Re: Color managed printing from anything but Photoshop
Re: Color managed printing from anything but Photoshop
- Subject: Re: Color managed printing from anything but Photoshop
- From: Yann Bouckaert <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 00:48:25 +0100
Hello,
I'd like to contribute to this thread by submitting my personal
experiences and results on this matter. Like many of you, I started off
making profiles for my inkjet printer (an Epson Stylus Photo 870), and
then applying this profile from within Photoshop (or InDesign) with
great results. This was with the Epson driver. The trouble was getting
the same color from another application like Apple's Preview or iPhoto.
After reading John Zimmerer's post about printing in Panther, I started
to experiment by trying to enforce a colorsync null transformation
(document profile = printer profile set in Colorsync Utility) in order
to create a printer profile. Then later came that thread about
'everything that comes out of photoshop is tagged as Generic RGB'. A
conclusion I drew after endless printouts, at least with my Epson
driver is: it does not work as expected. It seems that the Epson-driver
actually ignores everything that is set in the Colorsync Utility. BUT!
Enter the Gimp Print drivers. This is a different story, and they do
work as expected. Here's a how-to, from target printing to iPhoto:
- install a gimp print driver (I used 4.2.6) for your printer and give
it a distinctive name in the Print Center, like Epson 870 Gimp
- in ColorSync Utility, locate this printer in the Devices and assign
the Generic RGB Profile to the RGB mode
- in Photoshop, open your favorite RGB testchart and use the Print with
Preview function to print the target. Settings: source=any RGB profile
(or assign Generic RGB first), destination=same as source.
- Hit the print button, configure the driver for your media, and save
as a preset for later use. If you go to the Summary popup menu and
scroll down, you'll see that the used printer profile will be Generic
RGB. This is the destination profile.
- Hit Print again. This will give a spoolfile (from Photoshop) with the
Generic RGB Profile attached. Because we set Generic RGB as the printer
profile in Colorsync Utility, we get a null match; there will be no
color transformation.
- measure the target and create the profile
- Assign the profile you just created to the RGB mode of the printer in
Colorsync Utility.
- Start printing from iPhoto. In the summary pane of the printer driver
you'll see that the assigned printer profile is now used as
destination.
- Done
Some remarks:
- The rendering intent for the conversion is the default intent of the
printer profile, mostly perceptual. If you want to use another one,
change it in the printer profile (with Gretag's Profile Editor for
example). Another way is to use a Colorsync filter. Create one in
Colorsync Utility, and in the Color tab set the rendering intent to the
one you want. Set the 'Convert color data to:' your printer profile.
Alas, there's no black point compensation option to go with a rel col
conversion. When you're about to print, go to the Colorsync popup menu
and select your newly created filter.
- if you want to keep it to one printer driver (just the gimp print one
eg.) and use this for Photoshop printing as well, here's what you can
do: in the Print with Preview dialog box, use printer color management,
and set the appropriate intent there. Your source profile will be
embedded in the image in the spoolfile, and a conversion will take
place to your printer profile defined in the Colorsync Utility.
- What if you want Photoshop to do the conversion entirely? (The source
= AdobeRGB, destination = my printer profile, rel col with bpc stuff?)
Create a new printer with the Gimp Print driver, and assign Generic RGB
to this one. Remember to give this printer a distinct name in the Print
Center. Why Generic RGB? Because after the conversion when we're
printing from Photoshop, a Generic RGB profile is tagged (not converted
to) to the images in the spoolfile. This way a null transformation is
in place (like when we were printing a target file for measuring).
- What about different paper types? Again, create different instances
of the same printer, and assign different profiles. When you're about
to print, you can then choose Epson 870 Glossy Film, or Epson 870
Heavyweight Matte (or that Epson 870 Generic RGB).
- I discovered that when printing from iPhoto (and Canon's
Imagebrowser), my files are converted on the fly from their embedded
profile to Generic RGB. Found this out by printing to a PDF and
checking the embedded profile with Pitstop. This is not the case when
printing from TextEdit. This is a strange world...
Now I'm off to bed. I hope this will help you a bit further.
Best wishes,
Yann Bouckaert
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