Buying printer profiles.

[Muffin]

I am still in trouble with my Canon i9950 prints. I simply cannot get the print to match the image on the monitor whatever I do. I tried 'soft proofing' but that seems to be a real can of worms and got me nowhere.

I am wasting both money and time producing poor prints and I am thinking of just buying a printer profile.

Can anyone recommend a good provider? They would seem to cost around £17 but if they work it would be worth it.

It is very annoying to spend time in Canon DPP and CS2 trying to produce a good print and then the result from the printer is no good.

[Fen]

I am still in trouble with my Canon i9950 prints. I simply cannot get the print to match the image on the monitor whatever I do. I tried 'soft proofing' but that seems to be a real can of worms and got me nowhere.

Is your monitor correctly profiled? And I don't just mean with adobe gamma.

I am wasting both money and time producing poor prints and I am thinking of just buying a printer profile.

Can anyone recommend a good provider? They would seem to cost around £17 but if they work it would be worth it.

It is very annoying to spend time in Canon DPP and CS2 trying to produce a good print and then the result from the printer is no good.

colorworld, photobox, loxley to name three.

But... if you're not profiled then it won't matter who you use you'll still get poor prints

[Muffin]

Fen - I should have said that my very excellent NEC LCD 2690WUXi2 monitor is regularly calibrated with a Spyder3Elite and it seems to work. I only use OEM Canon inks and Canon Pro paper. I am surprised that Canon are not more helpful given the price of their inks!

I cannot seem to find printer profiling on the three sites you mention!

[digitravel]

Have you tried here ?
I know a few people that have used them and are pleased with the results.

[Muffin]

I know of the site but I haven't used them yet. It was the site I was thinking of using!

I am still trying to discover why my very excellent Canon i9950 printer can't hack it!

[Norman]

I'm surprised that the 'canned' profiles supplied with the printer are not providing an acceptable print. Unless your requirements are hyper-critical I would think there is something wrong with either the printer or your workflow.

Bespoke profiles are more commonly used when you are not using one of the printer manufacturer's recommended paper/ink combinations but that's not the case here. Can you describe your workflow? Are you letting Photoshop or the printer manage colour?

[Muffin]

Norman - you are thinking what I thought! As far as I am aware the printer should be controlling the printing. On the other hand it could be CS2! I will try to check and report back.

I just checked and I think the printing was being controlled by CS2. I set it to printer control and made a test print which wasn't too bad. It was certainly satisfactory. Possibly a touch less bright than the monitor image.

I really do want IQ and one printer profiler seemed to be of the opinion that any printer working with the generic profile could give better images if it had a 'proper' profile made. Could they be right? They are selling profiles, of course, and they would say that wouldn't they?

I suppose there could be some truth in the view that printers drift with age and an up to date profile would do no harm. It will cost me £14 and I suppose I could try it! Wasting Canon ink and paper is not cheap!!

[Norman]

Take a look here and compare with your workflow.

[Muffin]

Norman - that is an excellent site. I am sure with the kit I have that I should be getting better prints but printing would seem to live in a sea of variables and it ain't easy. When I have finished working on a print in Canon DPP and CS2 I just want to be able to go to the printer and get what I see on the monitor and this hasn't been happening! The best description of my prints would be that they were 'muddy' compared to the monitor images.

I will persevere. My thanks for your help - most kind.

[john_g]

Muffin - why do you describe your printer as excellent when all you do is complain about its poor print quality and high running costs?

With regard to custom profiles, I suspect that you are buying into the belief that anything you pay for must be good which, surely, as a psychologist, you must realise is not necessarily true. I don't think you know why a custom printer profile will resolve your problems, you just think that, because you are paying for it, it should.

I think Fen's earlier post was pointing you towards companies that will do your printing for you, although I might have misunderstood his intent. Nevertheless, given your ongoing difficulties and complaints, why don't you consider ditching your printer and using specialist print houses to turn your images into pictures?

[Muffin]

John - it is possible to know that something is excellent and yet be aware that it is difficult to achieve that excellence. The two ideas are not mutually incompatible. I recall the Lightning fighter - which I never flew! - it was very good but it did have problems and now exists mainly as gateposts. It was very fast but its slow speed handling was tricky. It is the same with the i9950! It can produce excellent results but getting there can be a problem.

Digital photography is still evolving and it is all down to Herbert Spencer - survival of the fittest. Canon should make more efforts to create a printer which does not need as much input from the photographer as the i9950 does. I am surprised that - given the interface - anyone can get good results from the i9950 consistently and Canon must work on that interface!