Printer Calabrations ?

Wisey

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Ive recently revived my Canon Pro-1 thanks to Printerknowledge and a few very very clued up guys...

Question is, the printer is working, i use an iMac Pro and have never gone down the route of calibrating my monitor, when i print im letting the pro-1 driver to do its magic with the colour.

If im using Canon's oem carts and Canon's own paper, will the icc's that are included in the driver match what i see on the screen ?

Just recently ive made a couple of prints from the iMac Pro that im not really happy with the colour reproduction..

I know this is a mine field that i have touched on IE colour management, but also fascinating.

So please this is where i need some guidance, i have the camera, Nikon D850, i have the Imac pro, i also have the printer, although its a few years old it works, so do i now invest and be able to calibrate my monitor, calibrate my camera and also calibrate my printer.

I know this is a big jump into the unknown but would it help me produce what im seeing on the monitor through to the final output from the printer.

Many thanks

and a Happy new year to everyone.

Andy
 

The Hat

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I know this is a mine field that i have touched on IE colour management, but also fascinating.
I know this is a big jump into the unknown but would it help me produce what im seeing on the monitor through to the final output from the printer.
Sorry I can’t help you with the colour management mine field your about to step into, I don’t calibrated any of my equipment, because there're all left as is on default, when I shoot a photo I don’t edited and let the printer handle everything, boy does that save heartaches..
 

Wisey

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Sorry I can’t help you with the colour management mine field your about to step into, I don’t calibrated any of my equipment, because there're all left as is on default, when I shoot a photo I don’t edited and let the printer handle everything, boy does that save heartaches..

I Bet, you did tell me a while back if i remember to allow the printer driver do all the work, but what I'm seeing on the monitor isn't what I'm getting out of the printer...

I presume there will be someone on here who is an expert at this sort of thing, i will wait to see if anyone else comes forward.

thanks

Andy
 

Ink stained Fingers

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There are basically 2 different routes you can take - you get familiar to use some instrumentation to measure and adjust the actual color output of your monitor and printer - an entry level package would be the ColorMunki/i1Sutio package by X-Rite - or you go and do manual adjustments to your equipment with the help of some test images.

It's not all that complex as it sometimes appears - there are just some baseline information you should know.
The printer and the monitor don't know of each other - you cannot expect that their color output just matches, you need to do some tuning - calibration - profiling - matching whatever you call it.
The color output, the range of acheivable colors varies very much between a monitor and a printer - a monitor can do much more in this respect.
And keep in mind that the brightness of a monitor is typically higher than the brightness of a print solely depending on ambient light.

So a simple flow would be

- print a test image with Canon inks on Canon paper with the resp. icc-profile activated

- you have an idea how such test image should look in regards to color, contrast

- you use the monitor settings to adjust the image on the monitor to come close to the print in regards to color balance, contrast etc.
- you may be able to save the monitor settings as a preset

- There are lots of test images available on the internet, you may start with these
www.imageplace.co.uk/testfiles/downloads.html
 

palombian

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Since you have Canon paper and ink the method described by @Ink stained Fingers will enable you to get your monitor sufficiently right to start with.
Not lighter than 120 cd/m2 or your prints risk to be too dark.

The most important is to get the correct settings in your printer driver and printing software.
If you go the (advised) way to use printer profiles (the ones installed with the printer in your case, but maybe particular ones later on) watch this:

In the printer settings (Windows):
first tab: paper type and quality
second tab, color/intensity: MANUAL, Set button, then Matching Tab: Color correction: NONE

This way your printer will be controlled by the software you print from.

Depending on the application you will find the place where you can indicate the printer profile to use.
So do NOT select the option to let the printer manage colors, since you will do DOUBLE PROFILING and drive yourself mad.

With the correct settings, paper and ink the test print will be as it should look like, trust Canon at this moment.

This procedure is different from what Canon advises since they want you to stay dependent of their products.
Both ways give good results but do not mix.

Good luck and do not hesitate to ask further questions.
 
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Ink stained Fingers

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@palombian - thanks for clarifying these points - I'm not so close to the iMac environment and the best driver settings in this case.
Once you have done a first run on the monitor settings you may test them with a few more prints of test images like these
www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-test-images/
scroll down a bit to get to the regular color images, the B/W images can help you to to judge as well how your printer with the Canon icc-profiles can handle such images - if you can detect any color cast or shifts in the gray areas .
Or here
www.on-sight.com/downloads/ is a color and a face evaluation image , you may fine tune your settings with such images. Please be aware that these settings may not be the best - in terms of color, contrast, saturation - to edit video clips. You may need some other settings in this case.

Not lighter than 120 cd/m2 or your prints risk to be too dark.
Images on a bright monitor can look great but you should dim your monitor somewhat if you want to get a good match
with your prints - it's the ambient light which illuminates your prints not the monitor.
 

Artur5

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The system suggested by @inkstainedfingers is a clever way of “calibrating by eyesight” a monitor just looking at a ‘perfect’ print. That’s better than nothing but requires a print made with OEM ink using the paper manufacturer’s profile and a reliable source of light with a known and stable color temperature to illuminate the print.

I think that anybody wanting to get really good results should begin with purchasing a colorimeter or a spectro to calibrate properly the monitor. From now on, the screen controls shouldn’t be touched anymore and any obvious discrepancy between screen and paper must be addressed making a custom profile for that paper/ink combination, if your colorimeter is able to calibrate printers. If not, then you must play with the printer driver settings to obtain the best match possible between the image on screen and the printed copy.

When the main use for the monitor will be photo/printing work, the white point of the calibration target has to match the source of light ( D50, D55, D65.. whatever) and it’s preferable to set a brightness of maximum 80-100 cd.
 

Andreas S

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Hello Andy,
You have good hardware (specialy your Nikon), please don't mess up your equipment by working without a straigt calibration of your working process.
The iMac screens are not bad but nowadays the monitor calibration "by eye" is not possible in a correct way as Apple changed the settings in the preference panel.
The best way would be to buy a spectrophotometer to do monitor calibration as well as printer calibration and caracterization. If possible create printer icc profiles which contains calibration AND characterization step. By this you wont have to do the whole thing again when your printer is losing stability.
Depending if you need CMYK or RVB printer profile you will have to face an investment of €1700 - €1900 for a good eqipment.

Another way is to look out for a displayPro just for monitor calibration and let do the printer calibration by a professionel. But this way you have to pay the guy for each paper and if you encounters a problem saturday evening it will be difficult to resolve it by creating or mod the profile…

Regards,
Andreas


Edit:
 

Nifty

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Wow, this is turning into a fantastic thread! It's now featured on the homepage!!!
 

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