color shift when printing poster (PC only, Mac OK)

[Scott Kilbourne]

We're having a problem with printing to an HP2500CP plotter from Powerpoint
(XP or 2003) from a PC. The problem does not happen when printing from a
Mac. We only see the problem when printing what are called flourescent
photomicrographs which are black backgrounds with red or green or orange
subjects that are fairly dark and quite saturated. The screen images of
these have a very solid black background. If the photomicrograph is saved
from Photoshop as an EPS with Postscript color management turned on, it
prints OK. An EPS with PS color management turned off makes the image print
with too light a background (looks like a gamma correction). JPEGs print the
same incorrect way. All these images print fine from a Mac, screw up from a
PC. We've updated the Postscript driver to the latest one for Win2k from the
Adobe site, no help. We've tried tweaking all the advanced settings in the
printer dialog box, no help. The printer is captured to a Win2k Server print
queue and we have the same problem printing directly to the printer from the
server.

It seems that this may be a Postscript print driver issue - anyone have any
suggestions? As I don't get by the group very often, please email
suggestions to skilborn_at_wfubmc.edu. Thanks.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

We're having a problem with printing to an HP2500CP plotter from Powerpoint
(XP or 2003) from a PC. The problem does not happen when printing from a
Mac. We only see the problem when printing what are called flourescent
photomicrographs which are black backgrounds with red or green or orange
subjects that are fairly dark and quite saturated. The screen images of
these have a very solid black background. If the photomicrograph is saved
from Photoshop as an EPS with Postscript color management turned on, it
prints OK. An EPS with PS color management turned off makes the image print
with too light a background (looks like a gamma correction). JPEGs print the
same incorrect way. All these images print fine from a Mac, screw up from a
PC. We've updated the Postscript driver to the latest one for Win2k from the
Adobe site, no help. We've tried tweaking all the advanced settings in the
printer dialog box, no help. The printer is captured to a Win2k Server print
queue and we have the same problem printing directly to the printer from the
server.

It seems that this may be a Postscript print driver issue - anyone have any
suggestions? As I don't get by the group very often, please email
suggestions to skilborn_at_wfubmc.edu. Thanks.

Sorry ... emailing defeats the purpose of newsgroups, and how've you been lo
these many years, sir?

This promises to be a long one and I'm too lazy to get into it if you're not
going to see it. Let me know if you see this and we'll go from there.

 

[Scott Kilbourne]

Hey, Steve-

I've tried to swear off newsgroups as they get addictive, but when you want
the folks on the front line that know what they are doing, the newsgroups
are where they are!

We're also running iQueue from Gretag-Macbeth as our inhouse color
management system, but have not been using it with posters since so many of
our clients are trying to use fully saturated colors in Adobe RGB in their
vector graphics and the remapping of the out of gamut colors causes issues.
So we've not been using it with poster printing - but we did try it
yesterday and it caused all the images to look the same incorrect way. The
problem looks like a gamma correction problem in that the DEEP shadow values
that should print almost black get printed far too light. The PPT files
print fine from a Mac but not from a PC so my hunch is that it's a
Postscript driver issue. Suggestions?

-Scott

 

[Christine]

I do large format scientific posters in PPT all the time
(begrudgingly). We use an outside printer to actually
print them out...but this is what I do...

1. Build the poster in ppt at no more than 24"x24". If
the poster needs to be larger, then we print at a %age to
obtain the correct size.

2. Define the page size of the ppt file. Go into the
Printer Settings folder, highlight the Adobe PDF "printer"
then go to File-Server Properties and create a new form
the exact size of the ppt file.

[I had a LENGTHY discussion with a help person at Adobe
because I was getting odd results when trying to output
pdfs from ppt files larger than 24"x24". First he laughed
at me for doing posters in ppt, then he explained that ppt
was not a postcript program so therefore it would have
problems more so than other programs going to pdf. He was
the one that told me to keep it under 24"x24", and also
told me about defining the page size before exporting.]

3. "Print" the ppt file as a pdf using the predefined page
size.

