Great article, thank you. You mention a couple of adjustments i don't find such as ..."Printer Color Management." Is this an Aperture tool or one associated with your particular printer. I ask because since upgrading to Leopard I have been having trouble printing through Aperture, prints are dark. The Apple store experts don't seem to be help me.

Also if I may, re: applying sharpening do you mean in Aperture before sending the image to be printed or are there more adjustments available from the print dialog?

Charles Maclauchlan

Charles, if you read the article with Aperture open on your computer, select an image and go to File >Print, I think it will be easier to follow. The Printer Color Management is one of the options from a popup menu in the Printer Settings dialog. Click on Printer Settings in Aperture's Print dialog to get there. The dialogs differ slightly with different printers, but you should be able to find similar settings. Give printing a try following the steps I've described and see if the prints look better.

The sharpening I talked about is the sharpening that's in the Print dialog itself - not what you do as an adjustment within Aperture.

I'm having problems with the printer profiles with Aperture, something I don't get with CS3. In both programs I set the printer's color management off and select the printer+paper profile on the print dialog. Photoshop seems to get it right, but not Aperture. Not sure why; the profile preview seems to work fine on Aperture, however.
I'm currently exporting to CS3 to do the printing.

Julio, do you also have the correct paper type selected in the Printer Settings? Exactly what goes wrong with the Aperture print? What type printer are you using? Have you experimented with using any other papers (and thus profiles) and/or contacted Apple for help?

Hi Ellen,

I do select the paper type (Epson Ultra Premium Glossy) in the print dialog in both CS3 and Aperture. I end-up with Aperture prints that are have a slight greenish tint compared to the ones printed from Photoshop - not an obvious double profile, and I trust the Photoshop output more since I've been doing it for several years.
This was done on an a new $100 Epson R280 I got with a Canon G9 offer - mainly for glossy prints, which Epson appears to have improved a lot since my original 2200 (leaving that one to just larger matte output). I have an profiled Eizo monitor and I can get excellent profile preview/matches with some vendors (Smugmug printing). I also got a custom profile for the printer/paper combo and I still see differences between the two programs.
Could it be the color intent that is selectable in Photoshop (say perceptual vs. relative colorimetric?) Don't know, I would have to do more testing, also on the 2200, before filing a bug. The bad thing is the ink cost.

Bookmarking this page for the next time I do prints! I've found my prints are often too "brown" ... although I think that's the wrong word to use. As an example, brown hair tends to look really "flat" as all browns get muddied together, and the overall cast tends towards the yellows.

I have an HP printer (which gives excellent prints from iPhoto, of all things). In my case, the color management is termed "Application Managed Colors" in the Paper Type / Quality settings page, and isn't available to select when going in through Printer Options unless I first (in the Aperture print dialog) select the appropriate paper/ink combo for the ColorSync Profile. In fact, I find that the best way through the dialog is to set up everything *before* clicking the "Print Settings" button.

One change/fix in Aperture 2.0 is that the Print Settings settings are (finally!) remembered with the presets. In Aperture 1.x I had to re-set the Print Settings selection every single time, which was just silly.

Question: is it better to apply ColorSync by Aperture or by the printer driver (HP's driver also allows ColorSync as an option)? It seems odd to have the same option in two places, so there must be an advantage to doing it in Aperture over the print driver. Does anyone know just what that is?

Tom, in the HP drivers you need to select "No Color Management" - or their wording of that. The option should be near the Color Sync option. In Aperture you set the ColorSync Profile to the printer/paper/ink profile. I've never heard of anyone successfully using the Color Sync options - although it must happen since they still exist! I'd love to hear if anyone uses that option an dhow they use it.

Julio, I'm not sure what's causing the color shift you're seeing. The rendering intent is a possibility. You could create a small test print - say 4 x 6 and print on different parts of the paper to save ink/paper costs. Then print one in PS with perceptual, one with colorimetric, and one from within Aperture. I'd be interested to hear what you find when you do that. If I learn anything else that might be contributing to the issue, I'll let you know.

Ellen

Would that it were that easy. I can sometimes get perfectly fine prints out of Aperture. But most of the time, as they say in New York, fegeddaboudid!

Printing in Aperture is seriously broken. A quick tour of the topics on Apple's own boards will confirm this. They fixed most of the seriously broken things with the release of v2.0, but for some reason printing wasn't one of them.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about it for me is that sometimes it works fine, others is so far off you can't believe it. And this is with all settings identical.

Thanks for a generally good article, but it would be useful to realize that not everyone's having as easy a time as you getting good prints out of Ap.

Otis, what would be helpful would be to keep track in detail of when you get good results printing with Aperture and when you don't. For example, does it vary by paper type or size of image or type of image? My guess is that it's not as arbitrary as you seem to think it is, and keeping track of details can help narrow down the issue. I truly haven't seen it be far off - without there being a user setting error. That's not to say that you might not be right - just that I haven't seen that myself.

