Color tint on photo prints - another time

Report · Mar 15, 2020

Ladies, gents,

I need professional help. I have the unacceptable color print problem that I understand I am not alone with but could not solve so far. I have read numerous articles about color management, but have an idea building up why my pictures do not print right and I want you to prove me wrong.

To give you some background: I own a Nikon D5300, use LR to import RAW and edit with PS, view on an HP Dreamcolor display and try to print acceptable colors on an HP Officejet Pro 6970 (yes, it is not a photo printer, and no, it does not come with ICC profiles!).

I have read this article, saying how colorspaces work and how Adobe apps handle color output. I have put LR editing export settings to AdobeRGB and PS preferred color space to AdobeRGB as well, as my display is set to AdobeRGB colorspace. The image looks perfectly right on my display as far as I can tell, PS document profile shows as AdobeRGB, all seems ok that far.

If I now print one of my images from PS to my 6970 printer, I tried using a plethora of different settings in print dialog, from "Printer manages color" and different rendering intent, and "Photoshop manages color" with different printer profiles in the PS print dialog, colors look greenish and dull. As my printer does not come with ICC profiles, there still must be a way to print that PS image data in standard sRGB to my printer to get an acceptable image even without ICC profiles, I would think.

But so far, I did not manage. But as written in the beginning, I have an idea, and I cannot believe this is true..... As mentioned, my HP Dreamcolor has a colorspace setting. If I view the image in PS print dialog (I assume the image is displayed with AdobeRGB color profile as colors do look the same as in PS editing mode) and I change the colorspace of my HP dreamcolor display from AdobeRGB to sRGB in my display´s colorspace setting, believe or not, the colors on my display look nearly exactly how the prints from my printer look: dull, slightly greenish tinted! This leads me to the conclusion that the PS print function possibly simply does not convert image data from AdobeRGB to sRGB colorspace but simply sends AdobeRGB data to the printer, which interprets it as sRGB, just like my display wrongly interpreting AdobeRGB as sRGB with the wrong colorspace setting......Really true? How can I prove or change that behavour? Any help welcome.

Report · Mar 15, 2020

There is one basic misunderstanding here: The whole point of color management is that color spaces don't need to match.

Each device or destination has its own native color space, and color management translates from one into the other.

Your monitor does not need to match Adobe RGB. Your documents don't need to be Adobe RGB. Your printer certainly has nothing to do with Adobe RGB.

Again: color spaces don't need to match.

That's why you have a monitor profile that describes the monitor's behavior as it is, whatever it is. The same way, you normally have printer profiles that describe the particular printer/paper/ink combination.

If you don't have printer profiles, Photoshop can't do normal printer color management. Then you need to leave it to the printer driver, by setting "Printer Manages Color" in the PS Print dialog. Whether you send sRGB or Adobe RGB to the printer shouldn't matter, the driver should be able to handle both. Just set the correct paper type in the driver.

Report · Mar 23, 2020

Sorry, maybe I not been precise enough..... I surely understood color spaces of various devices (cam, display, printer) are not matching. You correct me if I am wrong: Colorspaces are like the coordinate system for graphs: One coordinate point matches a specific color, lets take light green. This same color has different coordinates in a different colorspaces. Question: If you work within AdobeRGB colorspace as display output colorspace for the monitor you are looking at (and you assume that display is perfectly translating that data in that colorspace to the correct color and shows it to you), what colorspace is the data referring to which gets sent to the printer through Adobe´s print dialog, if you select "printer manages color" and there is no ICC profile for the printer? Is it sRGB or AdobeRGB? To me it looks as if it was AdobeRGB, and my assumption is based on the fact that colors have similar tint, when I change the colorspace of my display to sRGB. The logic is that Adobe PS in both situations (display and printer) sends image data referring to AdobeRGB colorspace to those devices that are interpreting this data according to sRGB colorspace. Makes sense?

