[BruceBanner]

I recently made my first small batch of calendars for friends and family (for Christmas gifts) this year, I was a little surprised that the colours were off on some of the shots (and if they are off on some then they were probably off on others but I couldn't tell as easily).



This was one of the shots where the colours were noticeably 'off', showing quite a strong magenta tint in the running water;

I mean I think if I can squint closely that there might be some hint of magenta there (so we can also factor in my own error here), however you'll have to trust me when I say the effect on the printed calendars is not subtle, it's quite apparent indeed.

I have one monitor calibrated and another not, and neither particularly show much magenta in the running water, whereas the image on the calendar definitely reflects some that can't be ignored. I'm not upset, these aren't for sale and I expected some anomalies but whole process has made me think about future (printing) work and how I need to get on top of the process so that what I have created digitally can be replicated accurately either at home or at a professional printers (or a company that produces calendars) hence this post.

Without knowing anything about this stuff, I'm guessing printer colour profiles had something to do with generating a different pallet, or WB indifferent or something...

I own a Canon IXUS6800 series photographic printer, able to print A3 etc, I haven't used it an awful lot tbh, but I do have a family portrait shot taken recently that I was going to print off and include with the calendars so just wanted to ask a little more for LR assistance with printing.
In addition to that I also have a collage thing to develop for some Year 6's at school as part of their end of year leaving gift (series of images of their time at the school). So what I am concerned about is being happy with what I see on my calibrated monitor but not getting the same WB or colours when the image pops out of my (or someone elses) printer.

Can anyone advise a step by step process for doing this? Or perhaps I need to always make two files when exporting, one for digital viewing on screens and another for intended print?


TIA!

Bruce

[davidreilly3207]

Are you using the color profiles in Lightroom for the printer and paper you are using?

[stevebrot]

In Lightroom, I soft-proof against paper/printer-specific ICC profiles* with tweaks applied to a virtual copy dedicated to that purpose. Cinch, eh? Pretty much...

• Open the photo in the Develop module
• Check the soft-proof button
• Choose the appropriate printer/paper ICC from the soft-proof options panel
• Choose the desired rendering intent
• When Lightroom prompts for a new virtual copy, say yes. LR will give the copy a title appropriate to the ICC profile being used.

Use this ICC-specific virtual copy for printing from LR, remembering to set the ICC profile and rendering intent in the appropriate panels in that mode. For project such as calendars, I create a collection containing only the virtual copies used for printing. In combination with a custom template for the paper and layout, this approach makes the actual printing almost trivial. Of course, all of this assumes a calibrated monitor and a color-managed workflow. It also helps to be working from a broad gamut source file (e.g. RAW or 16-bit TIFF created to ProPhoto RGB).

I first learned this technique from Martin Evening's most excellent "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Book | The Compete Guide For Photographers". There are editions for more recent versions of Lightroom too. The money for this thick volume is well spent.


Steve

* The paper manufacturer should have these available for download. If not, use a brand of paper that does.

[TonyW]

This was one of the shots where the colours were noticeably 'off', showing quite a strong magenta tint in the running water;

I mean I think if I can squint closely that there might be some hint of magenta there (so we can also factor in my own error here), however you'll have to trust me when I say the effect on the printed calendars is not subtle, it's quite apparent indeed.

Without knowing the state of your colour management workflow, your editing environment (ambient light), print viewing illumination and many other variable we can only guess and ask questions and maybe along the way offer some things you can do to confirm and check your system

I have one monitor calibrated and another not, and neither particularly show much magenta in the running water, whereas the image on the calendar definitely reflects some that can't be ignored.

• How have you calibrated your monitor (cal. device)?
• What standards are you using for calibration (White Point, Gamma, Cd/M2, etc.)?
• What software are you using for editing?
• Does this software provide soft proofing?
• Do you have an accurate ICC paper profile for the chosen paper
• Are there any neutral areas that must appear neutral (I can see the white'ish paper and potential in the water but they may not necessarily be neutral or desired to be such)?If there are neutral areas have you checked that you have equal RGB values with your eye dropper tool in your editor?
• That should do for now

.....

