Canon 9000 Mark II

[RandomJoe]

I received a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II for Christmas

I have a i1 Publish Pro Spectro and I have calibrated my two LED monitors with it

so far im finding that my prints are dark or very dark, I have calibrated my monitors to 80nits of brightness.. pretty low.. as my ambient lighting is dim in the evening.

I am using canned profiles for the paper from Canon, Canson and Hahnemuhle

printing from Photoshop CS6 and from Canon EasyPrint Pro

I cant seem to add other profiles to the canon utility

using Canon oem ink

using OSX on a hackintosh running mountain lion

Photos are shot under SRGB, I use proof colours in photoshop

not sure what i can do to make things better,

[kingscurate]

AFAIK, i use a mk2 btw, you do not add profiles through the canon utility, I never have. As an example any profiles i download install into the windows(macs i cant help) default location then select via ps print settings or lr print settings. Try calibrating at a 100 instead of 80 and see if that makes a difference.  When printing do your print settings match the screenshots of the 9500 thread currently running? Using proof colours in PS doesnt sound right to me, i havent printed in ps for a while so unsure.

[RandomJoe]

I tried calibrating at 120 but it felt to bright, 80 is as low as my monitors can go

[l_d_allan]

so far im finding that my prints are dark or very dark

Some suggestions:

• First, I'd print out a test print like the one from http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi048/essay.html to remove the monitor from the work-flow. You could be using a 20 year old CRT that is totally out of calibration, and that wouldn't matter in how the print should look.
• Are you letting the prints dry?
• Are you viewing your prints in your work-area? Most prints will look dark in a dim room.
• This retired hobby'ist can use my wife's Ott-Lite, but I more often take a dried print to view using light from a north-facing window on a sunny day.