don't have profiling equipment, so it won't be my profile that is corrupt. And the fact that I get consistent results with different papers (and therefore different profiles) tells me I can't blame the profiles. But I do have a second computer (laptop, running Win7, accesses same printer over home network) which I can try for some of the prints.

Dave S.

 

[Emulator]

Hi DSchell

Welcome to the forum, I joined for exactly the same problem! It really is an excellent source of information, with some very good natured characters contributing.

You have to watch some of them, or your problem post will be hijacked!!

Rodbam can be very provocative, if he is in a good mood!

Since my last post on the subject, I have revised my view of the cause of the colour shift, from change of paper media setting, to some cleaning activity that I carried out at the same time. It is a mistake to change two things at the same time, when you are looking for a source of a problem.

I am still using plain paper media setting by choice for better ink distribution on the heavy weight resin coated paper I am using, with the profile I produced for it.

However, it will be a good opportunity to test the 'cure'?? Try removing the Lt Cyan cartridge and using a torch, examining the top of the small ceramic filter, which comes into contact with the cartridge outlet pad. Is it partially coated with congealed ink? Mine was, and I cleaned it by dabbing it with a cotton bud soaked in the equivalent of Windex and then pooled some of the cleaner on the filter for a minute or two. I then did the same thing with the Cyan cartridge. After that, the colour shift after 3 cm, disappeared.

I am cautiously optimistic that this has solved the problem. It seems that there is a small reservoir of ink in the space between the small ceramic filter and the lower part of the printhead, which refills when the printhead is inactive between prints. But then with use, the ink flow becomes restricted by the partially coated filter.

I will be very interested to see your results.

Regards

Ian

 

[rodbam]

Who me

 

[PeterBJ]

Hi Emulator

Congratulations on solving the printer problem, good detective work

 

[Emulator]

Hi Peter

Thanks for the comment, but I think we will have to show it is repeatable. I hope we hear from DSchell.

His circumstances appear to be almost identical to mine, only a couple of refills and probably Lt Cyan.

It then raises many other obvious questions.

I did the cleaning with the cotton bud and Lidl W5 Window and Glass Cleaner*, more out of desperation than a visible problem. Very little to be seen on the small ceramic filter top, but it did look quite a bit cleaner afterwards.

* (thank you The Hat, has this cleaner got something other cleaners have not??!! I could not find an MSDS. Incidentally, regarding my earlier comments re Lidl, I ended up buying Wild Bird Peanuts, Peppermint Tea, Hygenic Wipes, Limescale Remover as well as the Glass Cleaner, thanks partly to my wife.)

Regards

Ian

 

[DSchell]

Hi Peter

Thanks for the comment, but I think we will have to show it is repeatable. I hope we hear from DSchell.

His circumstances appear to be almost identical to mine, only a couple of refills and probably Lt Cyan.

It then raises many other obvious questions.

I did the cleaning with the cotton bud and Lidl W5 Window and Glass Cleaner*, more out of desperation than a visible problem. Very little to be seen on the small ceramic filter top, but it did look quite a bit cleaner afterwards.

* (thank you The Hat, has this cleaner got something other cleaners have not??!! I could not find an MSDS. Incidentally, regarding my earlier comments re Lidl, I ended up buying Wild Bird Peanuts, Peppermint Tea, Hygenic Wipes, Limescale Remover as well as the Glass Cleaner, thanks partly to my wife.)

Regards

Ian

I will be reporting back. Sorry for the delay. It seems I have too many other activities , so I don't get to printing photos very often.

Dave S.

 

[DSchell]

Progress!

Today I needed to print some photos of a birthday party.

Attempt 1: using all OctoInkJet ink, blue wall is quite faint, flesh tones way too red
Attempt 2: change Cyan to Canon ink cartridge, do deep cleaning group 2, result deeper blue, still overly rosy flesh tones
Attempt 3: change PC to Canon ink, do deep cleaning group 1. Result: no change from attempt 2.
Attempt 4. change M to Canon ink, do deep cleaning group 2. Result: much deeper blue wall, now just like monitor image, still overly rosy flesh tones.
Attempt 5: change PM to Canon ink, do deep cleaning group 1. Result: no change from attempt 4.

At this point, I am doubting my image, taken inside a restaurant. So I change image to MatrixLarge.
Attempt 6: B&W images are indeed B&W with no brown tinting.

It feels like I'm a dog chasing it's tail. At what point did the colour become correct?
I still don't know which cartridge is suspect.

Attempts 7 and 8: Reduce saturation of birthday shot, and achieve some semblance of success for that one.

The blue walls did not become like the monitor image until I had changed C, PC, and M.
Do we now conclude that M was the culprit?

Dave S.