Without knowing anything about this stuff, I'm guessing printer colour profiles had something to do with generating a different pallet, or WB indifferent or something...

Yes, having an accurate monitor profile and that profile being used by your system including a colour savvy editing application e.g. PS or LR will go a long way to achieving your aim (assuming matching print to screen). Accurate paper profiles from you paper provider equally important as is the use of OEM ink (at least initially and without a method of producing your own paper profiles). How you illuminate your print for viewing if you are comparing and expecting a print to screen match is often overlooked

I own a Canon IXUS6800 series photographic printer, able to print A3 etc, I haven't used it an awful lot tbh, but I do have a family portrait shot taken recently that I was going to print off and include with the calendars so just wanted to ask a little more for LR assistance with printing.
In addition to that I also have a collage thing to develop for some Year 6's at school as part of their end of year leaving gift (series of images of their time at the school). So what I am concerned about is being happy with what I see on my calibrated monitor but not getting the same WB or colours when the image pops out of my (or someone elses) printer.

Can anyone advise a step by step process for doing this? Or perhaps I need to always make two files when exporting, one for digital viewing on screens and another for intended print?

I see you may have already answered your editing program is LR so IMO a good start. You are of course using soft proofing in LR and making sure your correct paper profile is selected and turn off colour management in printer and let LR manage printing ?


I am going to suggest is for you to first check visually how a monitor should look and I usually point people to the Lagom site LCD monitor test imagesTake your time to go through at least some of the test reading the instructions on how your monitor should look ideally, you may have to accept small compromises if your monitor is not up to it (but at least you will know where you are in the scheme of things)
If nothing else pay attention to the Contrast, Gamma calibration, Black Level and White saturation - you are not looking for perfection just an understanding of what to look for

Do yourself a favour a get a proper test pattern. These have known values and in the case of the one I am linking to also notes if you have PS (do not think you can read notes in PS?) Pixl Download | Thomas Holm | Pixl Aps
If you can read the notes then print it out you should soon see if your system is out

Probably thrown out enough information for you to make a start?

[BruceBanner]

Are you using the color profiles in Lightroom for the printer and paper you are using?

I think it's important to state here that I deliberately edit in such a way as to not necessarily represent the colours 'as they were' necessarily, I am taking artistic licensing with my choice of editing, using various Film Simulation tools etc that may deliberately alter 'natural skin tones', but that would be purposeful on my part. Product photography this is not. The issue is quite simple (or hoping should be), I want my print to look like my final edit in LR, without some printer or LR profile thing deciding it can fix my mistakes or correct a tone or something etc.

With Colour Profiles in LR it varies per edit, sometimes choosing 'Embedded' sometimes a RNI (ReallyNiceImages) profile (which support Pentax fyi), so its never the same, and my editing may sway from those colour profiles as well. I have very limited experience in actual printing at home with the aforementioned equipment, but I would like to start now (and do it properly), I rarely pass the 'Develop' Module in LR, further than that is all a mystery to me

Printer is IXUS6800, paper is Canon Matte MP-101 (A3 and A4).

In Lightroom, I soft-proof against paper/printer-specific ICC profiles* with tweaks applied to a virtual copy dedicated to that purpose. Cinch, eh? Pretty much...

• Open the photo in the Develop module
• Check the soft-proof button
• Choose the appropriate printer/paper ICC from the soft-proof options panel
• Choose the desired rendering intent
• When Lightroom prompts for a new virtual copy, say yes. LR will give the copy a title appropriate to the ICC profile being used.

Use this ICC-specific virtual copy for printing from LR, remembering to set the ICC profile and rendering intent in the appropriate panels in that mode. For project such as calendars, I create a collection containing only the virtual copies used for printing. In combination with a custom template for the paper and layout, this approach makes the actual printing almost trivial. Of course, all of this assumes a calibrated monitor and a color-managed workflow. It also helps to be working from a broad gamut source file (e.g. RAW or 16-bit TIFF created to ProPhoto RGB).

I first learned this technique from Martin Evening's most excellent "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Book | The Compete Guide For Photographers". There are editions for more recent versions of Lightroom too. The money for this thick volume is well spent.


Steve

* The paper manufacturer should have these available for download. If not, use a brand of paper that does.

