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[FIX] Darker prints and color shifts when printing from LR2

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Samoreen

Active Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2008
Messages
206
Location
Samoreau, France
Lightroom Experience
Power User
Lightroom Version
Classic
Hi,

The problem

When printing RAW or TIFF files from LR2, you get a printer output that is much darker than it should be and that presents various color shifts.

I'm using an Epson Stylus Pro 38'' with the latest Windows driver (6.5' - which is rather old by the way). The workaround described below works for me under Windows XP SP3. It should also probably work with other systems/printers/drivers. Use at your own (minor) risk.

The "official" and recommended procedure for printing from LR is as follows:

1. Do not let the printer manage colors and select "Other..." from the profile dropdown list and select the ICC/ICM paper/printer profile that you want to use.
2. Click on Print... in LR which opens the Print Settings dialog.
3. Select the options you need and the paper you're using.
4. Disable the color management on the driver's side (in Epson's drivers, "Mode | Custom | No Color Adjustments").
5. Print

Unfortunately, this doesn't work for many of us and this produces a print that is dark and has color shifts as mentioned above. Note that the same image prints correctly from QImage or Photoshop CS3 (that is, the printer output corresponds to what you see on your calibrated display).

Note: If you decide to let the printer manage colors, you'll get even more problems.

Apparently, although color management has been (allegedly) disabled in the driver, there's something wrong between LR and the driver which makes that both LR and the driver are still trying to manage colors. In other words, the "No Color Adjustements" option of the driver doesn't seem to work with LR.

The workaround (found after hours of hair pulling and paper and expensive ink wasting):

In step #4,

1. Instead of selecting "No Color Adjustments", set Mode to "Custom | ICM"
2. Click Advanced...
3. Check "Show all profiles".
4. Select Driver ICM (Advanced)"
5. Set both the "Input profile" and the "Printer profile" fields to the very same profile that you specified in LR.

That is, if you specified Pro38 PGPP (Premium Glossy Photo Paper) in LR, then also select Pro38 PGPP in both "Input Profile" and "Printer Profile". This has actually the same effect as disabling color management in the driver (what "No Color Adjustements" should normally take care of).

That's it. When printing, you'll get exactly the same color results as when printing from QImage or Photoshop. No more dark prints. No more color shifts.

One might think that the bug is in the Epson driver but in that case, QImage would have the very same problem. So I tend to think that the bug is on the Lightroom side.

Note: Although Photoshop CS3 produces a correct printer output, it demonstrates the same problem as LR when using the "Match Print Color" option for soft proofing. But in that case, only the preview colors are wrong. The printer output is ok. Which also tends to demonstrate that Adobe has the problem, not Epson. Or maybe both...

Don't ask me why some users have the problem and others don't.

Hope this helps.

Update

According to my experience with LR3, this problem has apparently been fixed by Adobe (at least, this is what I observe when printing with my Epson Stylus Pro 38'').
 
Hi
I just joined the forum and the first question I had regarding darker prints from my Canon printer has been answered by Chris' 8/29 posting. Thanks a ton!

Scotto
 
I'm writing to see if anybody has experience with consumer grade HP printer printing in LR. I've got a C628' and have color accuracy issue printing in LR.
 
I have an HP 625', and color fidelity is more or less random. Sometimes I get great color, sometimes a bluish cast. Can't identify/isolate the circumstances, but I don't use it for 'pro' output anyway. Unfortunately, HP doesn't do profiles for these low-end machines, (or if they do, I've never been able to locate them.) So you're stuck with printer color management, and HP's colorsmart driver software.

I'm open to suggestions as well.
 
Printing issues still

Well I have now tried my new paper and paper profile.

If anything it is worse, I am not having very much luck here.

So I am using Ilford premium photo satin paper and the relevant profile from Ilford.

Printer properties set to:
Print quality – high
Media type – matte photo paper
Colour/Intensity – Manual
ECM - unticked
Print type – photo (the only options I have here are, Auto, photo, graphic, none)
Brightness – Normal

In Lighroom:
Print Resolution – 24' ppi
Print sharpening - low
Profile – Ilford premium profile
Rendering – Perceptual

Results:
Skins tone much too red, browns have a strong red tint to them, the edges of people in photo are too sharp and it look like they have been superimposed on the photo.
I can now only think to try someones suggestion of trying a custom profile.

