[GBrown]

Good morning all - I have an HP Photosmart 8250 that I got about a year ago. I know it is capable of pretty good quality (as evidenced by sample WOW! sheets that it can print off), but I am struggling with color management issues.

I have followed the advice I've read online about calibrating my display, it's now in ColorSync, and I'm happy with that. My CanoScan 8400F scanner has a color profile assigned to it in ColorSync too. It's actually got multiple options for multiple media types (film, etc.).

However, all the advice I've read online insists that one's printer must also be properly calibrated with an ICC profile. I have trawled the HP website looking for ICC profile downloads, and they seemingly don't exist for my hardware - only for the high-end large format photo plotters. To make matters worse, I cannot get ColorSync to recognize the printer. It does not even appear as a Device in the listing. My wife's old Dell printer, which is attached via network to her PC, appears in the list, but my USB-connected fancy photo printer does not. WTF?

The printer came with all kinds of software and diagnostic routines, etc. I have found nothing regarding ICC profiles. There's a calibration routine I've run a couple of times, but that's not exactly what I'm looking for.

Does anyone know of any software that can be used to override this situation so I can assign a color profile to this printer?

As a side note, when I print a photo in iPhoto, I have several color profile options to choose from if I want. I am unsure if this represents a generic set of choices, or ICC profiles 'hard-coded' into the printer that cannot be altered, thus explaining the printer's absence in the ColorSync device list. Thanx.

[Philbert]

As I mentioned in the other thread, you need a profile for the specific paper to be used with your particular printer, not the printer itself. I have 7 different paper profiles - all to be used for my Epson R2400. Which profile I use depends on the paper I use.

If HP doesn't provide paper profiles for your printer, you may be out of luck unless you make them yourself (you'd have to purchase additional printer profiling hardware). There are services who will make profiles for you but it can cost up $100 per each profile. You might try finding profiles for the higher end HPs - they might get you close if they use the same ink, but there are no guarantees. And again, only use profiles with specific paper it's designed for.

I'm not sure what you mean by: "I've read online about calibrating my display, it's now in ColorSync"

Did you calibrate the monitor?

-phil

[GBrown]

Hi Phil;

To address your first point, about specific paper profiles for the printer. When printing a photo in iPhoto, I have a number of selections for paper types and print quality. For example:

- Photo
- Photo - Fine
- Photo on Plain Paper
- Photo on Plain Paper - Fine
- Photo on Photo Paper
- Photo on Photo Paper - Fine

etc.

Now, while these options, which appear in the Standard and Advanced Print dialogue windows (Advanced has lots more though) don't really reference a color scheme of any sort, it's my take that the printer will make whatever adjustments are needed, including to color, when printing on these various paper types.

As for the second point, I meant that the profile that is created after display calibration is showing up in the ColorSync Utility, and it's currently being used for the monitor.

G.B.

[Philbert]

Those aren't paper profiles though - those are simply settings to tell the printer how much ink to put down and how much resolution to use - they do nothing to address the different color handling properties of specific papers. Think of a paper profile as a "calibration" for each specific brand / texture of paper you use on a particular printer. You could use 10 different paper types/brands with same printer and using the same profile for each, and they would all create different looking prints.

"it's my take that the printer will make whatever adjustments are needed, including to color, when printing on these various paper types".

It's also the reason for your frustration. Take the setting "Photo on Photo Paper", for instance. The problem is, the printer has no idea which "photo paper" you're using. Epson's "photo paper" will behave differently than HP's "photo paper" which will behave differently than Kodak's "photo paper", which will behave differently than a generic "photo paper". As I said, those are simply settings and very different than a paper profile. The purpose of a paper profile is to uniquely identify a paper's color properties so that the image you see on your (accurately calibrated) monitor will get translated to the print. Without an accurate paper profile, it's a guessing game.

I don't use iPhoto so I don't know if it's sophisticated enough to utilize profiles but i doubt it.

You mentioned in the other thread you also have Aperture and had no luck there. I'm not familiar enough with Aperture to walk you through a correct print workflow but a potential problem is double color management (very common problem). This is a situation where you (knowingly or not), tell the application to handle the color management IN ADDITION to allowing the printer to handle it. This is very bad and will never result in good results. You don't have paper profiles so make sure that you tell Aperture to let the printer handle the color conversion. (not ideal but it's the best option you have) Here's an Aperture printing thread that touches on this. (Pay particular attention to the posts from Janet Taylor - she knows what she's talking about.)

Aperture discussion.

-phil