Pink tinge when printing on photo paper

[Molko]

Hi

I'm using a Canon MP800 printer and trying to print a black and white photo. Prints fine in black and white on A4 but on photo paper I get a pink tinge. Has anyone any ideas?

Ta

[mistermonday]

Molko, welcome to RP. The only way it could be printing in color is if you have not checked a box that instructs your printer to print in Black only. I don't have that printer so I can't tell you the settings but if you check you print options you should find it.

[Coopers_PaleAle]

I have the same problem, tried all sorts of things with printer settings, CS4 settings -nothing works - currently attempting to do a b/w wedding with the bouquets in colour - all looks great on the pc - but when I print - dada - a pink tinge - not the effect I want as you can probably understand very frustrating - open to any suggestions on how to fix - using a Canon Pixma MP810 (Does great colour)

CHEERS

TOM

[Janet Petty]

I print on an Epson printer but have found that if the computer program (Photoshop), and monitor, and printer aren't synced up colorwise then I get the color aberrations that ruin a photo. Make sure you check that Photoshop manages the color rather than the printer profile; and make sure the print dialog box is set to the proper paper as well. That should help.

Janet

[Dnaindustries]

You have to do a lot of stuff to print black and white. Such as monitor calibration, screen calibration, printer calibration make sure you have the profile for the paper. Which *depending on brand* can be downloaded from the company website.

[Chain]

Ok, you need to make sure you have set up your color management correctly. It must be set up for the correct paper type (among other things).

When printing from Photoshop make sure you choose to let Photoshop manage color, and then pick a color profile that came with your canon printer. In my case with my Canon MP610 i choose the profile called "Canon MP610 series GL2". GL2 here means Canon Glossy Photo Paper, printing quality: 2 (lower = better). (See 1st screenshot.)

Now, when you get to your printer dialogue, open up the printer settings and make sure you do the following:
- choose the correct paper type from the drop-down
- Set quality to high.
- turn off all color management and image adjustments in the printer
(see 2nd screenshot)

Print.

[Chain]

Canon suggests the following Photoshop settings when printing:

In Photoshop "Print With Preview":

#1: When NOT using dedicated, printer/media specific profiles:
1. Source space: Adobe RGB (or sRGB)
2. Print space: Printer Color Management
3. Print Driver: Select correct media, choose desired print quality, check manual color adjustment, select "Set...", and check "Enable ICM".

#2: When using a dedicated media-specific profile:
1. Source space: Adobe RGB (or sRGB)
2. Print space: Select the media-specific ICC profile*
3. Printer Driver: Select correct media, check manual color adjustment, select "Set...", and select "None" for "Print Type". Do not enable ICM.

(quote from somewhere on the interwebs)

[Sweetlight]

Hey,

Are you printing with a white border on your photos or fulll bleed? If you are printing with a white border I am interested to know if the border has the same pink tint as the image.

c

[Chain]

Originally Posted by Sweetlight

Hey,
Are you printing with a white border on your photos or fulll bleed? If you are printing with a white border I am interested to know if the border has the same pink tint as the image.
c

That sounds unlikely. That would mean his default profile/CM setup was trying to compensate for the paper 'white' on a paper with green tint... (right?) An overall magenta tint seems to be very common though when you have the wrong profiles set up

[Sweetlight]

Yes Chain, I agree with you for sure. Even my Epson Printers throw that red cast when profiles are wrong. I'll let you run with it since you seem familiar with the Canons.

c

[itsallgoode9]

This is only my opinion/theory, but I just think that is an unfixable problem with alot of pritners unless you go higher end with a printer that has multiple black inks.

The reason I say that is I've had that problem, on multiple computers/printers, for about the past 4 years until I just upgraded to the Canon Pixma Pro 9500 MarkII. The 9500 has 3 black inks in it, Photo Black, Black and Grey. From day one prints have been coming out 100% black, with not color tints whatsoever. I'm convinced it's multiple blacks that make this work.

In the past, I would try fixing the Magenta balance in the printer dialouge, what would always happen would be that color would start to shift overall to a green or blue tint, while still maintaining a slight magenta tint as well. As if the inks just couldn't produce true unsaturated colors.

LIke I said, it's just my thoughts but my recent upgrade has convinced me of this.

[Chain]

Just dragging color sliders in the print dialogue is a bad solution that will never give accurate results - the only way to get the right colors would be to print using the correct print profile (worst case scenario you have to make one yoruself to get a good result) - and with printer settings to match.

It's perfectly possible to print neutral grey using CMYK inks (worst case scenario print only using the black ink). With your newer printer it's quite possible that it is better calibrated to print well out-of-the-box with default settings (best results is still like i quoted above and repeated in a tutorial).