So that sounds kinda what I'm looking for, you make yer edit as per usual, but then when it comes to print time you do it via LR and tell it to use x, y and z and voila it accurately prints what you see as yer final edit on your calibrated screen. I'll give that a go and ask a question if I get stuck.

Without knowing the state of your colour management workflow, your editing environment (ambient light), print viewing illumination and many other variable we can only guess and ask questions and maybe along the way offer some things you can do to confirm and check your system

• How have you calibrated your monitor (cal. device)?
• What standards are you using for calibration (White Point, Gamma, Cd/M2, etc.)?
• What software are you using for editing?
• Does this software provide soft proofing?
• Do you have an accurate ICC paper profile for the chosen paper
• Are there any neutral areas that must appear neutral (I can see the white'ish paper and potential in the water but they may not necessarily be neutral or desired to be such)?If there are neutral areas have you checked that you have equal RGB values with your eye dropper tool in your editor?
• That should do for now

.....Yes, having an accurate monitor profile and that profile being used by your system including a colour savvy editing application e.g. PS or LR will go a long way to achieving your aim (assuming matching print to screen). Accurate paper profiles from you paper provider equally important as is the use of OEM ink (at least initially and without a method of producing your own paper profiles). How you illuminate your print for viewing if you are comparing and expecting a print to screen match is often overlooked

I see you may have already answered your editing program is LR so IMO a good start. You are of course using soft proofing in LR and making sure your correct paper profile is selected and turn off colour management in printer and let LR manage printing ?


I am going to suggest is for you to first check visually how a monitor should look and I usually point people to the Lagom site LCD monitor test imagesTake your time to go through at least some of the test reading the instructions on how your monitor should look ideally, you may have to accept small compromises if your monitor is not up to it (but at least you will know where you are in the scheme of things)
If nothing else pay attention to the Contrast, Gamma calibration, Black Level and White saturation - you are not looking for perfection just an understanding of what to look for

Do yourself a favour a get a proper test pattern. These have known values and in the case of the one I am linking to also notes if you have PS (do not think you can read notes in PS?) Pixl Download | Thomas Holm | Pixl Aps
If you can read the notes then print it out you should soon see if your system is out

Probably thrown out enough information for you to make a start?

Monitor calibrated by spyder5 I think.
LR and PS for editing.
Soft proofing is a new term to me, I cannot advise at this stage.
I have not heard of ICC before either, but I gather it's some way of telling the printer exactly what photo paper it's using. I'm hoping Canon MP-101 will have this ICC thing? Not sure where to find the ICC?
Colour wise I'm fine with things not being accurate (as in my own image I'm seeing on my calibrated screen), it's about replicating as close as possible the tones and colours I have decided I like and work well for the image on print, not for the print to do something weird with the image en route. Product photography this is not, colour accuracy I am not looking for, printing accuracy to what I have decided the final edit to be is.


Thanks fellas so far for the guidance and advice.

[TonyW]

I think it's important to state here that I deliberately edit in such a way as to not necessarily represent the colours 'as they were' necessarily, I am taking artistic licensing with my choice of editing, using various Film Simulation tools etc that may deliberately alter 'natural skin tones', but that would be purposeful on my part. Product photography this is not. The issue is quite simple (or hoping should be), I want my print to look like my final edit in LR, without some printer or LR profile thing deciding it can fix my mistakes or correct a tone or something etc.

Your print looking like your final edit including your artistic choices is what we are aiming for. This is what colour management will help you achieve.

With Colour Profiles in LR it varies per edit, sometimes choosing 'Embedded' sometimes a RNI (ReallyNiceImages) profile (which support Pentax fyi), so its never the same, and my editing may sway from those colour profiles as well. I have very limited experience in actual printing at home with the aforementioned equipment, but I would like to start now (and do it properly), I rarely pass the 'Develop' Module in LR, further than that is all a mystery to me

When you say Colour Profiles in LR can you confirm you are talking about camera profiles and presets?

Printer is IXUS6800, paper is Canon Matte MP-101 (A3 and A4).

