i560 Unbalanced colours

[gm10]

Hi all,

When I printed out a jpeg photo on my brandnew i560, i got colours way out of balance. You can see at http://clients.teksavvy.com/~gm10/ the original photo and a scanned printout. Lots of unwelcome blue in the print out. I tried to use printer's software with no effect at all.
What can I do about it?

Thanks in advance for the help,

gm

 

[Grandad35]

gm,

I assume that you are using Canon's Easy Photo Print software - this software ignores all color adjustments that you make in the printer driver, so that may be why your adjustments didn't have any effect.

It is difficult to say much about your print, as it is a small image saved at a high compression level and the jpeg artifacts overshadow any detail when looking at details. All of the colors seem to be there, but the yellow is especially muddy and the black is light. Was this printed on photo paper using photo paper settings? Was the paper printed on the proper side? It almost looks like what happens when printing on the back side of photo paper. Could you re-post a scan at a higher dpi and less jpeg compression? Since you have your own site, you can post a larger .tif version if your scanner supports this.

 

[gm10]

>I assume that you are using Canon's Easy Photo Print software - this software ignores
>all color adjustments that you make in the printer driver, so that may be why your adjustments
>didn't have any effect.

Thanks a lot for the hint. I was actually using Irfanview for printouts, but I went to printer properties, disabled all the enchancements and automatic features. After that I adjusted cyan to -46. You can see the result at http://clients.teksavvy.com/~gm10/. It's not exact colour yet, but at least it is not toxic blue anymore.

>Was this printed on photo paper using photo paper settings?

No, that was not photo paper. I am planning to print flyers, so I chose paper that claims to be OK for ink jets, but no claims beyond that. JPEG to TIFF did not change much. The picture was printed on the wrong side {my ignorance}, but the side change alone did not bring any improvements.
That was disabling "smart" features and drastic decrease of cyan in the balance that gave me the result. Thanks again for the hint.

By now I have already wasted several days, and may waste many more fighting unpredictable printer's features. It has already cost me way more than the price of a printer.Here's my question, should I just dump this printer and buy something of better quality?

Thanks in advance for th help.

gm

 

[Grandad35]

I looked at your modified image and everything looks normal - all colors are printing and there is no sign of banding.

Try printing on photo paper with the all adjustments set to their defaults (there are normally a few sheets of photo paper shipped with a photo printer). I'll wager that your colors now look much better.

The color profiles shipped with the printers are designed to give good colors on photo paper. When I print on plain paper, my colors are also way off, and I suspect that you will have the same problem with any printer that you try. Consider that regular paper is absorbant and that any ink that is absorbed deep into the paper fibers will not be seen on the surface, and this will vary on different papers. The only thing that is necessary for a paper to be suitable for inkjets is that the ink must not remain on the surface where it can pool or smudge, so the fact that the paper is rated for inkjets doesn't mean very much. I have not experimented with this, but I suspect that there are some papers that will give much better colors than others - perhaps others can suggest a better paper or set of printer settings.

 

[gm10]

Thanks for sharing secrets of the trade.

gm

 

[fotofreek]

Granddad is on target with his description of printing on plain paper. The usual general purpose paper sold in reams and cases may say that it is suitable for copiers, laser, and inkjet printers. Your images will improve substantially just stepping up to the coated inkjet matte papers. They have a clay-based coating that prevents the ink from soaking into the paper fibers. There are some that are slightly heavier than the general purpose paper. One I bought some years ago was Kodak Matte photo letter paper, suitable for brochures and catalog pages. I use Epson double side matte paper for greeting cards. It is coated on both sides and prints with a reasonably good image. There is a great range of papers with glossy, satin, and matte surfaces.