Pregunta
Photoshop / Apple / HP / color management
- January 17, 2022
- 5 respuestas
- 2224 visualizaciones
Like several other users here, I am trying to figure out how Photoshop's color management works in the current environment for Mac computers and HP printers. I have Photoshop 22.4.3, Mac OS Catalina 10.15.7, and an HP OfficeJet Pro 9010.
As noted in other posts, Apple seems to have taken control of the printer drivers and profiles through their AirPrint interface. A year or more ago an HP tech told me that HP no longer can write and distribute drivers directly. Apple seems to no longer provide occasional printer driver updates, or at least they are not visible as such. I cannot find the printer profile name anywhere in Mac's printer panels, nor in System Information, nor in "HP Smart.app" nor in the printer's manual nor HP's web site.
A year or so ago (pretty sure my Mac was running Mojave) I think I was able to use Mac's ColorSync utility to send files to the printer and choose between "Printer manages color" and "Application manages color" but I don't recall the details. Now the color is off (too much blue) and no profile choices I make seem to affect the color, so maybe AirPrint has obviated printing in ColorSync. (In the profiles list there are profiles for *papers* such as "U.S. Sheetfed Coated v2" but no profiles for *printers* to choose from.)
Some writers here and elsewhere have advised to delete Apple's AirPrint version of the driver and install native drivers provided by Epson, Canon, or HP... yet neither HP nor Apple provide native drivers as far as I can see. Those writers seem to have assumed that HP native drivers are available. I deleted the printer from System Preferences, and tried adding the printer back in several ways:
- Choose the default printer name. The process *can* find the printer on my network, but the list of printer drivers stops at the 8000 series, no 90xx drivers are listed. I tried an 8000 series driver, but the device was only visible as a scanner and fax, not a printer.
- Add by IP address as a PCL printer. Color was not even available.
- Add by IP address as a Postscript device. Printing only sent Postscript text and was not interpreted.
I reinstalled the printer, chose the AirPrint method, and now its driver is shown as "HP OfficeJet Pro 9010 series-AirPrint" version 2.0.
In Photoshop, I know my image's profile (sRGB) and have set the working space as Adobe RGB (1999), and I know my monitor's profile (HP23xw that I have calibrated). But in View > Proof Setup > Device to Simulate there are *no* printer profiles listed. There are paper profiles, and there are monitor profiles, and what I think are some "working space" profiles such as Adobe RGB, Apple RGB, etc. I've had some success using "Wide Gamut RGB". So I guess my first question is: how can I get my HP printer's profile to show up? But I'm not sure that's a valid question, because some writers imply an output profile should be a combination of printer-and-paper.
One paper I have used is HP's Advanced Photo Paper. A year or so ago, the Mac print dialog used to list specific papers, including that one by name. The product literature for the OfficeJet Pro 9xxx series stated that with this paper chosen, and with 1200 dpi files, the printer could actually print 4800x1200, and I had succeeded with that. At some point the specific paper name went away, and for photo papers now the print dialog only lists "Photo Glossy Paper" and "Specialty Paper, Glossy". A big step backwards! I seem to recall that "Specialty Papers, Glossy" achieved the same fine, near-photographic quality in some portraits I was printing. But... since I can no longer prove that Photoshop knows my specific printer, I'm not sure I can achieve that same high quality. And Photoshop refuses to set dpi higher than 999... I have used other tools to resize photos to 1,200 dpi, but was hoping to do so in Photoshop.
Now on to printing from Photoshop: the print dialog includes a preview which seems to honor the Proof Setup. It includes the reminder "Remember to disable the printer's color management in the print settings dialog box", which is currently not possible. I see some discussion that choosing "Photoshop Manages Colors" actually turns off the printer's color management behind the scenes, but since Photoshop's print dialog doesn't remove that reminder message, I'm not sure that's true.
When Color Handling is set to "Photoshop Manages Colors", the Printer Profile drop-down again contains *no* printer profiles, only monitor profiles (even fewer than in Proof Setup), and scanner and camera profiles. No paper profiles either. Wide Gamut RGB is listed, and that seems to produce the best color fidelity, when Rendering Intent is set to "Perceptual". Printed colors are pretty close but green is a bit weak. So question #2: how do I get my printer's profile to show up in File > Print > Color Management > Printer Profile? Paper profiles are not even mentioned in the PS print dialog, so is it implied that a "Printer Profile" would actually be a printer-and-paper combo?
I see discussion of creating custom profiles by analyzing print samples with a colorimeter, which would address both the printer and paper... but how does one add such a profile into Photoshop? Are such combo profiles available to buy, or is there someplace where people share them?
How are people dealing with this in real life? Has Apple thoroughly messed up Adobe's color management by forcing printers to use AirPrint and hiding the details?
Any suggestions are welcome. Well, except the ones I keep seeing that say "Here's how it works. But I'm on Windows, so I don't really know". Just don't. Printer driver technology is *completely* different on Mac.
Thanks in advance.
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