Canon S900 driver won't change colour balance

[birch999]

I can't get printer driver 1.61 or 1.52 change colour balance in Win
2K.

My prints have a slight green cast in mid tones; so in Printing
Preferences > Main > Colour Adjustment > Set, I have adjusted the
Colour Balance Sliders as far as Magenta +50; Cyan -50; Yellow -50;
but regardless of the settings the prints always come out with the
very same colour balance. Changing the Colour Balance Settings makes
absolutely no difference whatsoever, whether printing from Zoom
Browser/Easy Photo or Photoshop.

The Current Profile shows: Colour Adjustment: manual; Cyan -50;
Magenta +50; Yellow -50.

Nozzle check and head alignment are okay, and printing proper colours.
Just prints have a green cast in mid tones. I am using a true gray
scale colour chart and photos for checking the printer output.

Is there something I'm missing here? How do I get the colour
adjustments to affect the colour balance of the prints?

 

[jb]

Hi,

When this type of 'toning' happens to me, it's generally because the inks
are not "drawing" enough volume of ink...- In my case (I refill) - when this
happens, I clean the printhead with Windex both ways, blow both ways with
canned air, get a whole new set of canon tanks and print away till this
happens again. (or after cleaning, try the original tanks)

In most cases this works. YMMV

Or you can just try to wash out the head - the screens may be partially
blocked so your test pattern will be ok, but a print may not.....

Clean or deep clean heads first

I have created a print test page that I use when I am testing "ink flow" -
it has rectangles (about 2" wide and about 6" long) of
red,yellow,green.blue,black and a small photo (3x3) in the middle of the
page with the color bars around it.
(I can send it to you is you wish - - )

I do this before I print larger photos... (cycle clean - print test page)
saves $$$ on 13x19 paper....
this allows me to see any banding or skipping.... WFM - - -

hope this helps...

John B - Wisconsin Cheesehead - Go Pack !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[birch999]

Thanks John.

Heads have been cleaned and test out okay with nozzle and alignment
tests; and 8x10s print out okay without banding. But that's really not
the issue. The issue is:

"Why does the manual colour correction function in the driver have
absolutely no effect on the printer output, regardless of setting?"

Does it work with *any* Canon 6-colour Canon printer?

Albeit, even if it did, it probably wouldn't do much for the green
tones seen in mid-grays, since this seems to be more of a colour
*curve* problem that wouldn't be all that effectively addressed by
merely adding a bit more magenta linearily to the mix.

The problem isn't all that severe; and not all that noticeable, except
perhaps on B&W prints where the slight green cast in midtones has been
most noticeable since day one with this printer . . . and that was a
few hundred 8x10s ago.

 

[Bobs]

I can't get printer driver 1.61 or 1.52 change colour balance in Win
2K.

My prints have a slight green cast in mid tones; so in Printing
Preferences > Main > Colour Adjustment > Set, I have adjusted the
Colour Balance Sliders as far as Magenta +50; Cyan -50; Yellow -50;
but regardless of the settings the prints always come out with the
very same colour balance. Changing the Colour Balance Settings makes
absolutely no difference whatsoever, whether printing from Zoom
Browser/Easy Photo or Photoshop.

The Current Profile shows: Colour Adjustment: manual; Cyan -50;
Magenta +50; Yellow -50.

Nozzle check and head alignment are okay, and printing proper colours.
Just prints have a green cast in mid tones. I am using a true gray
scale colour chart and photos for checking the printer output.

Is there something I'm missing here? How do I get the colour
adjustments to affect the colour balance of the prints?

Here's another thought--if you have not calibrated your monitor, then
adjusting your screen image to achieve visually correct color would
result in an opposite color error delivered to the printer. Try
setting your desktop color to 128-128-128 (neutral gray) and see if it
tends to be of a warm tone (complement of green). Also try setting
Adobe Gamma up per instructions, this will adjust your video card.

Another problem could be that your paper and/or ink used is not fully
compatible. Color shifts are common when (for example) acidic papers
are used with printer inks intended for neutral papers. Are you using
the correct ink cartridge, and not an off-brand?

You didn't say what program you were using to print with. Individual
programs may contain print profiles or color adjustments that you need
to consider.

As a last resort, if you know someone with a ColorVision print
correction device, you should be able to easily discover where the
problem is.

 

[birch999]

Here's another thought--if you have not calibrated your monitor, then
adjusting your screen image to achieve visually correct color would
result in an opposite color error delivered to the printer. Try
setting your desktop color to 128-128-128 (neutral gray) and see if it
tends to be of a warm tone (complement of green). Also try setting
Adobe Gamma up per instructions, this will adjust your video card.

Thanks for the input Bob.

But it doesn't address the primary issue as to why the manual colour
adjustments in the S900 printer driver don't work. Regardless of the
way I set the colour sliders, they make absolutely no difference
whatsoever in the output. So I am curious as to whether anyone else
with a Canon S900/S9000 has experienced the same thing. I also wonder
whether this driver is merely based upon a generic Canon driver which
has this particular function disabled for photo printers. All the
other adjustments in the driver work as they should. I sent an query
to Canon about this a few days ago, but haven't received a response
yet.

No problems with the monitor. It was set up with Adobe Gamma driver,
and tracks perfectly with my test colour chart, where neutral tones
range from 0-0-0 to 255-255-255.

Another problem could be that your paper and/or ink used is not fully
compatible. Color shifts are common when (for example) acidic papers
are used with printer inks intended for neutral papers. Are you using
the correct ink cartridge, and not an off-brand?

A reasonable suspicion; but I'm not doing any funny stuff with the
system. Canon cartridges and Canon Photo Pro or Office Depot paper.
Even if I could adjust the colour output from the driver, I'm not sure
that it would be all that helpful, because this is more of a colour
*curve* problem that isn't all that noticeable on colour pics, but is
noticeable on total gray scale output where the mid tones show a bit
of a green cast. I suppose this is a rather common experience in
attempting to print B&W pics on a colour printer.

You didn't say what program you were using to print with. Individual
programs may contain print profiles or color adjustments that you need
to consider.

I primarily use Canon's Easy Photo for output, but get the very same
results with PhotoShop. I suppose I could go through thousands of
photos, and tweak the mid range colour curve toward magenta. Not an
idea that I find all that appealing.

So . . . back to the question as to whether the colour output can
actually be adjusted via the manual colour provisions of the driver.
It may not be all that useful, but I'd like the option of at least
giving it a try if I can find a way to get it working.