Report · Mar 23, 2020

Jelly109

you wrote:

Sorry, maybe I not been precise enough..... I surely understood color spaces of various devices (cam, display, printer) are not matching. You correct me if I am wrong: Colorspaces are like the coordinate system for graphs: One coordinate point matches a specific color, lets take light green. This same color has different coordinates in a different colorspaces.

it does

Question: If you work within AdobeRGB colorspace as display output colorspace for the monitor you are looking at (and you assume that display is perfectly translating that data in that colorspace to the correct color and shows it to you),

NO you work in Photoshop in a device independent colour space like Adobe RGB, BUT your display colour space is defined by it's own ICC profile, let's call it "display ICC".

The display is NOT correctly defined by the Adobe RGB profile.

Photoshop (and other color management savvy applications translate the colour whilst sending to the display screen in this example between Adobe RGB and display RGB to ensure correct colour is displayed on screen*

(*if "display RGB" is a good profile i.e. ACCURATELY defining the display characteristics)

what colorspace is the data referring to which gets sent to the printer through Adobe´s print dialog,

There is a conversion - between the

1: device independent workingspace (e.g. Adobe RGB or sRGB) as source profile

and

2: the printer color space as destination profile (as defined by the printer/media ICC profile).

if you select "printer manages color" and there is no ICC profile for the printer? Is it sRGB or AdobeRGB?

neither,

if you select "printer manages color" then the manufacturer's print driver SW automatically chooses the printer/media profile dependent on the "media" name you select in the pulldown list, there in the driver SW.

With a non listed media (i.e. one not made by the printer manufacturer) you can't use "printer manages color" and expect good colour.

Photoshop manages color allows choosing a correct printer / media profile.

(of course you still have to choose the right media in the driver as well.)

Without a profile for the printer/ media combination you simply can't print accurately.

To me it looks as if it was AdobeRGB, and my assumption is based on the fact that colors have similar tint, when I change the colorspace of my display to sRGB.

you must NOT change the colourspace profile of your display, the only profile that suits the display is ITS OWN ICC profile.

The logic is that Adobe PS in both situations (display and printer) sends image data referring to AdobeRGB colorspace to those devices that are interpreting this data according to sRGB colorspace. Makes sense?

Sorry, but that is a very long way from making sense

read up about ICC profiles here. https://www.colourmanagement.net/advice/about-icc-colour-profiles/

I hope this helps

if so, please "like" my reply and if you're OK now, please mark it as "correct", so that others who have similar issues can see the solution

thanks

neil barstow, colourmanagement.net :: adobe forum volunteer

[please do not use the reply button on a message in the thread, only use the one at the top of the page, to maintain chronological order]

Report · Mar 23, 2020

I am so grateful for your reply, thanks so much! Still, one question seems unanswered to me. You write:

if you select "printer manages color" and there is no ICC profile for the printer? Is it sRGB or AdobeRGB?

neither,

if you select "printer manages color" then the manufacturer's print driver SW automatically chooses the printer/media profile dependent on the "media" name you select in the pulldown list, there in the driver SW.

With a non listed media (i.e. one not made by the printer manufacturer) you can't use "printer manages color" and expect good colour.

Photoshop manages color allows choosing a correct printer / media profile.

(of course you still have to choose the right media in the driver as well.)

Without a profile for the printer/ media combination you simply can't print accurately.

As I wrote before, my printer does not come with any ICC profiles, so I cannot select a specific profile matching my printer/paper combination. Still, I am able to use "printer manages color" in the PS print dialog. So, the one million dollar question is, which color space does PS relate the image data to which is sent to the printer in this scenario? It does not know the color space it should convert the internal working colorspace to, does it default to sRGB? It does not look like it does, as sRGB would be the printers colorspace (true even without an ICC profile), but the colors are so much off. Can it be that it does not convert the working colorspace and send the image data in the working colorspace, in my case AdobeRGB? As I stated in my previous post, it looks like exactly this is happening! Can I force PS to convert to sRGB even without an ICC profile?

Report · Mar 23, 2020

This is what the embedded document profile does, and why it's important that there is one. The embedded profile determines how the data are treated.

The working space isn't important. It only comes into play if there is no embedded profile.

True, letting the printer driver do color management isn't as accurate or flexible as letting Photoshop do it - but it can still read a document profile and convert as needed. So it shouldn't matter if you send sRGB or Adobe RGB.