From where did you download the printer profile?
What is the profile named?
Did you remember to set the profile in LR before pressing the print button?
Did you tell LR to manage printing or are you letting printer manage?
The latter will defeat your colour management efforts
If you selected LR to manage then did you heed the warning to turn off colour management in the print driver - without this you are doing what is called double profiling and strange things with colour happen.

Sorry for so many questions but the picture you are painting here at least to me is suggesting a potential profile issue or the management of.

Monitor calibrated by spyder5 I think.

Fine. I take it that you use the software and select your aim points for calibration then adjust your monitor controls until the software is happy (have not used Spyder since Spyder 2 days so calibration methods may have changed)
Correct monitor calibration is key here if you are to have a chance of producing what you see on screen in the print. The Adobe products use the resulting monitor profile to interact with how your image data displays. IF the calibration profile has been done correctly the profile will accurately describe the condition of your display. Using that profile information allows Adobe to display colour accurately making allowance for monitor deficiencies, presenting you with an accurate view of your data.

Soft proofing is a new term to me, I cannot advise at this stage.
I have not heard of ICC before either, but I gather it's some way of telling the printer exactly what photo paper it's using. I'm hoping Canon MP-101 will have this ICC thing? Not sure where to find the ICC?

This is probably your main stumbling block at this time. If you are not using Soft Proofing in LR/PS including selecting the correct paper profile (this is the ICC profile) then you are not looking at your data as the paper ink combination will print including simulating the white if the paper.
In this case you would have been just as well letting the print driver manage colour and select your paper profile there and tell LR to use print driver settings. Most of the time you should get a pleasing result rather than accurate to what you see onscreen I believe you are looking for better than this. Hence my wordy response

Colour wise I'm fine with things not being accurate (as in my own image I'm seeing on my calibrated screen), it's about replicating as close as possible the tones and colours I have decided I like and work well for the image on print, not for the print to do something weird with the image en route. Product photography this is not, colour accuracy I am not looking for, printing accuracy to what I have decided the final edit to be is.

There is no AI in the applications you are using that will attempt to correct your editing. Implementing a colour managed workflow will give you very close to WYSIWYG. Miss out on any of the stages briefly touched upon in this thread however and all bets are off.

I strongly recommend now that you download that Pixl image look at it and the notes in Photoshop first then go to Lightroom and have a go at printing (btw. Matt paper may not be the best choice for first prints as it usually has severe gamut and contrast limits compared to glossy, semi gloss, satin or others - once you turn on soft proofing you will see). The reason for doing this is that you will then be looking at known and proven data which may help identify problem areas quicker at this stage than using your own data. Get this correct in display and printing and anything else you print under the same circumstances will result in WYSIWYG

Thank you for posting gave me something to do as I am going through a bout of insomnia

[BruceBanner]

Your print looking like your final edit including your artistic choices is what we are aiming for. This is what colour management will help you achieve.

Excellent

When you say Colour Profiles in LR can you confirm you are talking about camera profiles and presets?

Yeah, I think so. For muy version of LR it's bottom right, under Camera Calibration>Profiles. I get to choose Adobe Standard, Embedded, the Pentax in camera body stuff like Landscape, Bright etc as well as RNI (ReallyNiceImages) profiles.

I am subscription based for LR but haven't updated this year at all. I recall them doing excellently with 'Auto Settings' under General Presets (this was such a big deal it actually made news on sites like Gizmodo etc, about how things were much improved from that simple one click, that I recall after the subsequent update after that one things went 'worse' imo, so I deliberately rolled back and resisted any more updates. I may well update soon however, I'm currently unsure exactly how to inform you of my current LR version I think camera profiles has perhaps moved now to be top right along with WB etc?

From where did you download the printer profile?
What is the profile named?
Did you remember to set the profile in LR before pressing the print button?
Did you tell LR to manage printing or are you letting printer manage?
The latter will defeat your colour management efforts
If you selected LR to manage then did you heed the warning to turn off colour management in the print driver - without this you are doing what is called double profiling and strange things with colour happen.

