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Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Rick Churchill
I am printing from my Macbook Pro to a HP Photosmart C6380 inkjet printer using Lightroom (LR). I am using HP ink and HP Advanced Paper and get a mauve cast which is particularly noticeable on mountain snow shots. The cast is also there when printing from Photoshop Elements.(PSE)

The internet tells me this is probably the Application software Colour Management system adding to the Printer Colour Management system and suggests that one or the other should be turned off. My LR allows only Management by Printer or Generic CMYK profile (I use the former) so this should mean only the printer has control. Incidentally no where can I find in the HP utilities or the printer settings displayed via LR, a way of turning off the printer interface colour management.

The only way round of eliminating this cast that I have found is to make a mask of the inverse colour in PSE at about 10% opacity but this may be taking the “edge off the picture”. (I am reluctant re-import it into LR to further adjust the image.)

There are lots of avenues I haven’t explored yet like importing the image into Photos or using a PC etc. Any ideas?

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Derek Wright
Export a copy of the image from Lightrooom as if you were going to use it on a web page or include in a document ie as a Jpeg file. Then use Preview to view and print the file.

I can print direct from Lightroom to my Lexmark colour laser printer and get a print only restricted by the capability of the laser printer.

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Rick Churchill
Sorry Derek, nice mauve cast.

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Lionel Ogden
Have you had the opportunity to print your images on another printer? Perhaps a friend or neighbour would would let you connect to their printer . at least this would narrow down your area of search.

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Derek Wright
Do you know if your screen is calibrated correctly, have you shared an image file with another person on a different computer to see if they see the cast when viewing it elsewhere.

I use Lightroom and export files for printing as Jpegs and get them printed by Photobox. There is a closes correlation with what I see on the screen.

I use the Apple supplied drivers for my Lexmark C546dtn printer and even allowing for it being a Laser printer I get very acceptable colours from the printer even direct from Lightroom (good enough for layout checking etc) not good enough for framing

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Tony Still
Rick, are you sure that the cast is not in the photo? If you use the "eye dropper" tool in the Basic panel of the Develop module and hover it over the photo, you can see the RGB values. If your snow is white then those values should be (roughly) equal.

A quick test would be to click the eye dropper on some snow (you can undo afterwards). If this causes all the other colours in the photo to shift, your snow isn't white (or some shade of grey, to be precise).

Snow scenes can be prey to colour issues. If there is an issue in the photo, you can probably address it by changing the white balance (Temp and Tint sliders in the Basic panel). I think you can adjust white balance in PSE too.

I also have LR set to "Managed by Printer" but rarely print directly from LR so this doesn't prove much.

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Rick Churchill
Some excellent thoughts. Thank you all. Following a suggestion from Roy Rainford I use the tint control in LR to bias the colour from mauve to green. It just needed a slight nudge. The result was fine.
I used the eye dropper and looked at the RGB percentages before and after the tint. There is only a small change the whites being roughly equal but it makes a large difference on the printer (to my eye anyway). At least I have a solution which works.
Strange that it was only a set of snow pictures that caused the problem. Possibly because the images contained colours that the inks could not reproduce and mapped them to a mauve (red-blue) bias.
Derek, I do not know how to calibrate my screen. Is it easy? Perhaps it is a topic for a seminar?

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Rick Churchill
Just had another thought. These images were taken high in the mountains and without a filter. There must have been a huge amount of UV about which maybe the camera captured but is not reproduced on the screen but is mapped into a slight mauve cast by the printer.

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Roy Rainford
Pleased to know that LR tint control helped Rick. Your Macbook Pro shouldn't need calibration imho but others may disagree. I think angle of viewing and room lighting are important. I have taken a few snow shots in the Alps without filters and no colour problems. However, that was in the good old days of transparencies! About two years ago I tried calibrating my iMac and bought a Huey-Pantone device plus a Datacolor Spyder checker. Both a waste of time and money imho. I still have them and they can be borrowed if you want to try them. Details on: https://www.pantone.com/color-control. A free webinar can be viewed at:http://spyder.datacolor.com/webinar-archives/I7zrCHgQDjs/the-essentials-of-monitor-printer-and-output-calibration-with-richard-west/. An amateurish presentation but if you want to dip into this subject - good luck! Roy.

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Tony Still
Well done for fixing it Rick. I find colour balance to be one of the most fraught areas of processing when looking at any "non-standard" pictures. The answer, of course, is to carry and photograph a grey card for reference. I am, of course, too lazy to do that!

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Roy Rainford
I found Grey cards useful occasionally for setting exposures manually in film days but since turning to digital I haven't used one due to excellent camera exposure meters and the post processing adjustments that are possible. In difficult lighting conditions, eg snow and dark backgrounds I meter from something equivalent to mid grey. Suggest shooting in Raw format is important rather than rely on camera settings in jpegs. I guess colour casts could start in jpegs but agree that colour management is a difficult area when printing to competition/exhibition standards. Have to admit to putting some important print jobs out to a trade printer who sent me colour profiles to load to the computer.

Re: Mauve Cast on Printing

Avatar Tony Still
I agree about determining exposure and the importance of using Raw if you intend to post-process.

I suggested a grey card for its other purpose to give a known value for setting colour temperature during processing. LR provides the controls but you still need to interpret the photo to understand what settings are needed.

I also find that my Canon's auto-white balance, like me, struggles in difficult situations which makes it all the more necessary.
 
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