14 common printing mistakes and how to fix them

In computing, the term 'what you see is what you get' was coined to denote that what you see on a computer screen is what you get on paper at the printing stage. That's pretty much a given these days for printing text documents, but photographic images can lose more than a little in the translation.

The good news is that current Canon printers make it simple to produce fabulous looking prints that last a lifetime. Printer specialist Jay Sinclair, along with Canon Europe Product Marketing Lead for Print, Suhaib Hussain, are on hand to show you how to avoid common pitfalls and ensure optimum quality.

An ICC (International Color Consortium) profile contains information that allows a printer to reproduce accurate colours on a specific type of paper, so it's important to select the correct ICC profile when making a print. "An ICC profile basically tells the printer what type of paper you're putting into it, what type of ink it needs to have, and how much ink on paper you need to create your photo," says Jay.

"If you don't select the correct ICC profile, the image can come out looking completely different. You could calibrate your screen and do everything else right but if you select the wrong profile, your image is not going to print the way you want it to."

Soft proofing your images with Canon's free Professional Print & Layout (PPL) or Print Studio Pro (PSP) plug-ins means viewing a simulation of what your image will look like when it's printed on paper. "If you don't soft proof, there's a chance your images will come out flat when you're printing on fine art and matte papers," Jay says.

"Also, the programs' gamut warning will alert you if the printer is not capable of rendering a colour you've asked for. Basically, soft proofing is making sure you're profiling the paper exactly for the print, and you're seeing how it's going to come out before you print out an image."

Printers are not capable of producing quite as wide a range of colours as your camera has captured. Within a colour-managed workflow, you can use the Rendering Intent setting in the Print dialogue to tell the printer how to deal with colours that fall outside its printable range or colour gamut.

The Perceptual setting aims to preserve the overall visual impression of colours in an image. It will map out-of-gamut or clipped colours to the closest-match printable colours, then adjust the other colours to preserve the relationship between them.

The Relative Colorimetric setting maps out-of-gamut colours to the printer's nearest reproducible colours, but doesn't alter in-gamut colours. "You may get slightly less saturated colours, but brightness values will be most stable with this rendering intent," says Jay. "This makes it the ideal choice for near-neutral and black and white images."

To get the best possible output quality on Canon's imagePROGRAF PRO Series printers, you should use Canon's PSP or PPL plug-ins. "These programs were designed by Canon to make the printing process easier," says Jay. "They provide the tools to do all your colour management, whether it's hard proofing or soft proofing.

"Printing in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop can lead to problems. It's not an issue with those programs themselves, but an issue with them competing with the printer driver to manage the colours. Both try to manage the colours at the same time and add their own colour processing. Because both PSP and PPL were designed by Canon for Canon printers, you'll avoid that issue, so it simplifies the whole process." Furthermore: "For optimum quality and fidelity when printing from a Mac, it's important to use the Canon printer driver to select print and paper properties, rather than relying on Apple AirPrint," Suhaib adds.

Buying independently manufactured inks can seem an attractive money-saving option, but Suhaib doesn't recommend it. "Genuine Canon LUCIA PRO inks are formulated to the highest standards to ensure accuracy and consistency in terms of tone and colour rendition, as well as delivering excellent archival qualities, so you can be sure prints will last a lifetime," he says. "They also have an ensured level of purity, helping to avoid the risk of blocked nozzles in the print heads. All these aspects can be severely compromised when using non-genuine inks."

Natural oils on the skin can contaminate the surface of photo paper and fine art media, so it's best to avoid touching the printable surface when handling the paper before printing. Suhaib says it's also important to consider drying time after printing. "When creating photo prints on glossy or lustre paper using dye-based inks, the ink is quickly absorbed beneath a protective outer layer and the print is touch-dry pretty much as soon as it leaves the printer. Even so, it's best not to touch the surface for a while so it can fully dry.

"Pigment-based inks take much longer to dry on any type of photo paper or fine art media, so it's important not to touch the surface for a quite a while to avoid any risk of smudging. If mounting photo prints in an album or behind glass, it's best to leave them overnight beforehand to dry completely."

As well as soft-proofing options, Suhaib recommends hard proofing with the Pattern Print option in PPL. "You can use this to create a variety of small-sized different versions of your image on the media that you're going to use for the final print, each with subtly different tonal treatment and colour rendition. You can then choose your favourite option when creating the final print. It works particularly well for getting exactly the right look and feel for both colour photos with subtle hues and for high contrast black and white prints, especially when using fine art papers."

Something people often don't think about is the environment in which the print will be displayed. "Consider whether your print will be displayed under natural daylight or artificial light, which will have a relatively cool or warm colour temperature respectively," Suhaib says. "If you're creating large-format prints, it's useful to create small hard proofs first, so you can check them under the relevant lighting source to ensure you're happy with the results. It can be particularly important when colour accuracy is critical, for genres including portraiture, landscape, wildlife, and fashion photography."

Suhaib recommends being wary of aggressive levels of 'unsharp mask' and other sharpening tools. "These tools can make your images look really crisp on screen. However, printing them enables much greater resolution and brings fine detail and texture to the fore, without the need for aggressive sharpening," he explains. "Over-sharpening your images can have an adverse effect on image quality, as well as introducing unwanted levels of image noise in areas such as skies, water and smooth surfaces. I'd also say that printing your photos helps you to critique them, and that printing can make you a better photographer."

In the past, you'd need to have a white border for photo prints created on matte paper and fine art media. "Borderless printing was only an option for glossy or lustre photo papers," says Suhaib. "However, some of Canon's latest printers, including the PIXMA PRO-200 and imagePROGRAF PRO-300, feature ultra-precise paper transport systems that enable borderless printing on matte photo paper and fine art media, so you only have to have white borders if you really want them."

Inkjet printing is a very exact science and an incredibly high-precision process. Suhaib recommends running the printer's Print Head Alignment utility from the printer driver to ensure utmost accuracy. "Do this when you first set up a new printer, and again if you transport it from one place to another. It's a good idea to repeat the process every few months, even if the printer doesn't get moved."