Everything is printing dark when printing to Canon iP6000D on Win machine

Question

Level 1

4 points

Everything is printing dark when printing to Canon iP6000D on Win machine

As the title says, everything is printing dark when printing to a networked Canon iP6000D connected to a windows machine. Printing an identical picture directly from windows machine yields the correct color.

I'm using the Canon PIXMA iP6000D Gutenprint v5.2.3 driver in OSX 10.6.4.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 27, 2010 7:24 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jul 27, 2010 10:49 PM in response to acribb

That sounds like a problem with the difference in gamma between Macs and PCs. It is something Colorsync deals with, but I do not know the details.

Reply

Answer 2

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Jul 28, 2010 5:23 AM in response to acribb

Just tested to my sons iP6000D connected via USB to Windows XP SP3. I am using v5.2.5 of Gutenprint and the output is good for jpegs from Preview and a print from iPhoto. What application are you noticing the dark output with?

Reply

Answer 3

acribb Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 28, 2010 5:58 AM in response to PAHU

First off, as the other reply indicated above, the whites seem white, but the colors are all off and dark like the gamma is off.

I took a photo from Aperture 3 and printed it from within the Aperture program and it was dark.

I then took that same photo and copied it into a Word 2008 document and printed that. Same result.

Next, I took that photo and put it on my Windows 7 machine that is directly connected to the Canon iP6000D. It printed with the correct color here.

Message was edited by: acribb

Reply

Answer 4

acribb Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 28, 2010 8:49 AM in response to acribb

I just spoke to another new Mac user and he said that everything he prints is also dark with the colors off. He is connecting his printer directly via USB.

Seems like this is a somewhat common issue perhaps? Any suggestions on how to get normal colored printing working?

Reply

Answer 5

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Jul 28, 2010 2:54 PM in response to acribb

I don't believe that what you and the other user are experiencing is a common issue. I think that you need to be aware of the interplay between the driver, the Mac colour management system and the application.

When the iP6000D is connected directly to the Mac, then the Canon created driver will be used. This same driver cannot be used when the printer is being shared by Windows. In this setup the Gutenprint driver has to be used.

The Canon and Gutenprint drivers behave differently when it comes to colour management and have different settings. The Canon driver typically uses its own matching system while the Gutenprint driver uses ColorSync by default. Personally I only have experience with the Canon driver as none of my printers are being shared by Windows. I suggest you look at connecting the printer to the Mac via USB temporarily so that you can use the following info to achieve a good result.

With the Canon driver, the colour profiles are related to the paper stock selected. You can see the gamut of the respective paper profiles in ColorSync > Profiles. To achieve an optimal output you need to set the application so that the printer driver manages the colour. Then via the ColorSync menu you ensure the option is set to Canon Color Matching. The last step is to change to the Quality and Media menu and choose the correct media type and the print quality. Note that you will never get a good photo if you are printing on plain paper. The printers are profiled to give the best output with photo paper.

Do you get a lighter print when using the process above?

Reply

Answer 6

acribb Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 28, 2010 5:41 PM in response to PAHU

Thanks for the response.

I went ahead and deleted all the folders in Library/Printers, since I only want one Canon driver and not all the other bloat.

I then downloaded Gutenprint 5.2.6-rc1 and installed those drivers.

I then installed the Canon Gutenprint iP6000D 5.2.6-rc1 printer.

Same result. Anything printed has a slight monochroming effect to skin tones, kind of like a light sepia filter being applied to everything. I tested printing a web page in Safari as well as a photo in Aperture, and the results are the same, regardless of which Color Profile I choose. I tried Color Profiles of 'Printer Managed', 'Photoshop 5 CMYK', and 'Generic CMYK' and as far as I can tell, changing the Color Profiles makes no difference in the print.

