PROBLEMS PRINTING to HP Photosmart 8750 printer

[Steve Price]

I am working with Ligjhtroom 2.5, an iMac G5, and an HP Photosmart 875' printer. I shoot with a Nikon D3''. I very recently calibrated my system using the Colormunki system and I use that profile. In my print dialogue box I sleect Vendo Color Matching and Application Manages Color. The Profile includes the Paper and Ink cartridges I use.
While most of my photographs print at least adequately (some a little darker than the screen image), there are a few in which the print comes out looking bizarre. These are mostly pictures involving skin and facial tones. There is a lost of detail in the ckin portion of the picture, and the color becomes progressively flatter, with a loss of all tonal gradation. The end result is a picture in which the faces appear “posterized”. similar to comic book pictures. When I try to make adjustments in Lightroom, the situation becomes worse. All the pictures in a series are effected and this has occurred with several different shoot. Not all pictures involving faces are affected, however. In addition, other sections of the same photo appear fine, e.g. tree bark or grass which have fine detail and natural colors. I have tried cleaning the cartridge nozzles, changing the print settings, resetting the print adjustments in LR, but nothing seems to help. I have wasted a huge amount of paper and ink.

I would welcome any help.

Steve Price

 

[Brad Snyder]

That sounds to me like an issue with the print profile. I think you're seeing the results of a reduced gamut in the print profile, and Lr posterizing to try to compensate for it. Do you have Photoshop, or another app capable of softproofing? You could try the pertinent images and profiles there, and I expect you'll see the same results on screen.

I have an HP625', a lot lower end than your 875', and even with ColorMunki's custom printer profiles, I still end up with prints exactly as you're describing. After a lot of ink and paper, I've given up, and just allow the printer to manage color, instead of Lr. If I need more precise color, I use commercial labs.

 

[Steve Price]

I emailed Brad Snyder but I don’t know if that was available to everyone.

I followed Brad’s advice. I reset the image in Lightroom’s Develop module and then edited it in Photoshop Elements 6. I then turned off Application Managed Color in the Print Dialogue Box, as Brad had suggested, using the Printer Managed Color option and the printed output now matched the screen display. The Posterizing appearance was gone. This worked with all of the images I was having that difficulty with. I believe he was correct that the problem lay in a reduced color gamut. I think this may have been because of the light in which all ot hte problematic pictures were shot (late afternoon, cloudy sky).

I am grateful to Lightroom Forums for having such good advice so readily available.

Steve Price

 

[Steve Price]

One last comment on the solution. I subsequently tried doing most of the editing in Lightroom before sending it to Elements 6 for final editing and printing. As long as I used Printer Managed Color, the the prints came out fine. I hope this might be helpful to anyone who had similar difficulties.

Steve Price

 

[Brad Snyder]

That's the only way I've been able to get satisfactory results with my HP. I guess that makes it a less than strictly color-managed workflow, but until I elect to uprgrade my home printer, that's where I'm stuck.