Blue colour cast when printing - Photoshop CC (2017)

[belindajane81]

I'm having a very frustrating issue which I don't really understand.

Some (not all) of the images I'm printing from Photoshop are coming out with a very obvious blue colour cast. I calibrate my monitor on a regular basis. I have the most up to date drivers for my printer (Canon Pixma MG7760) and I use the ICC profiles for the printer and paper type supplied with the printer drivers.

The problem only seems to exist when I'm printing directly from Photoshop. When I save the image to jpg and then print using Preview on my mac, there is no colour cast. I've uploaded a photo of the same image - one printed direct from photoshop and the other via Preview.

Does anyone have any ideas on what is going on here?

[Mylenium]

Does anyone have any ideas on what is going on here?

Sure. Lack of colour management. You know, as per your explanation you never tell PS that there actually are printer profiles involved and inevitably just lumping them on after the fact in the printer's settings will mess with colors because PS operates on wrong assumptions when sending the print data. You need to configure your proff settings accordingly as wel las possibly instate specific color profiles for your documents as per Canon's instructions. The only reason why externally printed files do not show a color cast is because in this case the printer assumes a standard sRGB profile to which no doubt its own profiles are tailored.

Mylenium

[belindajane81]

Hmmm, so even though I'm using the ICC profiles in the print window in Photoshop and Photoshop is managing colours, you're saying that Photoshop isn't actually aware of the printer profiles? I don't understand how that works.

I will admit I am not super knowledgeable in these things but as far as I can tell (and through countless hours of searching for information online), I've followed all the instructions Canon has provided for printing and I'm allowing Photoshop to manage colours according to the Canon profiles. Is there a step I've missed somewhere?

[davescm]

Hi

Just for clarity in order that we can try and help you, can you post screenshots of

a. The image in Photoshop - and let us know what is the image mode and  the colour profile of the image

b. The Photoshop printer dialogue - showing the profile being used to print etc

c. The Canon printer settings (this should show that no colour management is being applied in the printer driver)

Dave

[belindajane81]

Thanks Dave.

Ok, here are a whole bunch of screen shots that should cover everything you've suggested that I include.

[davescm]

Hi

Your Photoshop settings look correct.

The only one I'm not sure about is the 3rd screenshot which shows a "Color Matching" setting.  That is not something I see on Windows - so hopefully someone with a MAC can confirm whether that is correct.

Dave

[belindajane81]

Thanks Dave.

I believe everything in that particular window is correct for Photoshop managing colours on a Mac.

So perhaps the issue is not with any of my settings but with Photoshop itself?

My workaround at the moment is to add a warming filter to everything before I print it but it's a little bit hit and miss since some images are worse than others. I'm using up a lot of ink and paper supplies trying to get things correct!

[davescm]

I'm using up a lot of ink and paper supplies trying to get things correct!

Which is what colour management should help avoid.

I am hoping someone who is running a similar system to yours (i.e. Mac & Canon) can comment on whether they are also seeing problems and if not can they suggest any other settings that we may have missed. Unfortunately I am using Windows and Epson so, having confirmed the settings you shared look OK, I am now limited in what I can suggest.

It will be worth you posting which OS version you are using.

Dave

[belindajane81]

I'm running Sierra. And therein lies part of the problem I believe.

Everything started going haywire when I updated to Sierra.

[D Fosse]

The number of color management problems in Mac OS lately is alarming. People are really caught off guard because Apple apparently changes architecture, drops support and introduces new frameworks constantly. And they're not telling their customers!

The only hope users seem to have these days, is to get on the upgrade train and hold on by teeth and fingernails. Everything needs to be fully up to date, OS, hardware and applications, and if any application slips it rapidly gets into trouble because the APIs it relies on are suddenly no longer there.

The alternative is to deep-freeze your whole system as a time-capsule.

The issue is critical because of the way Mac OS handles color management. It's all called by the applications, but it's executed by the OS. So if the OS changes direction everything else has to follow. And if there are bugs in OS code, which happens, there is no back door, nothing users can do except sit back and wait for an update, meanwhile working blind.

Windows is a lot less vulnerable to this, because the OS follows a strict hands-off policy. All color management is left end-to-end to the application. All the OS does is to make profiles available as applications request them, and then it steps back. It may be less sophisticated, but OTOH it just works.

[D Fosse]

belindajane81 wrote:

Hmmm, so even though I'm using the ICC profiles in the print window in Photoshop and Photoshop is managing colours, you're saying that Photoshop isn't actually aware of the printer profiles? I don't understand how that works.

You're doing this correctly and I have no idea why he said that.

