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).