printing help please :)

*eadaoin

hi everyone, i have *another* printing question!

someone kindly gave me one of those printers that dunnes were selling cheaply, the canon IP1900 and it's actually printing out great little prints once i use quality paper.

my only problem at the moment is that shots are coming out a bit more green/yellow than i would like, like these ones that should have a lot of blue in them: this and this - the sky here instead of being light blue is printing out as greenish.

i've tried messing around with the colour balances but don't seem to be getting it quite right. can anyone tell me which of the cyan, magenta or yellow bars i would need to tweak?? for the second shot i had the yellow bar right down at -50 and cyan up at +50 and the sky seems a much better blue yet the grasses and sun are much more yellow than i would like still. i don't know if that's madness, but i figure the only way to really learn is to mess around with the settings.

this may be an impossible question for someone who's not here looking at the printer settings but i thought i'd ask anyway since i can't afford to keep on printing off test shots so much!

oshead

What program are you using to print?

PCPhoto

you might need to calibrate screen/printer.

*eadaoin

i'm using the software that came with the printer, it's just called Easy-Photoprint EX.

it was printing grand yesterday, the blues were coming out nicely but then i printed an image that had a lot of blue/red/purple and the colour cartridge had leaked just after printing it so i replaced it thinking it must have run out of ink (it came with the printer only half full).

another thought is it's possible i've run out of black ink as the black cartridge was only half full too - would not having enough black ink effect my blues that much? or is that a mental theory?

the cartridge status tells me that the black ink is full, but it's been saying that since i got it so it may be wrong.

Ghost Train

I think you would adjust magenta to balance the green tone

The printer driver adjustment mightnt have much effect though, I tried tweak my printer colours before and there wasn't too much differance. You could make a copy of the photo and edit the colour balance of the the photo to be a bit less green, and then see how it prints, all a bit messy though

PCPhoto

you might have a leak/bleed in the print heads - hard to say.

bit of a stupid question - did you replace the ink as per instruction manual ?

did you buy the printer secondhand/new (you said it came with half-full ink)

oshead

Sorry, id like to help you, but i think your grand little printer is a heap of ****e really..... theres probably nothing anyone can do.

*eadaoin

it was bought new from dunnes stores and the cartridges came with it.

and yup i popped the cartridge in just as it explained on the info manual.

do you know how i would be able to tell if there was a bleed in the print heads? there is a lot of blue ink in and around the sponges where the cartridges sit in the printer, could this indicate a leak or is that normal? could possibly be from the leak yesterday.

*eadaoin

oshead wrote: »

Sorry, id like to help you, but i think your grand little printer is a heap of ****e really..... theres probably nothing anyone can do.

possibly! but i hope not! the photos it's printing out are really great quality and i'm delighted with them, they're just not blue enough. i'm thinking more and more that it's a problem with the print head so i'll get on to canon and see what they'll do for me and see if the person who bought it for me can get a replacement from dunnes.

smelltheglove

I have a similar problem with my printer although mine is a large wide format that would have originally cost 100 times the dunnes printer cost btu I reckon the print dialog box is most likely the same. I print from photoshop, I choose my paper type, underneath the paper type there is a box icm or something simmilar, I choose custom, then when in here I have the choice to change the levels in each colour, I put the magneta up by 4. Mine were coming out a bit greenish, I tried +2 +3 and settled at +4. It is trial and error until you get it right but as soon as you have it set then that is it. I know mine should be callibrated but I dont have the time to do it or the know how or the funds to pay someone else so this method works perfectly for me even on heavy duty canvas they look perfect.

stcstc

the correct way to print from photoshop is

open print dialogue
select photoshop manages colour
select the profile for the paper your using
in the print dialogue
choose no colour management
set the paper type as per instructions for paper
set the quality settings to high


by allowing the print driver to manage colour you are hit and miss about colour

by passing icm colour from photoshop to your print driver, if this isnt done right you could double profile the image, which will generally make the image look magenta