Just make sure you're also picking the correct media in the printer driver, and that printer color management is turned off.

There's been a number of print/color management bugs affecting Photoshop and Lightroom under Mac OS lately. I don't know if this is one of them.

[belindajane81]

OK, so how do I go about escalating this to Adobe? Is it even worthwhile? Will anything be done/achieved or do I just have to suck this up and deal with it - just like I/we dealt with not being able to print AT ALL for a couple of months.

[oilking]

Noticed your problem and I have a similar problem in that it does not matter what I change in my system which is Mac OS10.12.2 Sierra or Photoshop CC 2017.0.1 I get a yellow colour cast to my Epson R2880 (new drivers installed the lot). I even contacted Martin Bailey and everything he said to do I am doing and my prints are all frankly scrap.

I have probably in the last two days used about $100 of paper and ink to try and sort this out. 'I have come from Windows to Mac and never had this issue with windows and the prints were all fantastic.

Very disappointed with Apple as you just do not seem to have the ability to control anything.

PS I also bought Scott Kelby's book on printing to try to resolve this and still no decent results.

[adamt66388181]

This worked for me

Run-Appdata-Roaming-Adobe-Adobephtoshop CS6- Adobephtoshop CS6 settings you will find a prefs file. you just need to rename it to .old.

[rob day]

When I save the image to jpg and then print using Preview on my mac, there is no colour cast.

In your Photoshop print dialog you are letting Photoshop color manage and setting the Print profile to a generic Canon MG7700 Series profile.

When you get the good print out of Preview, you would have to choose a print profile somewhere in the Preview drop down (there isn't the equivalent of Photoshop Manages Colors in the Preview Print dialog). For example here's an Epson driver in Preview where I'm choosing a media profile from the Epson driver's Printer Features:

You might want to check and see if there is a problem with the Canon profile you are choosing in the Photoshop Print dialog. As a test, try choosing the document's RGB profile instead, and then use the same settings under the Print Settings... button that you are using in Preview.

[Eric Schoen]

Very very late to the party here, but I just had the same problem and the solution for me was stuid and easy - I switched from my specific printer model's profile to the generic "Canon IJ Color Printer Profile 2005"

Not sure why the 'correct' printer profile was giving me such incorrect colors - maybe a recent printer driver or firmware update corrected a problem that the Adobe profiles were originally compensating for, and Adobe never updated the profile?

I assume the original poster corrected things, but perhaps if anyone else has an issue, try NOT using your printer-specific profile and switch to generic?

Note that I have my printer set up to give its own preview prior to printing, and it the preview very clearly showed a blue hue to everything which was not in the original image, so Adobe definitely was skewing the image itself and not just printing it weird. Once I switched to the generic profile, the preview looked just like the original and printed correctly.

[D Fosse]

"maybe a recent printer driver or firmware update corrected a problem that the Adobe profiles were originally compensating for, and Adobe never updated the profile?"

Those aren't "Adobe profiles". They come from Canon, and they are installed when you install the Canon printer driver. But profiles are sometimes defective/inaccurate/corrupt, and like the driver itself they may be updated from time to time.

Photoshop just works with what it gets from Canon. It can't fix bad profiles or driver problems.

[Eric Schoen]

Fair enough, but wherever they came from, swapping to 'generic' is what corrected my issue with things printing out blue, and maybe it might help someone else too.

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Did you try using "printer manages color"? 

That process does use ICC profiles but they are selected "in the background" based on media type chosen in the printer driver's pulldown list. 

Selecting an ICC profile in "Photoshop manages color" is usually the best way to attain print accuracy, but only if you have a decent (accurate) ICC profile for the printer / paper. 

As D. Fosse wrote, those listed Canon profiles [in "Photoshop manages color"] are normally part of a printer driver installation (or update).

It's also worth noting that updating a printer driver may make old icc profiles from that manufacturer obsolete (due to possible changes to printer behaviour) but it doesn’t genberally have the capability to remove old installed profiles. Maybe its worth looking at the dates on the printer profiles in the relevant folder if they are giving trouble.

I hope this helps

thanks
neil barstow, colourmanagement.net :: adobe forum volunteer

[Eric Schoen]

Most of the stuff I saw originally suggested turning off any of the printer's color management which is why I was sticking to the profiles that the Adobe print dialog popup listed (wherever they actually came from), so no, I was trying to solve the problem from within Adobe itself.

I have it working just fine now, so I don't want to change anything and mess things back up, but since I stumbled onto this old thread in my search for help, I figured I'd add the solution that worked for me in case it helps anyone else.