I haven't yet actually printed, at least not in a while. I have printed perhaps 5 shots since owning the printer, mainly for testing purposes. I've had the printer over a year, it's mainly used for pdf prints than photos, it's just further down the line I may print more. If I recall my general process of printing it was connecting printer, downloading drivers, that's it, print. Sometimes within LR, sometimes perhaps via Windows 10 picture viewer or whatever (maybe Faststone). I think however I need to stick to one interface to learn so makes sense it's LR.

My recent issues described from the OP all came from a printers, or online service. Upload the jpgs etc, make the calendar, then order. Next year I could be doing school year books and wedding albums, for those jobs I may well need to use external printers than my little ol' IXUS, and therefore I need to be aware of what info to provide to them to ensure their colour management matches mine also.

Sorry for so many questions but the picture you are painting here at least to me is suggesting a potential profile issue or the management of.

Fine. I take it that you use the software and select your aim points for calibration then adjust your monitor controls until the software is happy (have not used Spyder since Spyder 2 days so calibration methods may have changed)
Correct monitor calibration is key here if you are to have a chance of producing what you see on screen in the print. The Adobe products use the resulting monitor profile to interact with how your image data displays. IF the calibration profile has been done correctly the profile will accurately describe the condition of your display. Using that profile information allows Adobe to display colour accurately making allowance for monitor deficiencies, presenting you with an accurate view of your data.

This is probably your main stumbling block at this time. If you are not using Soft Proofing in LR/PS including selecting the correct paper profile (this is the ICC profile) then you are not looking at your data as the paper ink combination will print including simulating the white if the paper.
In this case you would have been just as well letting the print driver manage colour and select your paper profile there and tell LR to use print driver settings. Most of the time you should get a pleasing result rather than accurate to what you see onscreen I believe you are looking for better than this. Hence my wordy response

There is no AI in the applications you are using that will attempt to correct your editing. Implementing a colour managed workflow will give you very close to WYSIWYG. Miss out on any of the stages briefly touched upon in this thread however and all bets are off.

I strongly recommend now that you download that Pixl image look at it and the notes in Photoshop first then go to Lightroom and have a go at printing (btw. Matt paper may not be the best choice for first prints as it usually has severe gamut and contrast limits compared to glossy, semi gloss, satin or others - once you turn on soft proofing you will see). The reason for doing this is that you will then be looking at known and proven data which may help identify problem areas quicker at this stage than using your own data. Get this correct in display and printing and anything else you print under the same circumstances will result in WYSIWYG

Thank you for posting gave me something to do as I am going through a bout of insomnia

Once again thanks for replying, and the lengthy responses are deeply appreciated.

I only had my monitor calibrated about a couple of months ago, a friend loaned me I think it was Spyder5? ANyway, it all seemed very self sufficient and now my Windows10 boots up with that profile enabled on each run. I think the software can be a little nitpicky as it wants fine tuned once a month, which I can't do as I have given the gizmo back, but it feels a little overkill to be doing that, my environment and indoor lighting (editing) conditions do not change that greatly. The actual change to the monitor after wasn't massive, namely slightly warmer whites and lower brightness, it probably has made a big difference however...

I think it's safe to assume that I have never used LR to print, not properly anyway. You have a guy with a calibrated monitor (that seems to be doing ok, no complaints of weird skin tones from any 'fans' ), a LR/PS subscription, an IXUS6800 with drivers installed and proper canon ink and MP-101 matte paper to use up.

I have two projects to print in the near future, my family portrait;



and about eight A3 individual collages to produce for the eight school leavers (so that print would involve several different edits in one print... still unsure how best to tackle this).

FYI I can print via PS instead of LR if that is somehow simpler.

My first task however is to print the family portrait (A4ish) and get that looking close to what I shown above, then bundle that up with the calendar so I make the post before xmas cut off! (family overseas in Scotland etc).

[TonyW]

Excellent
......I am subscription based for LR but haven't updated this year at all. I recall them doing excellently with 'Auto Settings' under General Presets (this was such a big deal it actually made news on sites like Gizmodo etc, about how things were much improved from that simple one click, that I recall after the subsequent update after that one things went 'worse' imo, so I deliberately rolled back and resisted any more updates. I may well update soon however, I'm currently unsure exactly how to inform you of my current LR version I think camera profiles has perhaps moved now to be top right along with WB etc?

