Thread: Desktop Printers And Colour Management

Desktop colour printers, particularly inkjet are designed as 'RGB' printers. The operating system sends print data as RGB and the printer driver and printer perform the neces¬sary conversions to print the image correctly using CMYK inks. When images are printed from an image editing application that provides user controls for colour manage¬ment a choice must be made over whether either the colour management in the appli¬cation, or in the printer driver should be used. It is a common mistake to use both, which results in unpredictable colours in the final print. Only very recently have printer drivers started to include warnings indicating that both management systems may be in use.



The best approach is to select the correct printer profile in the colour controls for the image editor and to turn off the colour management in the printer driver. Unfortunately in many desktop printer driv¬ers it is often difficult to determine exactly how to disable their internal colour and image controls. For example in the current Epson driver it is necessary to select Printer Preferences, click the Advanced button, select ICM and tick the Off (No color adjust¬ment) box.