Printing Adobe RGB with IP4300

[darthkir]

Hi,

I noticed that during installation of my printer driver, there is an option to install something that will allow printing Adobe RGB images. Is this true? I mean, AFAIK inkjet can only print in SRGB. Can someone verify this?

Thanks.

 

[Grandad35]

You can print from any (RGB) color space, but the colors won't be correct.

The "recommended" way to print with color management (used by Photoshop and Qimage) is to convert the image from whatever color space it is in (there are many more than just sRGB and aRGB) to a reference color space (e.g. CIELab), then to convert it again to the target printer's color space. The color management in the printer's driver is turned off and the image is sent directly to the printer. The advantage of this approach is that a single printer profile can handle an image in any color space with no additional effort on the part of the user.

It is also possible to create a specific profile to make a conversion from any specific color space directly to the printer (with the printer driver to making the conversion), but this requires a separate profile for each initial color space, ink and paper combination. Canon may be including a separate set of built-in profiles (they already supply 3 or 4 for sRGB images printed on various Canon papers) to handle aRGB images. The color space of an image is built into the EXIF data, so the driver can automatically detect an aRGB image, as long as the EXIF data wasn't stripped off. It is a good sign that they are paying attention to their customers' needs, since printing an aRGB image in a sRGB color space results in a slightly washed out image.

I have no experience with this installation option, but it makes sense.

 

[darthkir]

Thanks for the xplaination.

Can u point me to any reference on the recommended way of printing in both PS and Qimage? I havent used Qimage before but I would love to try it out.

 

[Grandad35]

This link tells how to print with PS and Qimage when you have custom printer profiles. If you are only using Canon's canned profiles, a program like Canon's EZ Photo Print might be your best choice. You can. of course, use either PS or Qimage to print with Canon's profiles, but there is no color advantage to doing this.

 

[darthkir]

Thank you.

Is there anyway to profile my printer without using any dedicated software or hardware?

What software/hardware you normally used to do this?

 

[Grandad35]

Is there anyway to profile my printer without using any dedicated software or hardware?

The short answer is no. There are a number of threads dealing with this subject - they can be found by entering "color AND management" (without the quotes) in the search box. For a smaller list, enter "color AND management AND fraser".

Spend some time learning about color management - here are a few good links to get you started:
http://www.normankoren.com/color_management.html
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_management.htm

Unless your monitor is calibrated or your images are from a calibrated source (except for a few very special circumstances, cameras are NOT calibrated sources), you will have to buy a hardware calibration device for your monitor. Here is one of several commonly used monitor calibration devices (http://www.amazon.com/Gretag-Macbet...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1183115569&sr=8-1). Software based monitor calibration solutions have been around for a long time, but they do not give satisfactory results - Adobe no longer even supports its "Adobe Gamma" solution.

What software/hardware you normally used to do this?

Most pros use spectrophotometer based solutions, but many people also use a scanner based solution and report acceptable results. When getting started, it is far easier and less expensive to buy a few custom profiles (e.g. http://www.cathysprofiles.com/).

 

[darthkir]

Appreciate the response. Thank you!