Color Management and CMYK Printers

[lmatias]

I am using Paintshop Pro Photo X3 and an Epson PHOTO 1400 printer. This printer has 6 inks (2 Cyan, 2 Magenta One yellow and one black). I am also using the Datacolor Spyder3 Print to generate custom color profiles.

Profiles created with the Datacolor product are tested with the printer driver. To create the profile i turned off the color management on the printer and select the Epson Photo Glossy Paper and photo mode. Spyder3 Priont created the patches in 4 sheets that were read with the Spyder3 Photo Densitometer. The profile was created and tested by printing some test atrgets from the Spyder3 program. Prints match the video output very closely.

On Paintshop Pro I selected Color management. If I try to select the option to match the screen to the printer output the name of my profile does not show in the list. It only shows when I select the option for test output. I figured out that on Windows 7 I have to add the profile in order to shop in Paintshop Pro. Why is that? Shouldn't all the profiles list there for me to choose?

The output print has also a very strong red cast not shown on the Spyder3 output.

Moreover if I used the color management built-in on the printer with the same profile the output does not show that read cast. Is there a bug in the color managent options of the Paintshop Pro Photo X3?

Can sopmeone point out how should I configured the product to have the desired results?

[Trev Bowden]

Use the profile in the printer and use a monitor profile in windows 7 dont do it in PSP aswell or your changing twice. Turn of colour manament in PSP.

[ronzie]

I'm not a win 7 user but XP. The following applet for XP helps with associating color profiles with specific devices by class, that is printer or monitor. Once installed PSPPX3 should show the choices.

"Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP
The Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet is a tool for Microsoft Windows XP that makes it easier for you to manage Windows color settings."

Perhaps that applet in the Control Panel is available in Vista and Win 7.

What is important is that you have the option in this applet to associate a profile as a default for a device where the device does not let you specify a specific profile.

Unlike an option available in Photoshop to actually drive a printer with PS's own color management, all PSPPX3 offers is basically a proof viewing mode and leaves it to the print device's driver to obtain the correct profile in its own setup.

As far as monitors go I have a second one, a NEC P221W with the Spectraview calibration option. That monitor relies on a profile created by a wide gammut photo device driving the monitor directly with special software. That profile in Win presents a standard because this monitor has programmable look up tables in hardware that do the translation between measured and standard color spaces. In PSPPX3 I choose for color management the indicated profile for the monitor and then the printer profile of choice. Unfortunately the older Canon S820 I have, which uses the same six color ink type of layout use describe, has a driver that lets you enable an icm profile but does not let you specify it.

Another user found that running it in auto mode and creating a profile for proofing worked.

Perhaps Epson like Canon has created a white paper on coloe management for its printers.

These are just things to think about.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1003 is a forum I've found helpful for dealing with specific devices although keep in mind that like on most digital darkroom forums the mindset is on Photoshop although other products are mentioned.