[itsallgoode9]

yeah, I know adjusting the printer sliders is not a good solution, but after doing everything correctly (setting up profiling correctly and everything, even trying telling it to print greyscale) it would never be 100% neutral, it was always pink tinted. Could've just been the printer possibly...it wasn't very high end, an Espon Stylus R300. Although I remember having the identical problem with the printer in the lab in college too though..it was a wide format Epson, but I don't remember the model.

Well, anyway, I guess i'm not really contributing anything useful to this thread so I'll leave it for people that have actual advice about the problem haha.

[mistermonday]

Chain and Itsallgoode9, not sure why you want to perpetuate this thread. Molko, the OP, posted it almost 1 year ago and never came back to this thread or any other at RP.
Regards, Murray

[itsallgoode9]

we posted because "Coopers_PaleAle" post on June '09 about having this same issue...which obivously is a reoccouring issue

There is nothing wrong with posting in old threads like this...even if the OP is long gone, it does not mean that somebody else cannot be helped by a solution to this topic.

We could've ignored "Coopers_PaleAle" request for help, just because this thread was old and that would've benefited nobody. There is no reason to have 19 threads about Red color cast if one thread filled with lots of usefull information will suffice. I had chimed in because I wanted to find out the outcome since I have had this exact problem myself, with no luck fixing it other than upgrading my printer. Hope that doesn't come off mean/snarky, it's not meant too be


I'd like to hear if Sweetlight or Coopers got thier problem fixed and if so, what solution worked.

[Chain]

Did you create your own printer profile or did you just use one given to you by the manufacturer?

[itsallgoode9]

I had always used profiles provided by the manufacturer...unfortunatly getting harware for printer calibration/profiling is not in my budget right now.

Are the manufacturer's profiles fairly accurate? I guess if there's any weird color tints doing a custom profile would fix that, but if everything looks fairly accurate there's no need to custom profile?

[Chain]

It all depends on how picky you are. My mother just presses print no matter what paper/profiles are used. :P

The manufacturer profiles will usually provide fairly good results on a new printer, with the manufaturer's ink and paper (as used in the profile). If not you are out of luck if you don't have access to calibration equipment and need more accurate colors. The more picky you get about accurate color the more variables come into play (e.g. avoid sunlight, keep a stable humidity, etc.). The color a printer reproduces can easily change a over time.

One example: We have two large-format printers of the same type here at work (in the same room, using the same ink and paper). If we calibrate one and use that calibration profile for both printers they will print slightly different colors. They have to be calibrated separately (and we are picky so we let them auto-calibrate daily).

[mondev]

Hello, I'm new to this forum but I have the exact same problem (black and white prints have a red/pinkish tint). However, when I print the same B&W image onto regular paper, the print doesn't have this red tint. I'm using Epson Premium Glossy photo paper for the prints, and I've also tried printing onto Canon's Photo Paper Plus Glossy II, with the same red/pinkish tint on both. I've set my color management just like Chain suggested with the same result. However, I'm not sure what kind of printer profile I should choose when in Photoshop, it has my printer model (Canon PIXMA iP4700) and then GL2/SG2. There's also some other options such as MP2 and PR1, but I have no clue on what those mean :P

So if anyone could chime in I would greatly appreciate it.

[Chain]

mondev: sounds like you have the wrong paper selected somewhere; that it tries to print on the photo paper like it is regular paper perhaps?

Sounds like you're on the right track tho.
Here's the tutorial I wrote for how to print it: http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/inde...&id=346&page=2

1. I believe GL is what your Canon photo paper plus glossy II (horrible name?) is called in the profiles. The number is the quality you are printing at (choose the lowest number; probably 2 or 1). Low number = better quality.

2. Now, it is VERY important to also when you are done choosing the profile and stuff in Photoshop choose the settings in the printer driver like I showed. There you must choose the correct paper type (first), then turn off all automatic image adjustment/calibration, and set the quality to high (or manually set it to the number you chose in the profile).

...If you still get too much of a tint on 4-color black and white images you could try printing it as 1-color/grayscale. Should be an option for that in the printer driver where you select the paper/color/quality. Note that this will not give as much contrast...

[mondev]

Originally Posted by Chain

mondev: sounds like you have the wrong paper selected somewhere; that it tries to print on the photo paper like it is regular paper perhaps?

Sounds like you're on the right track tho.
Here's the tutorial I wrote for how to print it: http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/inde...&id=346&page=2

1. I believe GL is what your Canon photo paper plus glossy II (horrible name?) is called in the profiles. The number is the quality you are printing at (choose the lowest number; probably 2 or 1). Low number = better quality.

