Simple issue. Help, please.

[Bernie_Yomtov@adobeforums.com]

All my prints have a strong magenta cast. This appears on the preview as well as the final print, so it's not a printer issue. No doubt I have some incorrect setting, but I sure can't figure out what. Any ideas?

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Bernie,

Your monitor profile is corrupted. You need to recalibrate, starting with a fresh canned profile, not your current damaged one, and save the new profile.

Check out this link and follow the instructions therein to the letter:

<http://www.gballard.net/nca.html>

Incidentally, your problem is in the FAQs of this forum:

Mark Hiers "Colors in Photoshop all wrong but OK in other apps. (Was "Whites appear yellow.")" 9/16/03 8:54am </cgi-bin/webx?50@@.eea0088>

[Bernie_Yomtov@adobeforums.com]

Ramon,

Thanks, but that didn't help. I think my message was unclear. The color looks fine on the screen. The problem arises when I try to print. Whether I actually print or use the "preview" button in the print dialog, I get a magenta image. By the way, I'm working on a Mac G4 with OS 10.3.3, Photoshop 7, if that helps.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Bernie,

Did you recalibrate anyway? It could still be the monitor profile at fault. Photoshop uses the data from the monitor profile to do the color conversion (in the background).

Have you run a nozzle check?

What printer are you using? What paper? Which profile?

Have you updated to Photoshop7.0.1?

Are you sure you don't have the wrong conversion engine selected? Choose Adobe's.

In Proof View make sure you have the right profile selected and Simulate Paper White and Black Point Compensation selected. Make sure Preserve Color Numbers is NOT checked.

Remember to set Relative or Perceptual (not Absolute) colorimetric intent.

Are you sure you're not applying color correction twice? It should be OFF on your printer's driver options.

Read the whole of G Ballard's site, without missing anything. (Link in post #1 above.)

[Bernie_Yomtov@adobeforums.com]

Ramon,

Thanks again. I did recalibrate and checked the various items you mention, though I'm not sure how to get to the printer driver's options. I do specify "No Color Controls" in the print dialogue, if that's what you mean.

Let me clarify further. When I "View proof colors" it looks fine. It is only when I actually use the print dialogue that the problem arises. It arises whether I produce physical print or I "preview," which uses Apple's Preview software to show the image. I don't see how this can have anything to do with a clogged nozzle, though I did check and clean the nozzles. My printer is an Epson 2200, and I'm using Epson's Premium Glossy paper.

I'll go back and look at Ballard's site some more.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Bernie,

OK, that leads me to keep suspecting your monitor profile. Apple's Preview is not color managed, as far as I know. Photoshop is. Check out G Ballard's site to understand how the monitor profiles consists of two "parts", and how Photoshop uses both of them.

If you use Print with Preview, the image shown there is only for placement purposes, it's not color managed at all.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Either your monitor profile is damaged, or your Color Settings, Color Conversion Engine settings and Color Management settings are off. If you follow G Ballard's instructions from the beginning, step by step, without any deviations whatsoever, you should be getting fine prints.

I have the same printer, Epson 2200, and I follow that method. My prints are dead on.

[jonf@adobeforums.com]

Are you working in some other mode than cmyk? At least that might explain why there's a shift only when you go to print the file. If you're working in rgb and try to print it's going to convert the image to the cmyk inks available on your printer, and depending on the image(s) some colors won't look the same no matter how calibrated your equipment is. Try manually converting to cmyk and see if you notice the same color shift.

[barry_gray@adobeforums.com]

jonf,
Bad idea, converting to cmyk will only make matters worse because the printer driver uses rgb then converts to cmyk. If you do it your way the diver will convert to rgb then back to cmyk-an extra conversion (actually 2 extras, yours and the drivers) will only corrupt the colors even more.
My 2200 prints dead on, as well, with rgb. Follow Gary Ballards site and you won't have any problems.

[jonf@adobeforums.com]

I'm assuming from your response that the Gary Ballard method is supposed to be converting your monitor's RGB display to emulate the cmyk output available on your printer? So when in RGB mode, no colors would be displayed that can't be printed on your local cmyk printer? That sounds wrong to me.

I disagree that it's "wrong" to use cmyk mode if your final output is going to be cmyk. No matter what your driver is doing with the file, you can't see something correctly approaching cmyk output if you're working in rgb mode. If there's a color shift in the conversion to cmyk, no matter when or where it takes place, he'll know it sooner if he's seeing the image on his monitor in something that's at least intended to show what cmyk output will look like. He doesn't need to work in cmyk mode. But I'm clinging to my belief that a switch to cmyk mode -- even if only temporary -- might give him some idea of what his image will look like on a cmyk device.

I'm not saying this is his problem. He may not even be working in rgb mode. I'm just saying that cmyk inks will not print colors exactly as you see them in rbg mode.

