Aperture/Spyder 3 Studio/Print Color Management

I've got the answer, took 10 minutes from the print forum. Just asked where in the print dialogue to turn off color managment. This is the reply I got:

"Drivers Main tab Color/Intensity area to manual then set Color Correction to none."

Sooo.... In the Aperture print dialogue, which you get by choosing "Print Image", you will see at the very top a drop down that you choose the printer your are using. Just beneath it you will see a "print settings" button. Click it. That get you into the Canon print dialogue (driver). On the main tab, where you see Color/Intensity, there is a "manual" button, which will get you to the Color Correction choice, and you set it to none.

Having done this, you then select your profile from the Colorsync Profiles drop down and print. I'm pretty sure you just haven't turned off the Canon color management.

Hope this helps. Let us know.

By the way, once you have this stuff set up right, save it as a preset so you don't have to enter this stuff every time.

--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}
http://www.dougwigton.com/

on whether it works.

Doug is right, Gary is missing the key step. For some reason, NOTHING in color managed printing is automatic or intuitive.

I use a Canon Pixma Pro 9000, a Canon MP 600, and I still own a Pixma iP 4200. All produce great prints on Canon or Costco's Kirkland paper. (Profiled as PR1). They also work fine on Canon and Kodak paper. (I can even get decent results with Epson paper, but it is not worth the effort.) The secret with third party paper is to either get a good profile or to hope that the manufacturer knows which Canon paper is most similar.

-- On the first print screen, there is a window labled "Print Settings." Click that first.

-- You will get a new screen. There is a drop down window with a million settings. You want two of them:

First :Quality and Media - set to Photo Paper Pro (or whatever you are using) and "Printing a high quality photo."

Next: Color Options. This will produce the screen with sliders, etc. Towards the top is a dropdown labled "Color Correction." This gives you the options of "Driver Managed," "System managed" (I think), and "None." Counterintuitive as it seems, you want "None."

Finally: Click "Done" and you will be returned to the top screen.

-- On the top screen there is another dropdown, usually labled "Colorsync." Click on this and scroll down to the profile you need, in my case, "PR1."

-- Set up the rest as you wish and print.

I have been using this technique for well over a year and it works every time.

Best of luck!
--
DiploStrat ;-)

"The first menu when I choose Print Image is a screen item called colorsync. I can choose to have the system handle the profiling, or I can choose a print profile"

-- This is the dropdown where you should find your printer profiles. You will also find color spaces, and all manner of useless trash. Use only the printer profile.

"I assume that choosing system turns off the print driver profiling, ..."

-- Sadly, that is exactly wrong. You must actively set "Color Correction" to "None."

".. but I have never found a button that just says "OFF"."

-- As noted above, you must drill down from the "Printer Setting" dropdown which is higher up on the screen.

Again, hope this helps. It DOES work.
--
DiploStrat ;-)

Next: Color Options. This will produce the screen with sliders, etc. Towards the top is a dropdown labled "Color Correction." This gives you the options of "Driver Managed," "System managed" (I think), and "None." Counterintuitive as it seems, you want "None.""

I've got the latest driver for my printer and there is no "Color Correction" on the slider page. There is a color mode, which can be selected only when ColorSync Profile is set to "System Managed". It is blanked out if ColorSync is set to a profile. The drop-down menu within "Color Mode" is Standard, Linear Tone and Vivid Photo. The only other menu is the brightness menu mentioned before. (I've already mentioned the color/Intensity, Contrast sliders on this page.). The "Quality and Media" page works as you previously mentioned. So, still no place to turn off the printer's color management. I'll look for the post in Printers.

I appreciate everyone's time. I don't know where to look. I'm going to see if I can find something listed in the printer's documentation.

The printer manual also has this color correction pull-down. The only problem is that it isn't there. I'll have to contact Canon and find out what's up?

Gary,

I'm out of ideas - only got best wishes. I use Tiger and a Pro 9000, you are running Leopard and a Pro 9500. Sounds like the OS/drivers are a bit different.

I would get on the Canon website and be sure that you have the latest driver.

Download their "ICC Profiles" instruction. I noticed a small change the last time I read it. See if it helps.
--
DiploStrat ;-)

Yes, I have been using the latest driver. The program has crashed several times when selecting the color options. I'm guessing that it is a work in progress and someone left out this one submenu. I've got an Email into their driver support team. I'm sure that it is missing because the documentation has a clear screen shot of what this menu should look like and it just isn't there. Thanks for the help.

"thank you for your inquiry. We value you as a Canon customer and
appreciate the opportunity to assist you. I am sorry to hear about the
Pro9500 printer that is given the error message of color management

The Color Management Tool Pro software allows you to minimize
differences in print results by creating a printer specific ICC profile
that matches your printer environment (printer type, paper type, and
print quality setting) and applying that profile to images.
In order to use the Color Management Tool Pro software, you must have a
compatible printer and a compatible color measuring device.

I hope this helps."

SO, I NEED TO THROW AWAY MY NEW SPYDER 3 STUDIO SUITE AND BUY X-RITE EQUIPMENT. This response was totally non-responsive. Rather than turn of the print driver's color management they want me to buy more (duplicate) equipment. Pull out my hair.

