Washed out colors with Canon Pro9000 using ICC profiles

I recently bought a brand new Canon Pro9000 printer and have a problem getting acceptable results when using the supplied ICC profiles.

I believe I am doing everything by the book. First I select the correct ICC profile for the printer and the paper I am using in the Aperture print dialog, then I go into Print Setting and set the paper type in the Quality and Media section, as well as matching the print quality to the ICC profile.

The Canon driver I use (10.1.0.0) does not provide the option of explicitly turning off color management in the printer. If a choose a profile from the Aperture printing dialog and then go into "Printer Setting > Color Options" the Color Mode drop down menu is grayed out. After searching trough various discussion forums I can see that some people claim that color management is automatically turned off when selecting a profile, but I have not been able to get a confirmation on this.

The resulting print is quite disappointing, it is very bright and with washed out colors. I have tried quite a few different papers, including semi gloss and photo rag - all original Canon papers (of course using the matching profiles).

Using the default "System Managed" option on the Color Sync drop down menu produces great looking prints that very closely matches what I see on my display. My only take on them is that they are very slightly over saturated.

When I enable on screen proofing with the matching profile, I can see that the picture gets slightly brighter, but way less that what I get on the prints.

I have calibrated my display according to the suggestions from Bagelturf ( http://www.bagelturf.com/files/694c5a88c7241f8f04c7cff33cde8e3e-560.php), which is in line with Apple´s recommendations in the Aperture documentation.

I have read trough discussion on similar problems, both here ("more color nasties" and "Printing problem since upgrading to Aperture 2") and at dpreview, but I have not been able to figure out this problem yet.

System configuration:
- MacBook Pro 2.4GHz
- Leopard 10.5.2
- Aperture 2.1
- Panasonic DMC-L1 camera (shooting RAW)
- Canon Pro9000
- Canon driver 10.1.0.0 (CUPS)


Any suggestions?

Regards,
Thomas

Sorry for posting this under the "Book" forum - mistake from my side
Message was edited by: tembla

MBP 2.4GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Apr 16, 2008 11:01 AM

Reply
9 replies

Apr 23, 2008 1:03 PM in response to ThomasG

Hi,

Setting color option "dark" solved the problem for me. Also as ThomasG pointed out with the fine art papers I get the best result with black point compensation off.

One observation I have done regarding B&W printing on the fine art papers is that it needs some extra gamma. Setting it to 1.1 gives me great results.

Thanks to both of you.

Thomas

Apr 18, 2008 12:51 PM in response to tebonnerud

Hi Thomas,

With my iP8500 I leave it on, so it appears to be specifically the behavior of the Pro9000. I did a little more testing last night as I recently re-calibrated my system, and have another method you can try. Instead of turning off "Black Point Compensation" which can leave photos with lots of shadow detail a bit too dark, open up the "Printer Settings" window and go to the color management options. The only thing you can change here is the brightness setting. Change it from Normal to Dark, leaving BPC turned on. I think you'll be pleased with the results. Good luck!

Apr 29, 2008 5:22 PM in response to Brian Tesoro

Turn black point compensation off or set it to dark, don't do both. Generally I get better results with black point compensation off, and Canon themselves recommend disabling it.

Depending on which paper you're printing to, use the finest setting for your paper, and in the print dialogue box turn the quality setting to the finest setting (far right).

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Washed out colors with Canon Pro9000 using ICC profiles

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.