Do you soft proof the images in Aperture?

I'd be glad to gather up some feedback on printing issues as long as I have very specific information, and then pass that along. I'm a member of the Aperture Advisory Board. Specifics are helpful - general negative statements are not.

Thanks,

Ellen

Ellen,

Just as an FYI, there are an amazingly large number of people that are having severe color/print quality issues with the combination of Aperture 2.x and Leopard. This can be seen all over the place on the internet including Apple's support discussion page with absolutely no input from Apple. I myself and a large number my clients have had the same issues.

After extensive testing and absolutely NO help from Apple I cannot seem to nail it down to what is causing it but can say the following with certainty.

1) All OS, Aperture, and print driver versions being apparently the same and correct, all profiles being the same, all settings being correct on different machines seem to produce completely different results - some good, some horrible.

2)The problem coincided with Leopard + Aperture 2. I have seen the problem my self only with that combination.

3) On each and every machine/printer combo that I have seen these issues for myself the logically equivalent settings and profiles work perfectly using Photoshop. (IE print with preview, printer color mgt off, select correct profile, etc)

4) Even after doing an archive and install of Leopard, reinstalling Aperture and the printer driver/profiles the issue does not seem to be cured.

5) I have seen this personally on only Epson and Cannon printers and cannot speak to any other brand but then again that is 90% of my clients hardware base.

No idea what is causing this but for all of our sakes I wish that someone could get Apple to respond to what seems to be a very wide spread and insidious problem that has nothing to do with user education or settings. Any useful and comprehensive info from anyone on this would be great. The only thing that I have read, heard, etc. Are the usual obvious things as have been mentioned so far in this post. The problems that I have seen first hand are NOT profile issues, setting issues, etc.

RB

Ps. I have heard a few "rumours" that the security patch release immediately prior to 10.5.3 that had Aperture in the list of applications that were targeted fixed a lot of these issues but cannot yet confirm this.

Ellen,

Also, I think I discovered what was causing your issue using Aperture previews in the media browser + Keynote that you had a while back. If you are interested I will post the details.

RB

Ron, thanks for the input. I'll try to see if I can get any clarification re: printing issues from Apple. And yes, I'm interested in knowing what you've found about the previews and media browser and Keynote. I almost forgot about that ordeal!

Ellen

Ellen,

The only issue that I have seen and can reproduce at will that sounds exactly the same as the issue that you were having is caused by what appears to be a bug in the Leopard/iLife media browser.

If you double click an image from Aperture in the media browser so that it fills the media browser pane and then drag that into Keynote the results are horrible. If you double click again back to the thumbnail view and drag the same image into the same spot the results are completely different and are what you would expect. Hope that was clear, it's actually much easier just to show you with ichat screen sharing :)

I don't know if that what was happening to you but it happens on every single machine that I have tried it on with the same crappy results. Try it.

I myself just use Aperture as a superduper media browser and drag the images right into Keynote, etc. This works great if you have a big monitor with very few practical limitations if you are doing HD presentations.

RB

RWB said what I was trying to, but more eloquently. Whether I can print on any given day or not isn't the issue, the issue is that this is a major area of broken-ness in Aperture that Apple seems to be ignorant of. If not ignorant, they certainly don't seem to be able to fix the problem.

Rather than castigating people who bring this inconvenient truth up, perhaps you could help direct some pressure to bear on Apple. All I was pointing out, which RWB seconded, was that Aperture has widespread and inexplicable issues with printing. Ironically, I don't really care, as I never really need to print (everything I do these days is electronic, my photos never meet paper till the very end of the production trail). But you've got to admit it's a rather poor showing for a product ostensibly designed to do everything with one's digital photographs.

Tom, Ellen,

I have an HP Designjet 130 and have just upgraded to Leopard.

The setting to turn off color management in HP printers is "Application Managed Colors". With Leopard, unlike Tiger, this setting is dimmed in the print settings dialog unless, as Tom pointed out, appropriate choices have already been made in the Color Sync Profile box in the Aperture print dialog.

I have never printed any size other than "Letter" but yesterday I decided to try some of the larger sample sheets that came with the printer. A disaster. The sample sheets are Ansi+ B size (13 by 19). This size is not available as a preset in the Aperture dialog so I chose "Custom" and entered 13 by 19. The preview looked fine but the print had the lower right corner of the image in the upper left corner of the paper. I tried various things but nothing worked. Moving to CS2 i found the "Custom" choice dimmed. I conjecture that the "Custom" paper size is not available in the current driver (4.2.2) but Aperture does not know. Switching to the closest available preset (Arch B) gives a print. Of course it is not centered since the paper size is off.