It is rare IMO that things go wrong and are not corrected quickly with updates in LR. Generally I have found that sometimes we get different rather than worse but that is somewhat subjective. The actual version in this case probably does not matter as you are most likely on LR Classic?

I haven't yet actually printed, at least not in a while. I have printed perhaps 5 shots since owning the printer, mainly for testing purposes. I've had the printer over a year, it's mainly used for pdf prints than photos, it's just further down the line I may print more. If I recall my general process of printing it was connecting printer, downloading drivers, that's it, print. Sometimes within LR, sometimes perhaps via Windows 10 picture viewer or whatever (maybe Faststone). I think however I need to stick to one interface to learn so makes sense it's LR.

Ahh, well LR should be ideal as it is a fully colour savvy application. I do not know about colour management capabilities in either Win Pic Viewer, or Faststone. Do they allow you to select a paper profile and soft proof?

My recent issues described from the OP all came from a printers, or online service. Upload the jpgs etc, make the calendar, then order. Next year I could be doing school year books and wedding albums, for those jobs I may well need to use external printers than my little ol' IXUS, and therefore I need to be aware of what info to provide to them to ensure their colour management matches mine also.

Now he tells us printing from outside source 😁😉. Still no problem except that many services offer lip service to the concept of colour management and even if they supply Paper profiles they may not actually use them. If they do use profiles they will actually ask you to convert image to their supplied profile so it is embedded in the file and do your edits on this sending them your finished file ready for them to print. Before anyone gets offended and says that their prints from Wallco or Costmart are great understand that I am not saying that you will not get wonderful or acceptable prints, just that they may not match closely your requirements as stated here
......

I only had my monitor calibrated about a couple of months ago, a friend loaned me I think it was Spyder5? ANyway, it all seemed very self sufficient and now my Windows10 boots up with that profile enabled on each run. I think the software can be a little nitpicky as it wants fine tuned once a month, which I can't do as I have given the gizmo back, but it feels a little overkill to be doing that, my environment and indoor lighting (editing) conditions do not change that greatly. The actual change to the monitor after wasn't massive, namely slightly warmer whites and lower brightness, it probably has made a big difference however...

Better than nothing loaning a calibration device, but bear in mind that monitor condition will change over time and you need a profile to record the changes. It is not unreasonable to run a calibration check every couple of weeks or prior to undertaking mission critical printing

Your family portrait looks great and will be a thing to treasure for years to come. That and your other projects should benefit by understanding and applying some of the things mentioned in this thread

Thing is that colour management is relatively simple, but there are quite a few areas where we can forget to check resulting in less than stellar prints.

Printing and soft proofing through PS is probably a little more complex than LR and I believe now that for much general work LR printing pipeline takes some beating.

I don’t know if this will help but I have written a draft simple step by step guide (for a potential project) and would be happy to send you a link to the pdf on the understanding that you will respect my copyright and not publish or share without my knowledge. TBH no secret sauce but it may help to set you on the road pm me if interested

[lsimpkins]

Can anyone advise a step by step process for doing this? Or perhaps I need to always make two files when exporting, one for digital viewing on screens and another for intended print?

One comment to add to the excellent step by step LR printing advice you have already received - you don't need or want two exported files. Print directly within LR using the soft proof version, not from an exported file. Use your exported file for screen viewing, sharing, etc.

[stevebrot]

So that sounds kinda what I'm looking for, you make yer edit as per usual, but then when it comes to print time you do it via LR and tell it to use x, y and z and voila it accurately prints what you see as yer final edit on your calibrated screen. I'll give that a go and ask a question if I get stuck.

Be sure to do the soft-proof and print using the ICC profile for your printer and paper.


Steve

[BigMackCam]

Some great responses here so far, that I'm also finding interesting and useful.

@stevebrot and @TonyW - would it be worth noting that the gamut of the monitors being used for editing and reference also plays a part here? Assuming that the commercial printing company is able to reproduce at least full sRGB or AdobeRGB (and likely far more within the CMYK range), a monitor limited to anything less than the chosen gamut will eliminate certain tones that would show up in printing. On that basis, ideally a wide gamut monitor should be used to allow the best possible representation of images destined for print, yes? As a compromise, perhaps, it would be best to use one that is capable of displaying the entire gamut of the captured image's color space (sRGB or AdobeRGB)... Or have I misunderstood this?