The other thing I wondered about was upgrading my Vista to 64 bit. The reason why I wondered if that made a difference is a work colleague has a 64 bit version and Lightroom prints fine on his Canon printer.

Any other thoughts would be gratefully received as this is driving me mad now!
 
Thanks !
This workaround works fine.
Before, i had to lighten the image before printing. It was not satisfying.

Regards.

csalome.
 
Thanks

Dennis,
Ah yes, sorry I should have seen that.

That has made I big difference, I am still not quite there but much closer than I was.

Thanks again
 
Still a problem

I have tried everything. Epson R18'' still too dark.

I have calibrated again and again. Try printing with XP Vista Mac OS 1'.4. Downloaded latest drivers and profiles.

Tried printing RAW JPG TIFF DNG.

Tried printing with PS Windows Image Viewer QT.

Tried the above. Tried turning off color management in LR and Epson.

I read something somewhere that there may have been a production problem with Epson R18'' and correct color calibration. Any ideas or suggestions.

Vista 64bit LR2.' Epson R18'' Canon EOS Rebel XTi
 
bangor;28'86 said:
I have tried everything. Epson R18'' still too dark.

I have calibrated again and again. Try printing with XP Vista Mac OS 1'.4. Downloaded latest drivers and profiles.

Tried printing RAW JPG TIFF DNG.

Tried printing with PS Windows Image Viewer QT.

Tried the above. Tried turning off color management in LR and Epson.

I read something somewhere that there may have been a production problem with Epson R18'' and correct color calibration. Any ideas or suggestions.

Vista 64bit LR2.' Epson R18'' Canon EOS Rebel XTi

I think there is a problem with Asian printes an LR.
American people (and Europeans a little less) like ´cold´ colors (I know about by the "color" whe give to "white" paper (more blue for USA) and Asian people (aspecially China and Japan like "warm" colors.

After having tried every possible solution without any REAL succes that is the only thing I can think about.

So whe need: "BLUE" and "RED" drivers.
 
bangor;28'86 said:
I have tried everything. Epson R18'' still too dark.

I have calibrated again and again. Try printing with XP Vista Mac OS 1'.4. Downloaded latest drivers and profiles.

Tried printing RAW JPG TIFF DNG.

Tried printing with PS Windows Image Viewer QT.

Tried the above. Tried turning off color management in LR and Epson.

I read something somewhere that there may have been a production problem with Epson R18'' and correct color calibration. Any ideas or suggestions.

Vista 64bit LR2.' Epson R18'' Canon EOS Rebel XTi
Your list does not include setting your monitor luminance close to 12' as recommended in UtoU threads where Eric Chan speaks of this.

What is your monitor luminance set to?

Don
 
I had been having colour problems even with fairly recent profiles for paper/ink combination so I bit the bullet and bought a colour profiler and have created my own profiles.
What a difference it has made. I am now getting what I see on screen. It is an expensive investment but in the long term it will pay for itself as I can do profiles for others and also when I change printer or paper etc I can get a profiles right away (well within a day as you have to let the ink dry completely).
 
Denis,

I thought about the colour Munki but you can't do other printers other than those connected to your printer and from what I read you had to do the reading there and then and couldn't go back. This may have changed now but I opted for the Colour Confidence Print Profiler. This allows me to go back days after printing the test sheets and also profile other printers not connected to the computer.
I am amazed at how good it is and how much it has improved things, I was starting to get dis-heartened with LR and Leopard and the colours I was getting but now I am happy again.
 
I'm having similar color shift and print quality problems with my HP 698' printer. I've tried to follow the HP version of the tips shown here but get no improvement. In my case, the printer appreantly does not recognize anything from LR2.3. It always reverts back to the default. When I set the system printer defaults to ICM and the correct profile for the paper, the prints are "blaaa", i.e. soft, poor color, etc. This problem only started with LR2.2, prior to that everything printed ok. Is there a separate "preferences" file that holds printer info that can be deleted and allowed to reset? I've deleted the std preferences file and allowed it to recreate, but that did no good.

I guess the next step is to try another printer. Does anyone have a suggestion as to a mid priced printer that seems to work well with LR with out all these problems?

