Pixma Pro 100 prints are too dark

Vernon D Rainwater wrote:

coder01 wrote:

TomHJ wrote:

1) Without monitor calibration, what you think of as turning the brightness down may not be sufficient. Monitor brightness for photo printing is a lot less than you might be used to! Are your results different from a prior printer?

2) I may be wrong, but it sounds as though you aren't using printer/paper-specific ICC profiles. To do so, have Photoshop control the color management, with the correct ICC profile (your printer comes with ones for Canon papers; most third-party papers provide ones that are specific to your printer). Then--equally important!--in your Pro-100 properties, turn off color management (via Main--Color Intensity--Manual--Matching--None).

I have the Pixma Pro 100, and my prints are, consistently, very close to what I expect them to be, based on the monitor (with or without "soft proofing"). I use Lightroom, but believe the Photoshop adjustments should be essentially the same.

Tom,

Thanks for the suggestions.

Actually I am printing on Red River paper thus far and I use all of their corresponding ICC profiles. I have been very careful with that, to choose the correct ones.

I "think" the printer control is shut off. I followed directions whereby when I go to print I check the color settings (on a mac) and they are all gray , i.e. no changes allowed) which supposedly indicates that the printer controls are disabled.

I have not actually gone into the Pro-100 properties and turned off the color management as my understanding is photoshop elements is turning it off with the steps I follow. However, I may be wrong with that and will try that step next time I print.

What confuses me however is on test prints where I allow photoshop to adjust the photo to what it thinks is ideal and then it is controlling the printing, shouldnt the picture look fine ? Photoshops automatic controls are not dependent on what the monitor is showing are they ?

My last printer was by no means a photo printer so I have nothing to compare. This is my first venture into printing large images myself. Perhaps I will have to cave and purchase a calibration device. I am trying to avoid that.

Being certain that you are not double profiling, using (RR) Red River Papers with matching Profiles should produce excellent images. I have had (not even one issue) by following this method. Most of my RR printing is using 17x25 Polar Matte on the 3880 with excellent results.

I have two of their sample paper packs but have not finished testing with each type in the packs.

I am betting on Double Profiling!