Sorry,

The person who wrote this was not a native speaker of English and did not understand your question.

Canon has a stand alone print program and a Photoshop plug in. I have used the stand alone program. It works rather well, but it uses the ICC profile through the printer driver - not the program. You want to engage the profile through Aperture. (I haven't tried the PS plugin as I only have Elements.)

It shouldn't be this hard.

I would suggest posting in the Printers forum, listing the software levels of your OS, Canon driver, etc. I can't believe folks are not printing to the 9500 with Leopard.

--
DiploStrat ;-)

OK,

A little Googleing indicates that, under Leopard, selecting an ICC profile at the application level, does, in fact, turn off printer color management. So this is different from the way things work under Tiger.

There is a lot of chatter about this in Apple and Lightroom discussion fora.

One thing that is recommended is that one delete all old drivers and do a clean install of the latest, followed by a permissions update. Most report that printing is excellent.

I would suggest that you do this and then do a test print on Canon paper using the correct Canon ICC profile. If that works, then your problem is probably with your homebrew profile.

More good luck!
--
DiploStrat ;-)

I don't know how this works with Canon printers, but I can attest that setting a specific Epson paper profile in the Colorsync profile menu, and not turning off color management in printer settings, does not turn it off. You get horrific double profiling resulting in terrible magenta cast.
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}
http://www.dougwigton.com/

"From your description, it sounds as though you may have downloaded or
are using the incorrect driver for your Pro9500. It sounds as though
you are using the CUPS driver. Please go to the Canon web site and
download the following driver version.

Pro9500 Printer Driver Ver. 6.2.3 (Mac OS X)
[pro9500osx623ej7.dmg]"

I installed a 10 series driver, because that is what got installed with my installation CD, so I picked an update to that driver. I'm not at home now, but wrong driver makes lots of sense.

A thread on the 9500. Windows only :-( but some useful notes.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1003&thread=26661265

Best,

--
DiploStrat ;-)

colors are dead on with my Lacie Electron 22blueIV.

I'll take a look at the link..thxs

gary,

did you finally figure out how to set printer color management off in Canon pixma pro9500 printer driver? i am having the same problem. my prints are ok, though a little on darker side, for which i compensate by opening up midtones by a certain amount everytime i print, but i am never sure that i really have off-ed printer color mgmt. once i select "Photoshop manages color" in photoshop's color settings in "Print", color mgmt choices in printer driver dialogue are disabled(greyed-out) for me - although i CAN move the various sliders(!!) - which i dont.

I prefer printing from Aperture. When I print from Ps3 it is dark, so when on the color management pop-up I choose none for color management and I use the lighter, which is at the bottom of the page. Now, I don't know why lighter would have any affect with color management off, but I guess that it isn't controlling the color balance. I set the color management on the main print pop-up to the paper profile that corresponds to the paper used. Aperture has a gamma setting and I usually have it set at 1.15-1.20. My prints have been really nice and so far this printer has been spectacular. I just purchased eleven large frames for 13x19 prints on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Peal. The colors, dynamic range and detail are really first rate.

to confuse maters even more...

I had great color prints using my Canon IP-5200 color profiles (describe in this thread) until I upgraded from Aperture 2.0 to 2.1 with security update on my powerbook g4 1.67 last of the motorola powerbooks. After the 2.1 update i can not print a good color representation of my screen... the system managed choice put out an ok print but no match to screen pic. I think there is a problem with aperture and the section of color profiles in 2.1 but can't get apple to respond to me so am not sure..

that may be causing your problem if you have turned off color management and selected the correct icc (color profile) for your current printer

Hi Gary:

Which driver did you finally end up installing on your Pixma Pro? Is it the pro9500osx623ej7.dmg (even though the Canon website says it's for OS X 10.2.8)?
Or the pro9500osx7140ea8-2.dmg (website says "10.3.9 or higher").

Thank you very much,
-prasad

Gary H said:

"From your description, it sounds as though you may have downloaded or
are using the incorrect driver for your Pro9500. It sounds as though
you are using the CUPS driver. Please go to the Canon web site and
download the following driver version.

Pro9500 Printer Driver Ver. 6.2.3 (Mac OS X)
[pro9500osx623ej7.dmg]"

I installed a 10 series driver, because that is what got installed
with my installation CD, so I picked an update to that driver. I'm
not at home now, but wrong driver makes lots of sense.

Click to expand...

Have both Pro9500 and older IP4000 and Aperture. After reading your questions I checked Aperture's dialog boxes and found that they are different with these printers: IP4000 gives under color options the alternatives BJ standard / Color sync / None but Pro9500 gives the those alternatives you have described: standard / linear / vivid. The problem really is that with Pro9500 you can not select None since there is not that option. Only way to eliminate color mode is to select in color sync profile "system manages". Confusing. That's why I usually print from CS3. If printing from Aperture with Pro9500 I find colors better selecting "system manages" and giving the right type of paper in print setting/quality&media. Hope this helps.