Print quality different from XP to Mac with same printer.

[JISystems]

I wonder if someone would be able to shed some light on this problem. I have a Canon MP780 AIO which used to print good photos from my XP box, I have recently hooked it up to my Mac and I'm very disappointed with the quality of the prints from the Mac. The prints now seems washed out and dull, I have tried cleaning and alining the print heads with no luck. Doing some reading I think it might be something to do with the colorsync but I cant find any adjustment for that in the printer settings.

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[sushi]

Check to make sure that you have the latest Mac drivers installed.

 

[JISystems]

Thank you for the reply I did check and I do have the latest drivers for the printer.

 

[apfhex]

Possibly something to do with the color settings like you thought. It also depends on what app you're printing from. Also, make sure you have the right paper type and quality selected.

In the default OS X print dialogue, you would just go to "Color Options" and select the color correction method wanted... like I said it depends on what you're printing from... apps like Photoshop offer a lot more options than iPhoto or something.

 

[JISystems]

Thanks guys I'm printing from iPhoto pictures taken fron a Nikon D40. I will try and change the color profile

 

[irmongoose]

In the Advanced Print dialog, are you selecting options for higher quality? Usually this is done by changing the Paper Type to "Photo Paper" or something of the like, and/or there might be a Quality setting.



irmongoose

 

[compuwar]

I wonder if someone would be able to shed some light on this problem. I have a Canon MP780 AIO which used to print good photos from my XP box, I have recently hooked it up to my Mac and I'm very disappointed with the quality of the prints from the Mac. The prints now seems washed out and dull, I have tried cleaning and alining the print heads with no luck. Doing some reading I think it might be something to do with the colorsync but I cant find any adjustment for that in the printer settings.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Go to "System Preferences"-> "Displays," choose your display "Color" then "Calibrate" and follow the instructions. That should get your monitor closer to displaying things as they'll print.

 

[Mr Skills]

Try this test. Print a JPEG from the Mac, and then transfer exactly the same file to the PC and print it again. Just to make sure it's definitely the computer. (Also, maybe try printing directly from iPhoto, and then export the photo and print from Preview, just to make sure it's not an iPhoto thing).

 

[Mac Kiwi]

Try lifting the levels {adjustment layer} on your image by about .4 first of all {middle slider} then print.If your print comes out quite a bit better then its a gamma problem of PC to Mac.Usually Mac gamma is about 1.8 and PC is around 2.2,so theres a difference of .4 making Mac images darker on PC monitors.


As compuwar suggested also calibrate your monitor.


Theres some excellent gamma/colour management information here

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/

 

[JISystems]

Thank you all for your suggestions and I have made some great progress, the pictures are looking good again I changed the colorsync profile within the printer and started to calibrate my monitor. Mr. Skills I tried your suggestion (which I had not tried before ) and the PC picture was slightly better. I did have a couple more dumb question before I left you all in peace, the printer in question is hooked up to a Mac mini using a Dell 1801FP should I calibrate the profile for the Dell or the sRGB ?. Does it make a difference which one you calibrate and which profile should I use. I know I have a lot of reading ahead of me with the whole colorsync topic

Thank you all again