epson 9600 colour problem

[a hard]

Hi, I have printed a few images on the epson 9600 all of which are ok apart from one photograph where the red plain background has turned orange/red. I have tried to change the saturation/hue, changed the colour balance more to red, performed auto colour, and levels. I use the ICC profile to colour manage the images on Adobe in Photoshop since this seemed to be the best colour match result to what I see on my monitor, however when i print this image with a red background on my monitor is it fine and then it prints orange/red. Does anyone have any advise with how to resolve this problem.  Thank you for your help!!    

[photopat]

How does the image look when soft proofed in PS??
What profile and paper are you using??

In other words tell more about your workflow.

[a hard]

Hi, I am printing on matt canvas and using the Bill Atkinsons ICC profile, so when I open the image I Assign it to working RGB - AdobeRGB (1988). The picture was sent to me from one of my customers.

It seems strange since when I print out two other images from the same customer - they have smaller sections of red on them and they come out fine - very strange!!

I have never heard of soft proof in PS - but it sounds interesting - what does this do and is it called something else on PS tools - since cant find it?

thank you

[Jonathan Wienke]

First of all, if an image already has a profile, blindly assigning it any profile (whether Adobe RGB or sRGB or ProPhoto or anything else) is probably going to screw up the colors unless you know exactly what the original profile was, and why it was removed. If the image does not have a profile, the file is RGB mystery meat, and the originator of the file probably doesn't know crap about color management. Otherwise, they wouldn't put you in the awkward position of having to guess the correct colors in the file.

The thing you must understand is that RGB color numbers are meaningless without a color profile to put them in context. So RGB 255,0,0 signifies some kind of red, but how red, and exactly what hue of red? Only the associated color profile can answer that question. 255,0,0 in ProPhoto is much more saturated than 255,0,0 in sRGB. The numbers are the same, but the colors specified by the numbers are quite different.

Given that other images print reds properly, it's most likely that they contain the correct color profile (probably not Adobe RGB) so that a correct print can be made. But since I know nothing about how well your monitor is profiled, your color management settings in Photoshop, and your printing methodology, that's just a guess. It could even be a clogged ink nozzle in your print head.

[photopat]

have never heard of soft proof in PS - but it sounds interesting - what does this do and is it called something else on PS tools - since cant find it?

In the View dropdown meny there is
Proof setup (where you set (chose)e the profile and rendering intent  etc used when printing)
Proof colors (will let you see how the print will look like when above profile is used if you are in a calibrated system)
There are plenty of papers on soft proofing but I would recomend the ones written by
Andrew Rodney and Bruce Fraser and Michael Reichmann


Andrew Rodney's PDF about soft proofing and can be found here

Bruce Fraser's can be found here

Michael Reichmann has also written plenty about this and they can be found (among with posts made in this forum)here