Help needed... Best colour calibrator for Mac 27" using canon IP8750...?

Canon brook · 30 Dec 2016

Hi, I have a canon MG6150 printer and recently bought a IJ8750 to try some A3 printing. Having tested a variety of papers and matching printer profiles using photoshop I am consistently getting a Magenta cast on the results from both printers so calibration seems to be required on a 27" Mac.

Having read several posts plus googled a bit I'm confused as to which might be the way forward and would appreciate the views of anyone who has done this successfully and could recommend a reasonably priced colour calibrator.

Any help would be appreciated...... :help:

Chappers · 31 Dec 2016

I use the X-Rite i1 system, which is at the " expensive "end of the spectrum. You could opt for the ColorMunki which is a lot cheaper and as far as I am aware effectively uses the same software. I've not used the "Monki but it has some good comments on this forum

Harlequin565 · 31 Dec 2016

Just double checking...
- Are you turning off colour management in the printer options? PS managing colour then the printer trying to manage it can often cause issues.
- Is the magenta caste uniform across different manufacturer papers? e.g. I found Epson Press papers (all types) had a significant caste, Hahnemuhle a slight one and my Canson and Museo papers had none (that I could see). It was all down to paper.

(Edit to add a link to a post I made about magenta castes.. Help with print (color cast/ambient lighting))

Canon brook · 31 Dec 2016

Chappers said:
I use the X-Rite i1 system, which is at the " expensive "end of the spectrum. You could opt for the ColorMunki which is a lot cheaper and as far as I am aware effectively uses the same software. I've not used the "Monki but it has some good comments on this forum

Thanks for the help here.... I think the problem is the display as tried my older canon printer and had the same cast ... maybe noticed the colour cast more at A3/A4....used canon papers and profiles on both.
Amazing that I've edited 1000's of images on a non calibrated monitor .... doh!
Colormunki display is coming up as a good option for Mac on my research... appreciate any further comments or advice and hoping the January sales are good ... :beer:

Harlequin565 said:
Just double checking...
- Are you turning off colour management in the printer options? PS managing colour then the printer trying to manage it can often cause issues.
- Is the magenta caste uniform across different manufacturer papers? e.g. I found Epson Press papers (all types) had a significant caste, Hahnemuhle a slight one and my Canson and Museo papers had none (that I could see). It was all down to paper.

(Edit to add a link to a post I made about magenta castes.. Help with print (color cast/ambient lighting))

Canon brook · 31 Dec 2016

Harlequin565 said:
Just double checking...
- Are you turning off colour management in the printer options? PS managing colour then the printer trying to manage it can often cause issues.
- Is the magenta caste uniform across different manufacturer papers? e.g. I found Epson Press papers (all types) had a significant caste, Hahnemuhle a slight one and my Canson and Museo papers had none (that I could see). It was all down to paper.

(Edit to add a link to a post I made about magenta castes.. Help with print (color cast/ambient lighting))

Canon brook · 31 Dec 2016

Haven't tried other papers yet but agree well worth a look... thanks for the info welll worth trying the other options you mentioned ... did you use or set the paper profiles ? What printer do you use ...?

Harlequin565 · 31 Dec 2016

Canon brook said:
Haven't tried other papers yet but agree well worth a look... thanks for the info well worth trying the other options you mentioned ... did you use or set the paper profiles ? What printer do you use ...?

I have an Epson Stylus Pro 4800. I print from Lightroom, so my process may differ to yours...
- Go to print module
- Click "page setup" which takes me to the printer dialogue where I choose the paper type which is set by the paper manufacturer depending on your printer (Velvet Fine Art for example), turn off colour management, set the printing quality (fast, quality, high quality etc) and the paper size. (These settings are then all saved as a preset in the printer dialogue software)
- In LR, in the Print Job menu, I set the profile to the icc profile for the paper (installed in C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color don't know about mac), set the print sharpening to standard and the paper type to whatever it is (matt/glossy) - This is all saved as a LR template (Example: Canson Baryta A4-L (for landscape)) so that next time I'm printing an A4 landscape on that paper, I click one button and everything is set.

With the sole exception of some papers (Hahnemuhle & Epson spring to immediate mind) the print looks exactly like it does on my (uncalibrated) screen. And that's without soft proofing - which often makes things worse for me.
9 times out of 10 when I get a duff print I either have the wrong icc profile set, or I've got double colour management going on (forgot to turn it off in the print dialogue because it often defaults to "on"). The other 1 time is poor paper.

Canon brook · 3 Jan 2017

Harlequin565 said:
I have an Epson Stylus Pro 4800. I print from Lightroom, so my process may differ to yours...
- Go to print module
- Click "page setup" which takes me to the printer dialogue where I choose the paper type which is set by the paper manufacturer depending on your printer (Velvet Fine Art for example), turn off colour management, set the printing quality (fast, quality, high quality etc) and the paper size. (These settings are then all saved as a preset in the printer dialogue software)
- In LR, in the Print Job menu, I set the profile to the icc profile for the paper (installed in C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color don't know about mac), set the print sharpening to standard and the paper type to whatever it is (matt/glossy) - This is all saved as a LR template (Example: Canson Baryta A4-L (for landscape)) so that next time I'm printing an A4 landscape on that paper, I click one button and everything is set.

With the sole exception of some papers (Hahnemuhle & Epson spring to immediate mind) the print looks exactly like it does on my (uncalibrated) screen. And that's without soft proofing - which often makes things worse for me.
9 times out of 10 when I get a duff print I either have the wrong icc profile set, or I've got double colour management going on (forgot to turn it off in the print dialogue because it often defaults to "on"). The other 1 time is poor paper.

Thanks for the detail here - I found out the hard way that poor paper can affect your results dramaticaly and moved to canon paper and profiles for much better results. - it's been more recently that I started using the Mac and tbh hadn't given the calibration a lot of thought as it was bad enough understanding the different way the print management / drivers and options were displayed and ensuring profiles and colour management were right.

What I did learn the past few days is that the print management isn't as comprehensive when printing via Wifi as opposed to a wired connection on the Mac which wasn't the case on the Windows system.

Things are on hold a bit as a good deal came up on a pro-100s and I've returned the IP8750 although it seemed good for the money ( colour cast issues aside)

I will concentrate on getting the calibration sorted in the meantime and am looking at the Colormunki Display as a reasonable option ( was hoping they might be reduced in the January sales but alas no).

Thanks again for taking the trouble...there's a little t of info here...!

Canon brook · 5 Jan 2017

.....lot of info.......even....!