[stevebrot]

@stevebrot and @TonyW - would it be worth noting that the gamut of the monitors being used for editing and reference also plays a part here?

That is true, though the gamut for printer/paper is usually quite limited and the soft-proofing feature does the coercing along with the option of showing where it is being done. That being said, what shows on the soft-proof is an approximation at best. After all, not only is there the gamut adjust, but there is also the transformation to a subtractive color model from additive where white balance is strongly determined by the intensity and color balance of the light used for viewing.

Ohhhhh...one more thing I forgot to mention in my comment for @BruceBanner above. Be sure to evaluate prints in natural light. Many inks and dyes are metameric, meaning that they look different under various light sources. A few years back, I puzzled over a particular print I was attempting for several days before I looked at it under natural light rather than incandescent room lighting. Lesson learned... BTW...metamerism is not something that may can be corrected for.


Steve

[TonyW]

....- would it be worth noting that the gamut of the monitors being used for editing and reference also plays a part here?

Absolutely.

Assuming that the commercial printing company is able to reproduce at least full sRGB or AdobeRGB (and likely far more within the CMYK range), a monitor limited to anything less than the chosen gamut will eliminate certain tones that would show up in printing. On that basis, ideally a wide gamut monitor should be used to allow the best possible representation of images destined for print, yes? As a compromise, perhaps, it would be best to use one that is capable of displaying the entire gamut of the captured image's color space (sRGB or AdobeRGB)... Or have I misunderstood this?

Wider gamut monitors are to be preferred for accurate colour rendering within a colour managed workflow. There are no monitors available that can cover the gamut that your camera can capture you would need Prophoto for that.

Worth remembering that sRGB, Adobe RGB, Prophoto are all synthetic editing/working spaces (sRGB representing a theoretical display based on a particular phosphor). As such they are device independent.

Whereas CMYK are device dependent each describing a particular CMYK device and should be thought of as a colour model rather than a working space and will not have the range available to modern inkjet printer ink and paper combinations that can exceed the gamut of Adobe RGB.

Edit:Just in case of any confusion here I am referring to inkjet printers and CMYK printers as two different beasts. While modern inkjet use CMYK they should be thought of as RGB devices quite simply due to the fact that they require data to be sent as RGB and do internal calculations for CcMmYyK

Bear in mind also that you can't print to Adobe RGB or sRGB, the printer, paper and ink has its own profile and therefore gamut limitations

[biz-engineer]

I recently made my first small batch of calendars for friends and family (for Christmas gifts) this year, I was a little surprised that the colours were off on some of the shots (and if they are off on some then they were probably off on others but I couldn't tell as easily).

If the colors were off , that means sRGB to CMYK conversion process was of poor quality, i.e not calibrated properly. The way a specific model of printer with a specific kind of paper render colors should normally be corrected. Photo printing companies do correct incoming sRGB file for colors based on knowing the color biases of their printers and papers. If the printing company does the color correction, you shouldn't do it in your workflow. But if you do apply color correction for the printer on JPEG exports, you should tell the printing company not to apply corrections. And if you print yourself, you should develop an ICC color profile of your printer and paper and apply it to your workflow in order to correct exports for the printer. A while ago, I've posted an inquiry about color management , but wasn't really convinced by the answer, I figured it out myself and now all my prints are spot-on with regards to how colors are being rendered on the final prints.

[BruceBanner]

So I have hit first first hurdle, I think due to Canon being idiots rather than <gasps...> me this time, but I'll let you be the judge of that

I have a Canon IXUS 6800 printer (6860 to be precise).

I have Canon MP-101 Mattpe Photo Paper (A3 and A4).
The rear of the packaging says to use "Matte Photo Paper N' as media type.

My screen grab shows you what I'm dealing with here...

I'm led to believe that installing the printer drivers includes the ICC profiles for all supported papers, you really would think that Canon paper and Canon printers go hand in hand. I'm at a loss of which to select, or where to grab an ICC for MP-101, google hasn't been too helpful on this issue...