[barry_gray@adobeforums.com]

That's what the "soft proof" is for-view, edit your rgb image in soft proof>custom and select the color profile for your paper.
Do not convert to cmyk, let the driver do it.

[Allen_Wicks@adobeforums.com]

Yes, make sure you are in RGB mode. CMYK mode and/or bad profiling classically creates magenta anomalies with the SP2200.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

That was awful advice, Jonf. Hope you never do that yourself.

When printing to an inkjet printer, specifically the Epson 2200, you need to stay ALWAYS in RGB. The printer driver does the conversion on the fly, transparently. If you try to send a CMYK image to the printer, it will first get converted to RGB, then it will undergo the conversion once again. Not a good idea at all.

Stay in RGB, even when printing grayscale.

[jonf@adobeforums.com]

Did I say anywhere to send the image to the printer as cmyk?

This whole business of seeing your image in rgb and expecting the colors to print exactly the same on a cmyk device seems like utter nonsense to me. Obviously you all know a lot more about this issue than I do. I feel like I'm speaking to a religious sect that proves everything they say by referring to their holy book without explaining it in any way that makes sense to someone outside their own religion.

RGB is light.
CMYK is ink.
The gamut is not the same.
What you see on screen is RGB and can be nothing else.
What you see on paper is CMYK and can be nothing else.
Therefore there are inevitable differences between cmyk and rgb color.

Have physics gone awry? Am I living in alternate universe? Can someone please explain how a color that you see on screen which cannot be duplicated with cmyk inks can be seen less clearly by asking your computer to emulate the cmyk output? Or why there is any such thing as cmyk mode at all, if it's now universally accepted that nobody should ever work in cmyk mode for any reason ever?

[Ann_Shelbourne@adobeforums.com]

Are you using an Epson Profile for their Premium Glossy Photo Paper?

It does that every time!

Try this instead if you are printing from RGB (which you need to be unless you have a PostScript RIP):

Printing RGB out of Photoshop CS on an Epson
Make sure that you download the most recent driver from Epson.
Assuming that your Photoshop RGB space is Adobe RGB 1998:

Choose Print Options. (Cmd Option P)
Check "Show more Options"
Color Management: Choose "Document" and set to "Adobe RGB"
"Print Space" = "Same as Source"
Click on "Output" and choose ASCII

Click on Page Setup to check that you have the correct printer and paper size selected and click "OK".
Click the "Print" button.

Make sure that your Epson is showing in the "Printer" pop-up menu.
From the bottom of the three pop-ups, cycle through the choices to make sure that everything is set-up correctly.

Choose "ColorSynch" and set palette as follows:
Color Conversion = Standard
Quartz Filter: None

Choose "Print Settings" and set palette as follows:
Media Type = Photo Paper
Ink = Color
Mode = Advanced Settings
Print Quality = 1440 dpi
Halftoning = High Quality

Then

Choose "Color Management" and set palette as follows:

Mode: "PhotoRealistic"
Select "Color Controls"
Gamma = 2.2 (if that is how your monitor is set)

Brightness = 3;
Contrast = 1;
Saturation = 2;
C and M = 0;
Y = 7

In the Presets pop-up: Save settings to a new name.

Next time that you want to print:
Choose your saved Preset (in the Print dialog's Preset pop-up) and it click "Print"
and your customized settings will automatically be used.

To make changes, choosing "Color Management" will take you directly to your Advanced Settings page showing your current settings.
Make any changes as required and Save your new settings in the same way that you did previously.

[And, before everyone else SCREAMS at me for giving you Politically Incorrect advice, -- TRY IT!]

[barry_gray@adobeforums.com]

Aaaarrrgh!

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Jonf,

Unless you are printing to a RIP, you need to stay in RGB all the time to print to an inkjet printer like the Epson 2200. They designed it and its driver that way.

That is the way Epson teaches it at its Print Academy and how the top photographers urge you to do it.

If you don't want to believe it, take it up with Epson.

[ADDED:] As for the different color space, that's what Soft Proof is there for.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Bernie and Ann,

Be sure to install the new profiles posted on the Epson site at the beginning of April. They produce excellent results.

They're a total of seven downloads and seven different profiles. There are even different profiles for printing at 1440 dpi and at 2880 dpi. They show up separately in the Printer Setup Utility too, as if you were dealing with different printers as well.

Don't use the old ones. Insist on the real McCoy.

[PShock@adobeforums.com]

Aaaarrrgh!




Ditto!

Ramón -
Thanks for the info on the 2200 profiles. (Doesn't appear Ann will be interested it them, tho.)

-phil

[Ann_Shelbourne@adobeforums.com]

There don't seem to be any newer profiles than the ones that I already have for older printers like my 1270 -- which I am sticking with so that I can also print CMYK files via Pressready. (It still works but you have to pop into Classic (which is easy enough) to use it.)

The printing set-up that I gave above is for printing RGB files ONLY -- PressReady is a PostScript RIP that works with CMYK files using Adobe's color settings.