Ongoing Issue Printing Photos

[bobbeev68944634]

Ive been a week trying different settings. I just cant get a decent print from my HP laserjet. I dont think the printer is the issue, since both printers are outputting the same bad pictures. 

anyone got advice?

[D Fosse]

Wide Gamut RGB is not a printer profile. It is guaranteed to produce very wrong results.

Until you can find the correct profile for your printer/paper/ink - it should normally be installed with the printer driver, if the printer model supports icc profiles at all - use "Printer Manages Color" instead of "Photoshop Manages Color".

You still have to choose the right media type (paper) in the printer driver.

[NB, colourmanagement]

@bobbeev68944634  As @D Fosse has suggested try find a profile for your media and printer, if not you should try "printer manages color" in Photoshop and be sure to select the right media in "printer settings" 

Wide Gamut RGB is definitely not a printer profile - you'll get awful results telling Photoshop that this is the ICC profile of your printer & media 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer - co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
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[bobbeev68944634]

I should have mentioned that the wide gamut was just an experiment.  I had no HP printer profile to go to.  So I reinstalled the printer and now see that option.  Now nothing will print out.  It keeps showing error in the Q but not on the printer.  What did I do wrong?

[D Fosse]

Hold the spacebar when you click "Print". This deletes all print metadata stored in the file, and should give you a fresh start with that file.

Generally, whenever icc profiles are involved, there's no room for experimenting. You need to use the correct profile.

Icc profiles don't actually do anything, they are just maps describing how any given color space behaves, whether it's a synthetic color space like sRGB or Adobe RGB, or a physical device color space like a monitor or printer. It's then down to the application (Photoshop) to recalculate - remap - the numbers in the file according to this profile.

In other words, the map has to correspond to the actual terrain.

[bobbeev68944634]

So how do I find the "correct" profile?

[bobbeev68944634]

And as long as I'm here, the photos stopped printing to the edges of the postcards. How do I fix that?

[D Fosse]

For a printer, the correct profile is the one specifically made for that paper/ink/printer. If you're printing on the manufacturer's own paper, these profiles will just be called whatever the paper is called - "premium glossy photo" or whatever. Profiles are automatically installed if the printer supports icc profiles at all.

For third-party papers, you download the profiles from their website, choosing the right printer model.

Typically, low-end consumer printers and "all-in-one" printers don't support icc profiles. Then you have no choice, you have to set "Printer Manages Color". "Photoshop Manages Color" will not work, because the necessary profiles won't be available. You generally need to move a bit up in the price range.

The advantages of using icc profiles are more flexibility and higher accuracy.

Oh, and borderless printing is a setting in the printer driver - again, if it's supported. Photoshop has no control over this.

[bobbeev68944634]

Lots of good information here!  Thanks helping me out!