Spirit of Photography

Mentoring and Learning => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: keithsnell on November 22, 2009, 09:25:55 AM

Title: Photoshop CS3 Printing Issues.
Post by: keithsnell on November 22, 2009, 09:25:55 AM
This issue came up again in conversation over the weekend, so I am posting an extract from our January 2008 newsletter that talks about the printing issues in CS3.

Photoshop CS3 Printing Issues.  As Adobe acknowledges in their documents addressing the CS3 printing issues, “a number of issues have come to our attention since we shipped CS3.”  Two issues that seem prevalent in the online discussions are improper sizing and placement (margins) of printed documents, and inability to print with correct colors (obviously an important issue for photographers and other visual artists).  Adobe has released Update 10.0.1 to deal with these issues.  If you have automatic updates enabled in Photoshop, this update should have automatically downloaded and installed in Photoshop; however (and this is a big “however”), just installing the update probably won’t fix your problems if you are having issues with incorrect colors in your prints from CS3.  

Adobe also released a PDF instruction document addressing the 10.0.1 update, which can be found here:  http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/docs/PhotoshopCS3PrintingNotes.pdf (http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/docs/PhotoshopCS3PrintingNotes.pdf)  These instructions tell you that after installing your update, you need to also delete your printer and driver from your operating system and then reinstall the print drivers and printer profiles, in addition to deleting your Photoshop Preferences.  This should theoretically correct the issues with document formatting and colors; however, it did not correct the issues with incorrect color when printing to our Epson 2200 from CS3.  Adobe also cheekily states in the document that “we have also discovered that some problems can be avoided with minor refinements to the printing workflow and we have done our best to describe some of those here.”  What they really mean is that the popular option for “printer color managed workflow” (described in the PDF) may not work properly, and that you may need to change your workflow to the “Photoshop color managed workflow” (also described in the PDF).  In the past we’ve used the “printer color managed workflow” because it was a more efficient workflow that required fewer steps and settings than the Photoshop managed workflow.  The printing issues with CS3 have forced us to change to the Photoshop color managed workflow.  The good news is that we have solved our color issues with printing from CS3.  If you change to the Photoshop color managed workflow, you will need to have printer profiles installed for each paper type you print to.  Most printers ship with “basic” paper profiles with the included printer software; however, we highly recommend that you visit the website of your printer manufacture and download the “advanced” printer profiles provided for free.   These “advanced” profiles will result in a noticeable improvement in print quality.  You also need to make sure that your printer settings in the "Color Management" section of the Epson print dialog are set to "ICM" and
"off (No Color Adjustment)."

If you have any problems with these instructions, or still have problems printing from CS3 after implementing these "fixes," please let me know.

Keith
Title: Re: Photoshop CS3 Printing Issues.
Post by: prairiedust on November 22, 2009, 11:46:07 AM
This has helped with some long-standing problems I've had trying to make color management work.  I'm using Photoshop CS3, an NEC MultiSync P221W calibrated to sRGB with an NEC mdsvsensor and SpectraViewII software. I'm printing to an Epson R2400, with Epson Velvet my preferred paper.  My color matching between monitor is very close now, though I find dark areas much darker in print than on monitor, so I'm still experimenting on that part of things.
Title: Re: Photoshop CS3 Printing Issues.
Post by: prairiedust on November 22, 2009, 12:40:39 PM
I had my monitor set too bright for printing purposes, so I re-calibrated with intensity set to 120 cd/m2 and it everything seems to be working beautifully now, both color and tonality are very close. 
Title: Re: Photoshop CS3 Printing Issues.
Post by: keithsnell on November 22, 2009, 01:41:40 PM
Hi Dave,

I'm glad the information on CS3 printing issues helped.

It does sound like you had your monitor set too bright for printing purposes, so setting the intensity to 120cd/m2 should help a lot.

As a follow on to our conversation yesterday, if you are printing to an inkjet printer, you might want to try using an adobeRGB working space, including calibrating your monitor to cover the adobeRGB space, instead of limiting it to sRGB.  (I see from the specs that the 221w covers 96% of the adobeRGB gamut, which is close enough.  This means you should be able to see all the colors in adobeRGB except the most extreme greens (which don't occur naturally anyway).)  On the other hand, if your display is calibrated to sRGB, you won't be able to see some of the colors that are present in your image, and therefore might be "surprised" when these colors that are outside of the sRGB gamut show up on your print.  (The Epson 2400 gamut is very close to adobeRGB, so that color space would be a better "working space" when printing to the 2400.)  Make sense?

I think you will get more consistent results if you don't limit your monitor by calibrating it to sRGB.

I hope this makes sense,

Keith