Hi,
whilst color management works just fine (spot on colors), I am having problems using custom printing sizes as well (put a note in Apple's Aperture forum, but no help so far).

Trying to print to panoramic paper everything shows fine in the printer dialog's preview window, but printing always defaults to A4, picking the A4 center part of the image and prints only that.

So far I played with all kinds of combinations but the result is always the same.

Could someone who successfully printed to a custom paper size kindly post the settings here ?

MacOS and Aperture are the current versions.
Printer is a Canon IP5200 with the current driver.

Thanks a lot in advance,
Chris

Shortly after my post right above I got a written response from Canon (Germany) Support.
Basically they say it is not possible to use custom size with Mac at all.
So they blame Apple and I wonder, is that true ?
I shall doubt it (the use of roll paper comes to mind).

Is there anybody out there who uses custom paper sizes with a Mac and any kind of printer ?

Chris, I use custom page sizes with my Epson 4800 and Mac, specifically with roll paper. However I had to essentially make it look to the Printer Utility as if there were two printers. One that used the regular paper sizes and one that used roll paper with custom sizes. That was quite awhile ago - more than a year ago that I did that by adding the printer a second time. I haven't had an issue with it in the last roughly 6 months or so.

Is there any chance that the orientation setting is off somehow so that it's thinking it only has the width of the paper to use? I haven't used the Canon printer, but I'll forward the question on to on eof my contacts and see if we get any ideas.

Ellen

I checked with a couple of people, including Jon Canfield, a printing expert. He responded, "Is it possible he’s trying to print longer than 14”? That’s the max length (legal size) for this model. None of the Canon desktop printers support panorama longer that either 14” or 19” depending on the model.

I just did a test with the Pro 9500 and Aperture, it works fine with a custom size of 6x19.

You can contact Jon at jon(at)joncanfield.com (change the (at) to the @ symbol!

Ellen

When I am in adjustment mode in aperture 2.0 my pictures look great, then when I save them, email them or print them, they look flatter and not as good as they do when I see them in adjustment mode. How do I save my pictures to look the same, or what do I need to do to make sure they print the way they look in adjustment mode.

When I hit "P" and see the actual image it does not look the same as it did in adjustment mode, how do I fix this?

Thank you,
Elizabeth

Elizabeth I suspect you need to go into the Export presets and check what colorsync profile is set for each export. From either Aperture >Presets or Export >Version > Export Preset > Edit specify the exact parameters you want. For emailing use sRGB.

When printing are you setting the Printer/Paper/Profile and also turning off color management in the printer dialog itself?

Make sure you've set Aperture to generate previews if you're using another iLife or iWork app to output the image.

P just access quick preview mode and the image will not look the same. It's accessing the built in JPEG to genreate a "quick preview." It's not using the settings and adjustments you've applied. By the time you've applied adjustments, you don't need quick preview mode.

I hope that helps.

Ellen

Hi Ellen,

thanks a lot for your effort. My own research now shows that the 14/19" (some say 17/20") limitation seems to be the max. possible format with Canon non-A3 printers (using current Canon or Gutenprint drivers).

Guess I have to settle for an A3+ and waste paper by cutting off the edges for panoramic prints, grrr.

chris

I am having trouble printing anything at all from aperture. I use an Epson CX4900 which is otherwise working perfectly, but when I try to send something to print, after being processed and appearing to be on its way, when checking the print dialogue box, it says "stopped" and momentarily there appears the following error message:

cgpdftoraster: got an error from cupsRasterInterpretPPD

Anyone have any ideas on how to solve this one?

chris

Chris, I asked Jon Canfield, a printing expert, and this is what he said:

"This is a UK model multi-function device, but looking at a couple of things I’m seeing mixed info. Apple says support for it is built into Leopard through CUPs, but the Epson site doesn’t list it as a supported printer. So, it probably works in a basic mode but not in a direct to print mode that Aperture is using.

Try downloading the link to the latest driver version, 6.1, from the Epson UK site. It won’t hurt to install this driver, and it might help."

Ellen

I've got 30-day demo versions of both Aperture and Lightroom trying to work out which is best for printing using custom profiles I've had made for a selection of textured art papers for use on my Epson R2400.

In Aperture, I select print from the menu and open the print dialogue window. Then I open the printer settings window choosing the correct media and switching off 'Color Adjustment' and saving the settings. Then I'm selecting my color profile from Aperture's 'ColorSync Profile' option in the print window and making sure 'Black Point Compensation' is selected. Then I'm pressing print.

In Lightroom 2, I select print from the menu and scroll down to the 'Color Management' tab in the print module. Here I'm choosing my custom profile from the drop down list and setting rendering intent as 'Perceptual'. On clicking the print button the default print window opens and I'm switching off 'Color Adjustment' and selecting my preferred paper type. Then I'm pressing print.