I suppose it is possible that some printer drivers are hard-wired to just accepting sRGB, but not accepting Adobe RGB. If they print differently, that may be the case. That would be a pretty dumb driver, but again, I suppose it's possible. In that case just convert to sRGB before printing.

In any case, as long as the printer manages color, Photoshop is out of the equation. It just sends the file, with its embedded profile, and that ends Photoshop's involvement. It doesn't know what happens to the file after that.

Report · Mar 24, 2020

This is what the embedded document profile does, and why it's important that there is one. The embedded profile determines how the data are treated.

-> Understood. But the embedded document profile only tells PS how to treat the data, and to take the comparison to the coordinate system, it tells PS how to interpret the image data internal to PS. But this is happening in my case, as my raw cam data includes the AdobeRGB profile tag. In combination with the AdobeRGB ICC profile for display and the AdobeRGB colorspace setting on my display, colors look perfect on my display. This lets me assume that so far all good.

True, letting the printer driver do color management isn't as accurate or flexible as letting Photoshop do it - but it can still read a document profile and convert as needed. So it shouldn't matter if you send sRGB or Adobe RGB.

-> This again I do not get, sorry. We already talked about the "import" of a cam raw file into PS, this is done. the image data is now in PS with the working colorspace you have set in PS, in my case it is the same colorspace as the image file, but it does not have to be. In theory you could set PS to use ProPhoto as internal colorspace, in this case image data would have had to be converted from AdobeRGB to ProPhoto in order to have correct colormanagment in subsequent steps of the workflow. If the printer does color management while printing or if PS does it should not make a big difference regarding colorspace used (yes, they will us different algorithms), if, and only if the printer driver is equally able to handle image data with different colorspaces sent to it as this can be done by PS. And here I think is the problem: most consumer printers are NOT able to handle image data with a different colorspace tag than their native colorspace. They simply ignore the colorspace tag and expect, that the application sends image data in that colorspace. This is an assumption, and yes, I think you are right, all these printers have dumb drivers.

In any case, as long as the printer manages color, Photoshop is out of the equation. It just sends the file, with its embedded profile, and that ends Photoshop's involvement. It doesn't know what happens to the file after that.

-> not true. In order to avoid the worst case, letting the printer driver interpret image data wrongly, it would be necessary to have the possibility to push PS to send image data in sRGB colorspace. Let me know if this is possible, and if yes, how.

in the assumption that an ICC profile for my printer could solve the issue, I have purchased the service to create an ICC profile for my printer/paper combination....I will let you know if this solves the issue, just in case somebody else has the problem I have....

Report · Mar 24, 2020

You're making this much more complicated than it is. You're assuming a lot of secret recipes under the covers. There aren't any. It's all out in the open.

Like this: "it would be necessary to have the possibility to push PS to send image data in sRGB colorspace."

There is such a thing, it's called Convert to Profile. It's a very basic Photoshop function that we all use all the time. You find it under the Edit menu.

Report · Mar 24, 2020

as said in the beginning, I am not an expert on this topic, so maybe you are right. But I think the Convert to Profile function under Edit Menu is only converting image data in the current PS workspace, as you stated previously the colorspace set in PS workspace has nothing to do with the image data sent to a printer through the print dialog, right?

But yes, this function could help to check if my theory that the consumer printer drivers do not take care of the colorspace tag, is correct....I will check this! If correct and no colorspace translation happens the colors of prints should look different (better!) once image data in PS workspace get converted to sRGB. Thanks!

Report · Mar 24, 2020

Man, you are making this so complicated, you don't need to write down your explanation about how Photoshop works with ICC profiles for us.

We have a lot of experience with a lot of printers on this list between us.

So we know that it's wrong to write that consumer level printers don't include media profiles.

If you are convinced that the printer driver is that dumb (I never came across one, though, what is this printer?) then follow what D Fosse wrote - in Photoshop use 'convert to profile' and convert your file to sRGB.

Set Photoshop to 'printer manages color'

If the printer driver is asking you for a profile the set that to sRGB too.

You still need a calibrated / profiled screen to see the file accurately.

And to get a good print you need decent paper in the printer.

You'll have to test, that’s what we do and have. done for years and how we can answer your questions.

If you still fail, then buy an Epson or Canon photo type printer.