3 Replies Latest reply: Sep 14, 2010 5:29 AM by D Fosse-QDEaQ1 RSS

    Print shop can't print color correctly.

    Stephen Pickering122 Community Member

      Hi there,

       

      I work at a print shop and occasionally run into problems with documents being difficult to print, but this one is especially troubling.  Out print shop does not have Photoshop but rather "Photo Impact..."  I know, don't get me started.  The issue is that I have a particular customer how did some designing in Photoshop CS4 (CS something) and it looks beautiful on his macbook but different on our PC (no matter what program we use to open any of his files- TIFF, PNG, JPG, etc). When printing to our Xerox Docucolor 252 the color is real dark and way less vivid/bright.

       

      I tried the file on my home computer (PC with CS4) and it again looks great.  When I print it on my home printer (Canon ip6700d) the printed colors are much closer to the screen even though I get an error telling me the printer is a non-postscript printer and so it will ignore some of the document properties.  This leads me to believe that since the Xerox is a postscript enabled (I think) printer it is using data I know nothing about to darken and dirty the image.  This is way outside of my knowledge and I would love to figure this out.

       

      We have tried converting the image both to CMYK and RGB and have played around with the different color profiles, sRGB, Adobe RGBxxx etc. with very suble changes but nothing acceptable.  I think we are to the point where the customer would be ok to start from scratch but if he doesn't know what to do differently I think we'll be right back here again.

       

      Any suggestions?  I'm frustrated and desperate to figure this out!

       

      Thank for any ideas,

       

      -Stephen

        • 1. Re: Print shop can't print color correctly.
          D Fosse-QDEaQ1 Community Member

          Some questions first:

           

          1. Is it even possible to run a print shop without Photoshop?

           

          2. Is Photo Impact fully color managed? By the sound of it it isn't.

           

          3. What is the embedded profile in the original? (You can check this in Photoshop, just open the "convert to profile" dialog and see what the source profile is).

           

          4. Is the monitor in the shop calibrated? Is yours? Is the client's?

           

          Lots of unknowns here. You really need to peek under the hood of Photo Impact. And have a serious talk with your boss.

          • 2. Re: Print shop can't print color correctly.
            Stephen Pickering122 Community Member

            Thanks D Fosse,

             

            I checked out the profile and it reads "U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2."  Is there a different option it should be set to?  I honestly don't know what's under the hood of Photo Impact.  I know I do have options of converting different profiles, so it must have SOME kind of color management- but maybe not.  The monitors are fairly calibrated-  mine is calibrated using Spyder and it seems to represent colors similar to the client's.

             

            Today I will try printing to our wide format hp printer to see what that does as far as color.  If I can determine the issue only to be with the Xerox machine then I can at least ask Xerox for advice on correct settings, color, etc.

             

            Thank you agian and if anyone else has suggestions I'm happy to try them out!

             

            -Stephen

            • 3. Re: Print shop can't print color correctly.
              D Fosse-QDEaQ1 Community Member
              U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2.

              Well, that's a fairly standard CMYK profile in the US (but not Europe!), and it's the default CMYK profile in Photoshop. As a result, it's virtually everywhere even when it's not the best choice. But there shouldn't be any problems with it.

               

              I've no idea how Photo Impact deals with CMYK, or how the printer does. Desktop printers aren't really designed for CMYK data - they expect RGB and then convert internally.

               

              In any case Web Coated SWOP is a limited gamut space. It should convert into sRGB with no problems. So as a test, try to convert it (in Photoshop!) and see if things improve. Use Edit > Convert to Profile.