pls help: nikon camera with canon photo printers

[Rocky99]

i used to have an canon S50 (default mode) and the (portraits shots) printouts that i get from my canon photo printer CP-330 are very beautiful - nice skin tone and radiant glow. the digital pics that i get from my nikon dslrs are as great or even better on the screen but printouts are very much disappointing. skin color appears dimmer and more grayish, darker and lifeless than they appear to be on computer monitor. i have tried playing around with the D70S color mode(mode IIIa and Ia) but it didn't help much. can never reach the standard from my canon camera.

does anyone have the solution so that all my printouts from pics taken with the d70s turn out as nice they look in the LCD, apart from adjusting the color and contrast for every pic that i take before printing.

thanks

[agape01]

It sounds like your printer needs to be caliberated.

Someone told me that Canon printers are not that good because they do not last very long. The ink will fade if exposed to bright sunlight.

I personally would prefer epson printers than Canon ones.

Hope this does not start with a printer war when I make that kind of statement.

[Rocky99]

Originally Posted by agape01 It sounds like your printer needs to be caliberated. Someone told me that Canon printers are not that good because they do not last very long. The ink will fade if exposed to bright sunlight. I personally would prefer epson printers than Canon ones. Hope this does not start with a printer war when I make that kind of statement.

i'm using a dye sublimation printer, which doesn't allow me to play around with any settings..... can't calibrate anything.

[espn]

Eh.. I've no experience with the dye sublimation printers, but think they're more to just print rather than bothering about the profiles in the images and such. I've gotten quite ok prints out of the Canon printers with a D70. Maybe Watcher can help (yoo hooo... oh Watcher, where are you...).

[moriarty]

Hey,

I use ip5000 and I have found that playing around with printer does not help much. It is better to play around with the photo. Generally the contrast of the monitor is much higher than that of printer. So try boosting the constrast of your photo to +15 range and you might get what you want. If still you have some problem, decrease the green in your photo by -4 (in both highlight as well as midtone).

The above tricks work for me. Also try shooting raw and using Photoshop for printing.

Regards.

[unseen]

oh i assume you're looking at the photos from photoshop?
try look for a colour profile for your printer.
the colour space for the nikon camera is most probably different from the printer colour space. (in photoshop of course)

IIRC, nikon is using Nikon Adobe RGB colour space, not sure if it's following the adobe standards, but should be fine. Make sure you set your profile for files to be adobe RGB. next u just need to set the colour profile to the one for your printer, then voila, everything SHOULD be fine.

[longkangman]

Hi guys,

I am new to this forum.

I currently print from the Selphy CP600 using the D70s, the D70s are in default color mode and the printout is not too bad. I was told that the red pigment in the CP600 are not as good as it should be and compare with the Epson printout.

Compare with the CP600 printout from my notebook and direct connect to D70s they look exactly the same to me.


Cheers

[unseen]

eh... Really.. if you are printing from photoshop, and using colour profile (on by default),
they'll send a compensated version to the printer. Means, if you're using proper, or even basic colour management, you won't see any/much colour tonal differences be it a $500 printer or a $5000 printer. (though u can definitely see the quality difference)

for example,
if printer A prints more reddish, and photoshop knows, then it'll send the photo as a less red version so that the final version matches what you see on the screen. If the printer does not come with a colour profile, then you need to make one.

for those who really need an indepth article:
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/icc.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/color-management

there's no point in getting $5000 printers if you don't do basic colour management.

Anyway note, the industry standard sRGB colour space is different from Adobe RGB profile. Nikon uses Nikon Adobe RGB ICC profiles embedded in all the photos taken. should match with Adobe RGB

[Rocky99]

Originally Posted by unseen oh i assume you're looking at the photos from photoshop? try look for a colour profile for your printer. the colour space for the nikon camera is most probably different from the printer colour space. (in photoshop of course) IIRC, nikon is using Nikon Adobe RGB colour space, not sure if it's following the adobe standards, but should be fine. Make sure you set your profile for files to be adobe RGB. next u just need to set the colour profile to the one for your printer, then voila, everything SHOULD be fine.

i read from the d70s instruction manal that if you shoot using adobe RGB, colors will not be as vivid. do you experience that?

i'm looking at photos on Microsoft Picture and Fax Viewer

thanks

[unseen]

Rocky => haha i dunno leh, nvr tried to shoot other profiles. maybe should try. but according to theory, can shoot in any colour space, just need to match the colours in the new colour space can liaoz.. juz convert lor
heh just theory wor..

haha after comparing to output from a fuji S3pro, can't find any lowend dslr that's as half as good with regards to the vividness of photos..

[ST_sg]

I'm using the old CP200 and D70. Make sure all devices, software are using sRGB profile. In CP200 printer control panel, go to Image Adjustment and increase saturation and contrast by 1 click. It works good though not as good as 4R prints from Fuji/Kodak Labs

Try it and see if the above works better for you?

Cheers!

[Rocky99]

Originally Posted by unseen Rocky => haha i dunno leh, nvr tried to shoot other profiles. maybe should try. but according to theory, can shoot in any colour space, just need to match the colours in the new colour space can liaoz.. juz convert lor heh just theory wor.. haha after comparing to output from a fuji S3pro, can't find any lowend dslr that's as half as good with regards to the vividness of photos..

u can try take a portrait shot with flash each using color mode II and III. the difference is quite visible on the camera LCD.
when i print images from my canon 300D, the colors turn out nice and vivid.

i finally managed to solve the problems by changing the color, saturation, brightness and contrast of the printer at control panel. but the downside is that if i direct print from camera, i can't use those settings.

[Rocky99]

Originally Posted by ST_sg I'm using the old CP200 and D70. Make sure all devices, software are using sRGB profile. In CP200 printer control panel, go to Image Adjustment and increase saturation and contrast by 1 click. It works good though not as good as 4R prints from Fuji/Kodak Labs Try it and see if the above works better for you? Cheers!

thanks i tried, it works wonderful, like what the images appear on my monitor. in fact i had to increase saturation by 3 clicks, brightness by 2, and lower green by 2, red by 1. i'm using CP330, should be very similar to CP330. any idea if you can keep these settings within the printer so that u can print direct without the computer?

[natnivek]

Whoa... i hope that this is the thread I'm looking for.

I'm currently using a D70 with the selphy CP400.

Similar to you, the printouts are often lifeless and too me a green tint surrounds the pic.
I set my monitor, PS & printer to all be at sRGB. So it shouldn't be the case where the profiles don't match right?

Very irritating.

From what I'm readng from you guys, the answer is to adjust the setting for the printer right? I tried down clicking the green(-1), upping the blue (+1) but somehow the pic is still not satisfactory.

Maybe I'll go home and try your setup.

Hope it works lah...