I should also add that I tried to uninstall LR2.3 and go back to LR2.', but the Windows uninstall program did not remove all the LR pref. files. Now LR2.' has the problem also. What files do I need to remove when uninstalling LR2.3 to remove all preferences, etc. from the system so LR2.' will establish it's own like on the original installation?

Thanks

Jim
 
1. Printer quality should be on the Main tab (just under Media Type etc - I'm assuming you're using a Canon printer) , and you need to select High (quality)
2. You get to ICM via Color/Intensity. Select Manual and the the Set button will take you to Color Adjustment. Don't select anything there, but click on the Matching tab. There you can select ICM and then Adobe RGB 1998 OR select None (you may need to experiment to see which gives you the 'best' results - I found if you're using Adobe RGB 1998 as the color space for LR2 and Photoshop, this gives good results, if you're using ProPhoto then None is the way to go
3. The only other thing you need to check is you paper size, orientation and quality.
4. Perceptual will give a slightly 'lighter' print than Relative (in my experience)

Making sure you're using the right paper profile is absolutely essential

Hope this helps

Chris

Chris, don't know where I went wrong (or maby I do, dee end of msg):

I followed your instructions from the start again, ENABLED icm (Which was off), couldn't find a colorspace dropdown-menu. Then I used my Spider profile I made for my printer (quite a tedious work!) and for the first time the preview of the print looks the same a the picture in LR: GREAT!

I think my Spider printer profile made the difference: my monitor and printer are now calibated wih spider.
 
Use original ink-cartridges

Oh boy,

Will Canon be happy to hear this.

My results with prints where variable. Sometimes they looked ok, other times there was al slight colorshift, sometimes the prints would look just ugly.

So they did end of last week (I don't print VERY much, but then I had to).
I spend 2 packs of Photopaper Pro to fix it without any succes. Manually shifting the Magenta out didn't make any difference at all. That triggered me: I replaced the the PhotoMagenta cartridge last WITH A ALTERNATIVE BRAND. ("WE CARE", if you know that in your country).
Since I already had spent a lot of money on the paper I thought I could (as a last resort) spend more money on all new CANON cartridges. I did and simple: it worked!
Only thing: selfmade SpyderProfile works better (for me, but that can be a matter of taste) than Canon's profile.

Bottom line: by Canon Cartridges for Canon printer ...
 
Last edited:
One more thing I'd like to add for the tip:

Turn the LCD monitor brightness down! I noticed a definite difference between my old CRT and a new LCD, even though they were both perfectly calibrated and color managed. The problem? LCD monitors come set from the factory at brightness levels of 2'' cd/m2 and over, just to make sure they work well in bright office environments. For perfect photo editing, however, one needs to be at around 9' cd/m2 (which may look very dim to some people, but will give you perfect print matching. The solution is to do your work in a suitable area that can be shielded from outside lighting. Use a Gamma of 2.2 and you're good to go!
 
Peter, agreed. I have my newest display set at 8'cd/m2 per recommendation of my Color Munki ambient measurement. That's down around 14 on the monitor's brightness adjustment. I was a bit nonplussed at first, but I'm quite happy with the results.
 
Just received my 38'' printer yesterday, thanks to this post I saved alot of frustration and ink.. My prints were coming out dark also.. Used the suggestions of the OP and my prints are matching my monitor.. I haven't done any monitor calibration... The results are so close I don't think I could do much better.. My reason for buying this printer was so I could get quality images printed with the color balance and brightness to my liking using Lightroom. Thanks to this post that has been obtained !!!!! I have noticed that each time I use lightroom to print it goes back to the original settings.. Is this normal or is there some way to lock in the my changes in regards to the PGPP settings in the print module ?
 
What about converted JPGs printing dark. I do not have an expensive printer. I have shot in both JPG and RAW and have seen that the JPGs rendered in my camera print correctly when I use the printing software, whereas when I take the same RAW file, make my adjustments and then export as a JPG it prints dark. Is this something that anyone has had experience with and can help me. I have had the same problem printing and the local labs as well.
 
Hi Maria, welcome to the forum!

How's your monitor calibrated? Dark prints is most often too bright a monitor.
 
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