2. Now, it is VERY important to also when you are done choosing the profile and stuff in Photoshop choose the settings in the printer driver like I showed. There you must choose the correct paper type (first), then turn off all automatic image adjustment/calibration, and set the quality to high (or manually set it to the number you chose in the profile).

...If you still get too much of a tint on 4-color black and white images you could try printing it as 1-color/grayscale. Should be an option for that in the printer driver where you select the paper/color/quality. Note that this will not give as much contrast...

Thanks for the reply. I tried using the settings that you've suggested, and still got similar results. I printed a couple of test pages, and the best results that I've seen was when I chose "Printer manages colors".

With that the B/W image looks closest to the original on the PC screen. When I choose "Photoshop manages colors", I get a sort of greenish tint; when I choose a color image and print it in grayscale, I get a sort of redish tint. But when the printer manages the colors it seems to be with almost no tint at all, maybe a slight blueish tint which makes it look the best.

Bear in mind that these tints are HARDLY noticeable, that's just the best description I can give of how the photos differ from the original on the PC screen. Anyway thanks again for your suggestions, they've been helpful!

P.S. if you're thinking about buying the Canon PIXMA iP4700, don't hesitate! The prints are amazing in color, and in B/W are just as great (with the right settings)

[mondev]

Also here's a quick comparison of how the different settings look:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...mparison-1.jpg

This was the image printed for all except the grayscale setting:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...n/Original.jpg

This one was printed in grayscale:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...riginalClr.jpg

[Chain]

And you are sure all the settings in the printer driver is correct (besides the Photoshop print settings)? Original inks?

If so there isn't much more to do besides experimenting and just going with whatever gets you the closest to what you want – or to actually calibrate the printer (making your own profile – this requires hardware, something like http://www.colormunki.com/).

[BlackandWhitie]

Dear Mondev, I have been reading (and recognizing) your experiences with interest. I am mainly interested in black and white and was disappointed by the color casts on my old canon S900. Now, this printer has something that the ip4700 does not have - if I reaad all the postings on the web and the online manual: true black and white printing. If you check the grayscale button, the printer dithers in black and does NOT use any of the colour cartridges. GREAT, great colour. REALLY excellent and even. Of course, if you don't like the tint, there is no way to change it, but at least it is very even, without any cast, also not under artificial lighting.
However, the S900 is only 2400x1200 and the dots are clearly visible. So my reasoning was: let's upgrade to a 9600dpi printer and the results should be stunning. Right? Apparently not, since everyone who checked confirm that colours are mixed in and a cast is apparent, as you also clearly noted.
Now, I have seen a 'solution' or maybe better, a suggestion to a solution: it was suggested to upscale the picture to pref. 9600 dpi, but this might be too much (HUGE drain on memory), but otherwise to say 4800dpi, than convert to bitmap B/W and than print.
My question would be: could you try this and see what happens? If you could confirm that you get a picture with only black drops (I use my macrolens with LiveView on with 10x magnification on my 50D to check this), it could help you in your quest for the perfect BW print, but certainly would make me rush to the store to buy a IP4700.
Anyone else who have tried this or would like to try: I am very curious what your experience is!!!

[BlackandWhitie]

Well, I discovered the above cannot be done (I bought myself a IP4700: what an ink guzzler!). What a shame!
I did resolve the pink issue though: if you print on PP-201 you hardly see a tint. On GP-501 (the 'standard' cheaper glossy paper, it is all red). Solution: set your document to RGB, and print with c +5, m-6, y-4, con +20 settings in the print monitor. Perfect prints!
Depending on the type of paper you may have to tweak around.
With hobbicolors I like C-2, M +3, Y -2, contrast +15 a lot...

[Robbie Dahl]

Chain,Thank you for the link to the tutorial and the tutorial itself. After struggling with poor printing results I finally know how to set up my printing to get the best print that my Canon IP4700 can do. This is by far,(and I have read a great deal lately on color management), the best tutorial on the subject for relative novices to Photoshop.
I am forever grateful for your post.

[Chain]

Thanks for the feedback; now I know at least one person has seen it

For those who missed it, the tutorial is posted here on retouchpro:
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/inde...&id=346&page=2
as well as on my own page:
http://resources.rognemedia.no/tutorials/printing.html
...and finally an updated version in Norwegian:
http://adobe.rognemedia.no/index.php?pg=article&id=90

[preditation]

Stinkyink now offer ink cartridges for the Canon Pixma IP4700 ink. Oh and it's free delivery!

[Chain]

^-- Hello Stinkyink-man...

[preditation]

hello, chain.