4. Print the pdf version of the poster as opposed to the
ppt version.

I don't know if this will fix your printer issue, but it
may be worth a try.

Personally, my goal is to get everyone in the building to
STOP building posters in PPT and start using
Freehand/Illustrator or In Design...but I am thinking it
may be a pipe dream!

Christine

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I've tried to swear off newsgroups as they get addictive,

Yeah, but since I started, I haven't *once* abused shag tobacco, the needle or
retsina. (What? Did I do all that stuff before newsgroups? No. Why?)

I doubt that it's a driver problem per se, but it might be a settings issue;
I'd go into the driver's properties page, click Advanced and verify the ICM
setting. If you have any other software handling color, you don't want the
internal ICM on. Only one app should be handling CM.

Another point to understand is what PowerPoint does with system level or any
other color management settings:

Nada

No clue whatever that there is such a thing as CM or for that matter, CMYK.
It works only in RGB and passes only RGB off to the printer driver. The only
way to get CMYK out to PS is via EPS (which also lets you spin out managed
color, as you've seen, since the EPS is passed as an un-touched lump through
PPT's digestive processes. Nice image, eh? ;-)

Anyhow, no solutions here, but maybe an idea that'll make your "aha" light go
on?

 

[Scott Kilbourne]

We print internally and are only seeing this problem on these very dark
photomics.
We've got some customized instructions for doing posters in PPT that we
distribute to our clients via www.wfubmc.edu/biomed if you'd like to see
them.

-Scott

 

[Scott Kilbourne]

We've tried about every setting we can find on the advanced page including
letting the printer do ICM using the printer calibration. no joy. Did the
same on the print queue on the Win2k server that has captured the printer.
Printing the same poster from a Mac works great for those pictures but
introduces other issues like text rewrapping, etc.

-Scott

I've tried to swear off newsgroups as they get addictive,

Yeah, but since I started, I haven't *once* abused shag tobacco, the needle or
retsina. (What? Did I do all that stuff before newsgroups? No. Why?)

I doubt that it's a driver problem per se, but it might be a settings issue;
I'd go into the driver's properties page, click Advanced and verify the ICM
setting. If you have any other software handling color, you don't want the
internal ICM on. Only one app should be handling CM.

Another point to understand is what PowerPoint does with system level or any
other color management settings:

Nada

No clue whatever that there is such a thing as CM or for that matter, CMYK.
It works only in RGB and passes only RGB off to the printer driver. The only
way to get CMYK out to PS is via EPS (which also lets you spin out managed
color, as you've seen, since the EPS is passed as an un-touched lump through
PPT's digestive processes. Nice image, eh? ;-)

Anyhow, no solutions here, but maybe an idea that'll make your "aha" light go

on?

We're also running iQueue from Gretag-Macbeth as our inhouse color
management system, but have not been using it with posters since so many of
our clients are trying to use fully saturated colors in Adobe RGB in their
vector graphics and the remapping of the out of gamut colors causes issues.
So we've not been using it with poster printing - but we did try it
yesterday and it caused all the images to look the same incorrect way. The
problem looks like a gamma correction problem in that the DEEP shadow values
that should print almost black get printed far too light. The PPT files
print fine from a Mac but not from a PC so my hunch is that it's a
Postscript driver issue. Suggestions?

-Scott

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

We've tried about every setting we can find on the advanced page including
letting the printer do ICM using the printer calibration. no joy. Did the
same on the print queue on the Win2k server that has captured the printer.
Printing the same poster from a Mac works great for those pictures but
introduces other issues like text rewrapping, etc.

Are the pictures RGB or CMYK? If CMYK, they're RGB by the time PPT gets done
with them, but may (probably?) stay CMYK on the Mac.

-Scott

I've tried to swear off newsgroups as they get addictive,

Yeah, but since I started, I haven't *once* abused shag tobacco, the needle or
retsina. (What? Did I do all that stuff before newsgroups? No. Why?)

I doubt that it's a driver problem per se, but it might be a settings issue;
I'd go into the driver's properties page, click Advanced and verify the ICM
setting. If you have any other software handling color, you don't want the
internal ICM on. Only one app should be handling CM.

