Hi,

I have printed my last image on a canon IP4200 Photo inkjet printer.  The problem is that the colors are not the same or close as the original I have make in photoshop. I have print it on glossy photopaper and changed the image in cmyk color for print. I think I have the wrong settings in photoshop but I don't know how to set them.  These are my settings:
Settings: Europe General Purpose Defaults (I am living in the Netherlands). Working spaces:
RGB; sRGB IEC61966-2.1   CMYK; Euroscale Coated v2    Gray and Spot; Dot Gain 15%

Color Management Policies: RGB; Preserve Embedded Profiles    CMYK and Gray off.

Engine: Adobe (ACE) and Intent: Perceptual. Bothe v (Black Point and Ditter).  

I hope someone can help me.

Hi Clementina-

1 - When printing on inkjet printers, leave it RGB - CMYK is for 4-color separation printing (magazines, brochures, etc. - NOT inkjet).
2 - Which version of Photoshop are you using - right now CS3 is buggy with it's printer engine - use CS2 or earlier.
3 - Have you color-calibrated your monitor? Funny thing is, just doing that doesn't fix it either - color calibrating your monitor really only gives you a good workig start. You then need to print out a picture, and then adjust your colors and density to math the PRINT if that is going to be your default printing device.

You can then create profiles for every paper you use - go from Glossy to Luster, to rag and canvas - you'll be able to set a printer-preview of each paper stock before you hit PRINT, and can make adjustments from there.

Hope this helps - good luck-
-Lewv ;-)

Thanks Lewv, 

I have Photoshop CS (not 2 or 3). I will try it again with the RGB colors.

In addition to Lewv's suggestions, which are spot on, it is also sadly nessecary to color-calibrate your printer, and this needs to be done for each specific paper type you use.

Thankfully, you don't need to buy or rent expensive equipment in order to do this. You can just print out the appropriate images and mail them to a custom profile company and they'll email you the custom profile. I recommend inkjetart.com/custom_profiles/

Monitor calibration should be done every month, ideally every two weeks if you use a flat screen, and every 3 weeks if you use the other kind. Therefore, if you're serious about color management, it's cheaper in the long run if you buy your own equipment.

For more information, check out the (unrelated website, afaik) Ink Jet Mall's documentation on color management: inkjetmall.com

It's worth noting that this is a problem that existed even before digital image making. Film-based photography suffers the same problem, and was much more costly to resolve, as each image required it's own color optimization routine. The difference is that the print labs bore these costs and handled the color management for us.

I don't know how often you need to profile your printer, but given the nature of modern ink-making technology, I doubt it's more often than once a year.

I strongly encourage you to profile your printer. While most people understand the universal need for a calibrated monitor, few people understand the need for a custom printer/paper profile. Using a cheap printer with a custom profile gives me much better results than using an Epson 4000 wih the company-supplied profiles.

"Film-based photography suffers the same problem,..."

Yes, every few hours in the lab we would do another calibration (grey cards with different exposures - and measure them on a densitometer and input the changes into the machines) - every other change of a roll of paper, and every few times we have to change chemicals. It usually wasn't that big of a difference, but if we did NOT do the calibration at least once a DAY it would go haywire very quickly - things will start coming out more and more off color and density - it would be a nightmare to adjust for.

The short tidbit to understand - when you go to ANY chemical lab, you will NEVER get the exact same print twice. It may look really close, or unnoticeable at a casual glance, but look closely and subtle shading will be different, shadows might be a little greener, highlights might be a bit more magenta, it might not be as contrasty, or MORE contrasty. As soon as 20 minutes after making a print, the chemicals have changed enough to not make a truly exact copy.

So many picky customers leave a lab thinking the tech have NO idea what they're doing - they just don;t understand there's about a 1,000 variables that go into making the same print twice, and it'll never happen.
-Lew ;-)

Thanks all, for the answers. :-)