Printer Profile and Color Management Question on Target Printing

Started Dec 30, 2009 | Discussions thread
dmiller62 Contributing Member • Posts: 665
Re: Printer Profile and Color Management Question on Target Printing

bobkeenan wrote:

I just got my Spyder3Print updated with the SR software to calibrate my Canon MX860 on a Mac OS X system. I am using 3rd party paper (Kirkland) and 3rd party ink (uni-kit). There are no existing .icc profiles out there for this combo. I have been using canons "GL2/GL3" profile which does not give me, as expected, a good color match.

When the program asks to print the target it says to make sure the "color management is off".

I cannot find an "off" selection. In the "color mode" portion of the dialog box I do get to choose between "colorsync" and "canon color matching"???

I was guessing colorsync and then I have to pick a printer/paper/ink .icc profile. Not sure what to use for this first target print.

Not sure if that choice represents color managment off?

Bob,

I just answered your question in our support ticket system, but for the benefit of everyone here, I'll post the complete solution "here" on DPReview as well. This applies to ALL Canon printers drivers running under both Leopard and Snow Leopard and it's the correct "solution" to get them to print without color management (a critical, unavoidable requirement for building custom printer profiles with any 3rd party printer profiling solution).

  • Make sure you're running OSX 10.6.2 or whatever the latest is. There have also been some Canon driver updates that will show up in System Preferences:Software Update, so make sure you've got nothing left to apply as an update. Another way to make sure you have the latest Canon driver installed: go to Print & Fax, select your current Canon driver, and click on Options and Supplies... to see what version it is. (It should be 10.26.0.0 or later, and here's the Apple list of latest drivers for all printers):

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669

If you don't have the most recent driver, then click "-" to remove the older Canon driver from the list. Then, with the printer attached and powered on, click "+", and add back the driver for it (this should download and install the latest version for you).

  • Now: when you PRINT and want to turn off color management in Spyder3Print, THIS is the way to do it:

  • In the Color Matching pane of the driver, select ColorSync (not Vendor Matching, or Canon Color Matching!)

  • In the popup beneath that, you'll see "Automatic"; a list of all the Canon standard profiles; and a command to choose from other profiles. Use that last command to see a list of all profiles on your system.

  • Select "Generic RGB" from the list. (this is the key). Then say OK and you'll see that "Generic RGB" shows beneath the ColorSync radio button in the Color Matching pane. This is the secret to disabling color management with the Canon drivers in Snow Leopard (and it also works in Leopard, as well, although in that case, a warning gets displayed underneath "Generic RGB", which can be ignored)

  • Select the paper type, output quality, resolution, etc. as usual and print the target sheet. (Just leave the Color Options pane alone)

  • NOW you should get a properly dark (non-color-managed) target print. Measure this and build a profile.

  • Printing with "No Color Management" from Photoshop actually works the same way. It invisibly pushes through "Generic RGB" or an equivalent when you choose "No Color Management" in its Print dialog, This is why, in the Color Matching pane of the driver, ColorSync subsequently comes up auto-selected and also disabled; Photoshop has done the same thing I just described "under the hood" and as a result, that choice in the driver gets "locked".

  • When printing through the profile in Photoshop: do it the usual way. (Photoshop Manages Colors, choose the profile, Saturation intent, etc etc etc). It should work fine.

  • When doing a test print from inside Spyder3Print: since Spyder3Print applies the profile internally to the image data before it's sent to the driver, you should set the driver up exactly the same as when you printed the target image (as I've described above), so this would be ColorSync:Generic RGB in the Color Matching pane.

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David Miller
Senior Software Developer, Digital Color Solutions
Datacolor

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