Another point to understand is what PowerPoint does with system level or any
other color management settings:

Nada

No clue whatever that there is such a thing as CM or for that matter, CMYK.
It works only in RGB and passes only RGB off to the printer driver. The only
way to get CMYK out to PS is via EPS (which also lets you spin out managed
color, as you've seen, since the EPS is passed as an un-touched lump through
PPT's digestive processes. Nice image, eh? ;-)

Anyhow, no solutions here, but maybe an idea that'll make your "aha" light go

 

[Scott Kilbourne]

They are Adobe RGB (1998) jpegs typically, but sometimes EPS's if we place
them ourselves instead of getting them preplaced by the client. Everything
RGB, but only the EPS's with Postscript Color Management turned on in the
EPS during export from Photoshop print "correctly".

-Scott

We've tried about every setting we can find on the advanced page including
letting the printer do ICM using the printer calibration. no joy. Did the
same on the print queue on the Win2k server that has captured the printer.
Printing the same poster from a Mac works great for those pictures but
introduces other issues like text rewrapping, etc.

Are the pictures RGB or CMYK? If CMYK, they're RGB by the time PPT gets done
with them, but may (probably?) stay CMYK on the Mac.

-Scott

I've tried to swear off newsgroups as they get addictive,

Yeah, but since I started, I haven't *once* abused shag tobacco, the needle or
retsina. (What? Did I do all that stuff before newsgroups? No. Why?)

I doubt that it's a driver problem per se, but it might be a settings issue;
I'd go into the driver's properties page, click Advanced and verify

the
ICM

setting. If you have any other software handling color, you don't

want
the

internal ICM on. Only one app should be handling CM.

Another point to understand is what PowerPoint does with system level

or
any

other color management settings:

Nada

No clue whatever that there is such a thing as CM or for that matter, CMYK.
It works only in RGB and passes only RGB off to the printer driver.

The
only

way to get CMYK out to PS is via EPS (which also lets you spin out managed
color, as you've seen, since the EPS is passed as an un-touched lump through
PPT's digestive processes. Nice image, eh? ;-)

Anyhow, no solutions here, but maybe an idea that'll make your "aha"

light
go

on?

We're also running iQueue from Gretag-Macbeth as our inhouse color
management system, but have not been using it with posters since so

many
of

our clients are trying to use fully saturated colors in Adobe RGB in their
vector graphics and the remapping of the out of gamut colors causes issues.
So we've not been using it with poster printing - but we did try it
yesterday and it caused all the images to look the same incorrect

way.
The

problem looks like a gamma correction problem in that the DEEP

shadow
values

that should print almost black get printed far too light. The PPT files
print fine from a Mac but not from a PC so my hunch is that it's a
Postscript driver issue. Suggestions?

-Scott

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

They are Adobe RGB (1998) jpegs typically,

In Photoshop, perhaps, but they're just plain old RGB in PPT. That may be a
clue also. Again, PPT has no color management capabilities whatever, nor does
it make use of any profiles carried with images. In fact, ISTR that embedded
profiles can cause problems for it (John? Oh John Langhans??? Does that ring
any bells for you?)

but sometimes EPS's if we place
them ourselves instead of getting them preplaced by the client. Everything
RGB, but only the EPS's with Postscript Color Management turned on in the
EPS during export from Photoshop print "correctly".

Again, PPT does nothing with EPS - it displays the preview image and remains
unconcerned about the PS content. At print time, the PS printer gets the PS
content of the EPS (including any CMS instrux to the printer), so it makes
sense that EPS would work the same as from other apps.

-Scott

We've tried about every setting we can find on the advanced page including
letting the printer do ICM using the printer calibration. no joy. Did the
same on the print queue on the Win2k server that has captured the printer.
Printing the same poster from a Mac works great for those pictures but
introduces other issues like text rewrapping, etc.

Are the pictures RGB or CMYK? If CMYK, they're RGB by the time PPT gets done
with them, but may (probably?) stay CMYK on the Mac.