Printing woes

[Fox Paw]

I need to print out several photos. The prints I'm making all have washed out colors. Why isn't it working well?

My monitor is calibrated. I rechecked.

I've made sure all systems were operating in the same color management spaces. I used Adobe RGB. Then I used sRGB. I checked the printer and Lightroom, and even exported photos to a different program and printed those.

I installed a new printer cartridge. I said a prayer to the god of color management.

Maybe the printer just sucks. It's a cheap HP. Dunno. Frustrating.

[Terri]

:scratch: Cheap printer or not, washed out colors doesn't sound right. From what I'm reading, you've checked everything correctly, too.

I always print from Photoshop using my old Epson 2200 and sometimes, the simplest tricks kick up the color. Can you select options such as "vivid" or "hard" color in your printer profile?

You said you checked the HP, I'm guessing that includes running a nozzle check, too? (Yes, I'm thinking of the simple tricks.) ;)

Have you changed inkjet papers recently? The differences in setup from paper to paper can make a big difference.

Sorry I'm not much help - I hope you get more troubleshooting ideas from others here. I'd be frustrated, as well.

[ann]

Wish I could be helpful but it seems you have been checking out the most likely problems.

Modern tools are wonderful, until they don't work and then it drives us to ???????

In the darkroom, an enlarger goes strange, a few minutes of work and things are usually back to normal.

[Fox Paw]

Terri and Ann, thanks for the comments. I modified the vivid color adjustment and that made the results about right. It seems as if that shouldn't be necessary, and I avoid automatic adjustments, but it worked. I'll take it. :)

PS: I realized that part of the problem was that I didn't have the saturation high enough on some of the photos. I'm so averse to oversaturation that I often underdo it, and prints bring that out. Learned something.

[icassell]

Fox, I'm happy you got things figured out. I gave up on home-printing a while back because I hated these fights and found that MPIX didn't cost me more and they always seem to get it right. My wife actually asked me why I didn't buy a good printer but, after investigating the price of ink, I decided it just wasn't worth it. I have a little Canon for proofs, but never use it for final images.

[Terri]

I'm happy to come back to this thread and see you got the results you were after! I'm not a digital shooter, but I do use a photo printer for scanned slides or other color work I want printed.

My particular Epson model (2200) always did such a poor job printing B&W that I was driven to purchasing an enlarger and setting up a darkroom. My original workflow idea - scanning negatives (as well as color work) for home printing failed miserably with this printer. Trust me, I felt your pain and frustration when I remember all the paper/ink combinations I tried to get a decent B&W. :lol:

I think photo printers have come a long way with B&W, but I can't upgrade photo printers every few years, and I seem to have solved my own issue by turning to the darkroom for B&W prints. :) Photo papers are superior for hand coloring anyway and, for some of the other alt processes I do, they are a necessity.

I want to add that Epson printers generally rock for color work. I've been very happy with both scanned slides and prints.

[Fox Paw]

It's actually consoling to know that it isn't just me.

Color management issues are a constant headache. Lightroom prefers Pro Photo RGB. Paint Shop Pro doesn't recognize that, though, and I keep it set in Adobe RGB. When I use the "edit in" feature to go to PSP, I'm never quite sure what to do, and sometimes the roundtrip kills the color. Maybe I should keep everything set to Adobe RGB.

[icassell]

I dunno -- I use sRGB for everything.

[Matt Needham]

Lightroom prefers Pro Photo RGB. Paint Shop Pro doesn't recognize that, though, and I keep it set in Adobe RGB. When I use the "edit in" feature to go to PSP, I'm never quite sure what to do, and sometimes the roundtrip kills the color. Maybe I should keep everything set to Adobe RGB.

Can you export out of LR as a Adobe RGB tiff and then open that in PSP on Adobe RGB? I assume the LR export as jpeg automatically switches to sRGB. If you can't export as Adobe RGB I'd just go to sRGB for PSP. "kills the color" sounds like a color space mismatch somewhere to me. Also go to the PSP website and look for any updates, plug-ins, or advice.

[Matt Needham]

I gave up on home-printing a while back because I hated these fights and found that MPIX didn't cost me more and they always seem to get it right. My wife actually asked me why I didn't buy a good printer but, after investigating the price of ink, I decided it just wasn't worth it. I have a little Canon for proofs, but never use it for final images.

I'm with you. I calibrate my monitor ever few weeks, and order my prints without corrections. It's pretty much WYSIWYG, and I don't have to pay for any printing screw-ups caused by machine malfunction. I wasn't a fan of dropping my film off at the lab for processing and printing, because I didn't like giving up control. Now I run the lab's high dollar machines from home. I don't feel like I've got any less control because the printer cables are 150 miles long instead of 15'.

Assuming typical style photo papers I can't see a difference between well made ink jet prints and C prints and silver gelatin prints these days, except that the well made ink jet prints are usually more expensive.

[Fox Paw]

Matt, I've come around to using Adobe RGB when I use the "edit in" feature in Lightroom, with the color space in PSP set to Adobe RGB, as you suggest. I still seem to get a little color loss. PSP's support is poor. I raised this issue with the Adobe people and they just said to make sure the color working spaces were consistent.