I'd rather not unhook the printer from the PC, as I'd like to be able to print to this Windows 7 attached printer. Certainly there has to be a way to use the Canon 'OEM' driver to print to this networked printer? I am really frustrated over this whole situation. I thought Macs were supposed to 'just work'. Even printing from a $200 cheap netbook yields excellent printing results. I don't understand why this is so difficult. At present, I don't dare try to print any type of photo from my brand new top-of-the-line $2500 Macbook Pro. Ridiculous!

Thanks for any help you can offer on resolving this increasingly frustrating issue.

Reply

Answer 7

Jul 28, 2010 7:09 PM in response to acribb

You might report this as an issue at the Gutenprint site. If this is a problem with a number of printers, printing from a computer with one gamma to a printer on another, it may be something that could be fixed all at once.

Reply

Answer 8

acribb Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 28, 2010 7:22 PM in response to Bruce De Benedictis

I don't understand why I even have to use 'Gutenprint' drivers. Why isn't there a Canon OEM driver that I can use to print to my networked Canon iP6000D? On Windows machines, I can print without this complicated issue when printing to this networked printer from any other Windows machine.

Reply

Answer 9

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Jul 28, 2010 10:08 PM in response to acribb

acribb wrote:
I don't understand why I even have to use 'Gutenprint' drivers. Why isn't there a Canon OEM driver that I can use to print to my networked Canon iP6000D?

As I said previously, the Canon driver has not been designed to work when connected to a Windows share. This is when you need to use either the Gutenprint driver or the PrintFab driver, which are the OEM drivers. Since Gutenprint is free it is the preferred choice as PrintFab costs €49. But PrintFab does a much better job with colour management so it may be worth you downloading the 30 day free trial and testing it at least.

On Windows machines, I can print without this complicated issue when printing to this networked printer from any other Windows machine.

If you were printing from Mac to Mac you wouldn't have an issue either. It's when you mix operating systems that you can encounter these types of issues...

Reply

Answer 10

acribb Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 29, 2010 8:06 AM in response to PAHU

Thanks for the tips.

I was able to get a better color by switching to CMYK under the 'Color Model' option.

In this manner, at least regular printing on paper looks good.

Printing photos on Canon Photo Paper Pro is a whole other story. With the Gutenprint driver, you can't print borderless, and the best quality (600 dpi x 600dpi) yields horrible results. I initially thought my printer heads were clogged, because I could see faint lines from the print head all over the picture. Plus the resolution was not good either, as I could see black dots through the whole picture. I cleaned the heads several time and retried the print. Same result. Then I printed the same picture from my Windows 7 machine, where the driver was auto-installed, and the print came out just gorgeous. Whew! Thought my printer was broken.

So at this time, it looks like the only options for decent photo printing is to send the picture over to the Windows 7 machine and print from there.

I wish there was some way to trick my Macbook into thinking that my networked printer was connected via USB so I could print using the Canon driver.

Thanks for the responses, PAH.

Reply

Answer 11

Jul 29, 2010 9:24 AM in response to acribb

This is not a true network printer; it is a printer on your network. Your problems come from the host, not the printer. You might look into a dedicated print server that will allow the native drivers on both the Windows and Mac side to work, but the ideal way to connect more than one computer to a printer on the network is to have a printer with built-in networking.

Reply

Answer 12

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Jul 29, 2010 2:41 PM in response to Bruce De Benedictis

The problem with some external print servers is that you still cannot use the Canon driver. About the only device that works as a print server is the Airport Express. If your distances between both printers is not that far then you can use a USB hub and have both the PC and Mac connecting via USB. This will then allow you to use the Canon driver which works much better for colour matching than the Gutenprint in my opinion. If your distance is too far between both computers then the Express is a good option. Although as Bruce said, your best option may be a new printer with built-in networking. The prices these days are equivalent to the Express and with the age of the 6000D it may be worth considering...

Reply

Answer 13

acribb Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 29, 2010 3:13 PM in response to PAHU

Thanks for the help everyone. I am able to print low quality just fine with the Gutenprint driver. Any high quality one-off photos, I will just move to the Windows 7 machine and print from there. This workflow will work fine until we buy the 27" iMac!!

Reply