Now I will admit that I'm new to printing with profiles and a complete newbie to Aperture and Lightroom. I've already been flamed at on the Pixelmator forum for asking beginner questions relating to profiles! However, my prints from Lightroom are absolutely perfect, but colours are differing in Aperture prints. In particular, prints are slightly lighter with lighter browns and greens. I'm wondering if I might be missing a step somewhere in Aperture? It seems strange that both applications follow roughly the same print procedure yet I'm getting different results. I'd much rather use Aperture so I'm trying to seek an explanation for the change in colors.

Any hints or suggestions would be appreciated ;)

Hi - Can someone please help me out?

How do I create a watermark signature in Aperture 2 (I do not have photoshop)? And how do I add it onto a photograph?

Thank you.

Elizabeth, you need to use a program that has text capability as well as the ability to save a file with transparency. See my blog at http://blogs.oreilly.com/aperture/2007/07/creating-a-dimensional-waterma.html for instructions on creating a dimensional watermark. You could download the free 30 day trial of Photoshop to make the watermarks. Then in the Aperture presets go to Image Exports. Choose a file size and type and then choose Edit. You'll see a place to choose the watermark image to use as well as check the option to include the watermark. That way Aperture will automatically apply the watermark to all exported images using that preset. I'd create several watermarks for different size images if you need them.

Thank you for the info, however I'm having huge problems printing, all my pictures are getting a color cast and even I unistall everything, dowload everything too and also erase profiles, I don't get the right printings!

I've also printed with Photoshop and there I'm not getting any problem, does somebody could help me please?

I have struggled with this for a while, and I am convinced there is a bug in Aperture printing. However, I think I have a work around.

I am using a Epson R1900 (which is a huge improvement from my Epson Stylus Photo 870). I have a calibrated display, and colors are on very good on the display.

I use the latest printer driver from Epson. NOT the Gutenprint, gimp, or cups print drivers. I tried those, and was not pleased.

Here is my workflow and settings.

Select Print (image, book, whatever) to get the printer dialog. Select your printer. Then (this is important), select ColorSync Profile = SystemManaged.

Now, hit the print setting button. Select the driver specific setting from the pop-up menu. On an Epson, it is called "Print Settings". Then select your paper type, color= color, 16bits, color settings= 'Off (No Color Adjustment)', print quality, and speed. If you have advanced settings, check those. My advanced setting tells me the name of my colorsync profile. Very handy if you are going to calibrate your printer for different papers.

Now everything is set up. It should print fine. But is doesn't. At least in Aperture. So, hit Preview in the main print dialog box. That should send a PDF temporary file to Preview. In Preview, select print. Now do all the settings again.

In Preview, there is a "Color Matching" setting on the popup menu. Select Color Matching, ColorSync (as opposed to EPSON Color Controls). I select profile "Automatic" which gives the same profile noted above under advanced settings.

Now, finally, you can print. And the prints look great.

From any application besides Aperture, the colors are so good on the print, I did not even bother to calibrate the printer. The stock profiles are perfect. Using the work around above, I also get excellent color.

Using Aperture, with either the colorsync profile selected in Aperture, or using System Managed, I get poor results. Too dark with a green cast. But by sending the print to Preview first, I am able to work around the bug.

I hope this helps.

CB, if that works for you, that's fine. However I would suggest that in your initial procedure you NOT choose System Managed, but instead use the correct printer/paper profile, then follow the same steps of choosing No Color Management in the Epson driver. That way it should print fine without the extra work arounds.

I would not expect it to print OK if you're using System Managed and No Color Management - those options are not normally used together.

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Just logging in with the same issue. I have a MacPro and a MacBook Pro. I updated both of them at the same time by downloading the Espon printer driver (for the R2400) and the ICC profiles. Net, they should be the same. The MacPro prints great. The MacBook Pro prints horrible. And when I hit Printer Settings, I don't get the same printer options. On my MacBook Pro, I can't turn off the Printer Color Management while I can on my MacPro. I will try the Preview work around to see how this works. With a $3000 computer, you shouldn't have to do a workaround. Is anyone from apple listening?

Just logging in with the same issue. I have a MacPro and a MacBook Pro. I updated both of them at the same time by re-downloading the Espon printer driver (for the R2400) and the ICC profiles. Net, they should be the same. The MacPro prints great. The MacBook Pro prints horrible. And when I hit Printer Settings, I don't get the same printer options. On my MacBook Pro, I can't turn off the Printer Color Management while I can on my MacPro. I will try the Preview work around to see how this works. With a $3000 computer, you shouldn't have to do a workaround. Is anyone from apple listening?