What color space can handle my printer?

[santoro80]

I have inkjet printer Canon PIXMA MP520 and I was wondering what color space in Photoshop should I use (if I want to print particular image), because I cant find out how many color can print my printer. What is its gamut? sRGB? Adobe RGB? or does it print colors even outside of Adobe RGB? ProPhoto? Is there a way how to find out?

I also want to know how many ppi should I select (in Camera Raw or Photoshop) for such printer.

I'm talking about printing photographs.

[andrewrodney]

Probably ProPhoto RGB if its a modern ink jet. The reasons are explained here:
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdf...p_colspace.pdf

[santoro80]

Modern? I dont know. It was released on the market four years ago. Its a multifunctional device (for print, scan and copy):
http://www.canon.co.uk/for_home/prod...p520/index.asp
BTW, on Canon site there is some installer for Adobe RGB (1998) colour space. I dont know if I should install it or not. I really dont know anything about printing and printers. I only know which color space has wider gamut

Thanks for the link

[andrewrodney]

Its all about the ink set (and yes, even a 4 year old ink jet can easily exceed Adobe RGB gamut). Provide me a profile, I’ll map it against aRGB.

[santoro80]

Profile? Where can I find it? On the installation CD?

[andrewrodney]

Windows 7, Vista and XP:
* \Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color


Win98/Me - Windows/System/Color



WinNT - WinNT/System32/Color
Win2K- WinNT/System32/Spool/Drivers/Color
WinXP - Windows/System32/Spool/Drivers/Color


On a mac, it's Library/ColorSync/Profiles either in the root or user

[santoro80]

I have Windows 7. I found the directory... there are 47 files. One of them is Adobe RGB1998. So It seems I have it installed?

[andrewrodney]

I need a printer profile to plot against Adobe RGB (1998). The printer profile tells us the gamut of your printer, then it can be compared to Adobe RGB (1998).

[santoro80]

I see, but I really dont know what file in that directory belongs to color profile of my printer. I dont see the name of my printer in any of these files...
The drivers page is here (dont know if its useful):
http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010487.asp

[mistermonday]

Go into your computer's Start>Settings>Printers and Faxes, (or whatever it is in your OS), find your Canon printer, right click and select properties. Click on the Color Management TAB and you will see a box titled "Color Profiles Currently Assiciated with this Printer". The profile may likely have an unusaly name - just alpha and numeric charachters that does not contain the word Canon, depending on the printer. That is the profile you will find in the folder(s) shown above by Andrew.
Regards, Murray

[santoro80]

Ok. Found it. Thanks. There are 8 files for my printer (probably for different versions)
I probably dont have the newest drivers installed, but I suppose that doesnt concern my printer color gamut.

[andrewrodney]

OK, so the gamut of the printer is larger than Adobe RGB (1998) in greens and blues. Plotted here in red is Adobe RGB (1998). The colors that fall outside (in this part of the 3D graph) is your printer (I looked at all of them, they are all very similar). If you use Adobe RGB (1998), those colors you see cannot be reproduced on your printer. If you use ProPhoto, they can be edited and output.

http://digitaldog.net/files/CanonvsAdobe.jpg

[santoro80]

Thanks. But I'm little bit confused by it... I should rather use wider color space ProPhoto instead of narrower Adobe RGB?

[andrewrodney]

IF you use the red Adobe RGB gamut, all the colors you see in the plot outside it are colors your printer could reproduce you clipped by using Adobe RGB (1998).

The document (what ever captured the data, the gamut of the scene) is unknown. One can expect modern capture devices can record colors well outside of Adobe RGB (1998). In this discussion, the question is, does your printer exceed Adobe RGB (1998). The answer is no, not in greens and blues. You now need to reread that URL in my first post.

[santoro80]

I read it. Its a great article, I'm slowly starting to understand it