I own a Canon i9900 and just started using Photoshop CS4. I am having major color management problems.

It's also very important to calibrate your monitor regularly. There are some simple calibration tools bulit into many modern LCD monitors, or for a more professional quality calibration, there is a company called Spyder that produces a product that hangs down over your screen and automatically tests the monitors color quality and calibrates it for you. (Maybe the product is called Spyder, anyway here's a link: http://spyder.datacolor.com/index_us.php)

If you are doing any level of pro-quality work, or want to, I would recommend investing in a pro-level calibrator like Spyder. There are even different versions, the entry level version I think you can get for less than $100.

investing in a top notch monitor is also a requirement.

if you are working off JPEGs then then you should expect around3-5% color deviation.
best thing is to work off camera RAW and save your work in PSB/PSD or flattened TIFFs with embedded color profiles.

jaglovier:

I am doing color calibration on the LCD monitor with the i1 by x-rite which is designed for calibrating monitors.

hathehariken:

The monitor I am using is a high quality LCD monitor. The cameras I am using are a Nikon D70 and a Nikon D300. I shoot all pics in RAW. The color profile I am using in the cameras is Adobe RGB.

hathehariken:

I have done a fair amount of reading on this already from the Red River, Canon and Adobe sites in addition to researching other documents on color management.

Printer, camera, monitor, scanner and many other devices all have their own separate profiles. The key is which one of those profiles do you want to be in control when you print from Photoshop CS4 to the Canon i9900 printer and where does that control take place.

I will have to look into your comment regarding the differences between LCD and CRT monitors with regard to color management. That is an interesting point and I do have a couple of 19" CRT monitors I could use.

I suppose I am hoping that someone who has worked for one of these companies and knows the ins & outs of those products well enough will be able to step me through this. After reading all the material I mentioned earlier, I have all the color management theory I can stand...I just want a real solution.

Thanks for your time thus far.

Jeff

you are most welcome.

truly, i only use HP papers on my HP printer. i just got my monitor (CRT) to match the color from the printer. and that was that.
HP is always very presice about paper quality - they make you pay through the nose for that, though.

i havent worked with Canon printers since they are notoriuosly difficult to refill...
and Red River doesnt have a presence in my country.

cheers!
hathehariken.

wyliecoyoteuk:

Apparently the Canon i9900 does not print in Postscript based on research I have done.

It does not appear that the Canon i9900 offers Pantone colour matching


modularity:

I received an email notice today advising me that I had an open question. Since I have received other messages like this encouraging me to "stay engaged" and how to "close" a question, I thought I'd post some thoughts on this approach.

1) I generally do not check to see if I have new input on a question posted on Expert's Exchange unless I receive an email telling me there is a new post. Can new posts be made without an email being sent?

2) If my interest in the question is dependent upon my responding, do I need to do this daily or weekly even if there is no new input?

if the 9900 does not support PS, then the best case scenario is to match your monitor to your printer gamut, as was mentioned previously by me, and wyliecoyoteuk.

hathehariken:

By "match your monitor to your printer gamut" do you mean use the profile created for the printer as the profile for the monitor?

Jeff

hathehariken:

I just purchased the ColorMunki by X-Rite. It seemed to have good reviews.

Jeff

General

I just received an email that I had an open question and needed to do something about it.

I am learning to use the ColorMunki mention above. It is not simple or straightforward as the advertising claims. Updating my operating system (Net Framework 3.5 and many miscelaneous XP fixes) and installing ColorMunki took nearly 4 hours including trips to the network for troubleshooting since it was the weekend and X-Rite was closed. I just got the first type of paper I use profiled which took nearly 3 hours due to no manual, poor online directions and use of icons in the menu systems to tell you what to do. The results are better, but certainly not anything that would please a professional.

A large part of this is why I have not responded here because nothing completely useful has been accomplished by following hathehariken suggestion to purchase a profiling spectrophotometer. If I were to close this trouble shooting series, I would not be able to rate it at all well.

Jeff

just to clarify, i did not suggest to purchase a profiling spectrophotometer. i only mentioned that if you dont have one, then using the printer profile as the monitor profile is the best solution.

if you had asked for more clarification, i would have told you not to purchase one, as the really Pro ones (which actually does work) run into thousands of dollars, and normally comes only with the printer (like the Xerox Igen 3 Digital Press), and not as standalones.
but thats water under the bridge.

reg ColorMunki:
have you calibrated and created an AppSet profile and created a PrintSafe profile??

hathehariken.

hathehariken:

I don't know what an AppSet profile or a PrintSafe profile is.

modularity:

I am beginning to feel that the help I am getting is either at a "professional" level that is missing what I need or that I am being looked down upon as a dumb neophyte who just can't get it right.

As I mentioned in my earlier posting, I had done a fair amount of research and reviewing before purchasing the ColorMunki. There are many reviews by people who do digital work both with cameras and software that felt the ColorMunki was an excellent choice as a profiling spectrophotometer. I have used these resources for purchasing much of the software and hardware I own and have been satisfied with the quality of advice received.

I am sure there are millions of people out there who are dealing with the issues of color management at a prosumer level. As one of those people who have been doing this professionally as an architect for over 25 years, I feel that I have been  asking legitimate questions that should have answers out there.