CaptureOne Printing Settings Guide

[spassig]

Hello

I have started printing with COP.
Does anyone know which settings are important?
I would like to have an understandable guide to what the individual settings mean and what they do.
Does anyone know such a thing?

Jochen

 

[Jack]

The main thing is setting to allow C1 to manage settings, then make sure all the settings for your printer are correctly selected where it says "before turning off" in the C1 menu -- depending on your printer, this can include a whole bunch of things like paper feed location, paper size, base paper type, ink usage, etc -- then tell C1 to select the proper paper profile for your printer; next I mostly reco "Perceptual" rendering intent with BP compensation for most photo imaging unless you understand the specific reasons to use one of the other rendering intents; you can play with print sharpening to find an acceptable added sharpening for that specific paper out of your specific printer, then write it down, but if in doubt use something really small, like 10 or less to avoid halos; margins are specific to your printers print area and you'll probably want to fill them in for sheets or rolls as appropriate, though I am unclear if they get handled automatically from the print settings dialog already filled out; layout is for batch prints like doing a bunch of 5x7's off a 24" roll which I don't do and best handled by a true RIP for your printer instead of C1 anyway; checking "rotate to fill" optimizes usable paper area if you're printing multiple images to a given roll or sheet size; add captions and or watermarks if you want them (I don't).

 

[spassig]

Hello Jack
Thanks for feedback and Your recommendations.
I hope that I have translated and understood your recommendations correctly?

The main thing is setting to allow C1 to manage settings, then make sure all the settings for your printer are correctly selected where it says "before turning off" in the C1 menu --

What die You mean with „before turning off"?

When I export the RAWs as TIFF, JPG, PSD ... this settings clear for me I hope.

When I use COP > Print > see screenshot.
Are this settings relevant or unrelevant for printing?

Jochen

 

[archiM44]

Hello Jack
attached my submitted case and reply concerning the use of icc profiles when printing.
Do you have any suggestions as I must still go to an other program to get a good print.

 

[Geoff]

Another way is to use outside software: For careful work, ImagePrint, which has profiles for each paper and even different viewing conditions - does a great job.
For a simpler and easy way, output from C1 and print out of Lightroom, which has a very good and simple print engine.

 

[Jack]

Your screen captures above look like the primary edit output screen. Once you've output your final edited print file to your output folder, you need to go to that image in the output folder and then you get to the actual printing screen from File>Print. (Shown below) Note too that best practices would be to edit and output that image with your desired paper/printer profile as well as final size at your desired print resolution. I will confirm the output look by selecting the final paper output profile for that specific image and edit to balance to that paper/printer profile combo. I then save it as an output variant with the paper code and print size in its name.

My print screen is shown below, note I am running a Mac with Catalina, and C1 20 -- but the main thing you have to do is select the appropriate paper profile in the C1 dialog box -- in my case shown in the attachment for the Epson 7900 and Mk ink, then you have to carefully complete the printer set-up dialogs for your printer, paper, paper size, paper feed, etc., or you will not be running a fully managed workflow. (Personally, when I want critical control I still print from PS. But mainly because I was using it to print from long before C1 even had print capability and I'm facile with its print UI -- C1 essentially has the same utility, just presented differently.)

Anyway, a couple more comments... Getting WYSIWYG screen to print requires a very carefully profiled monitor and dedicated color-managed workflow. You may want to google "color managed printing" as there are several fairly good conceptual tutorials. If you are not starting from that point and using a canned profile for your monitor, or even generic drivers for your printer, you are begging for problems in output.

Hope this helps.

 

[archiM44]

Your screen captures above look like the primary edit output screen. Once you've output your final edited print file to your output folder, you need to go to that image in the output folder and then you get to the actual printing screen from File>Print. (Shown below) Note too that best practices would be to edit and output that image with your desired paper/printer profile as well as final size at your desired print resolution. I will confirm the output look by selecting the final paper output profile for that specific image and edit to balance to that paper/printer profile combo. I then save it as an output variant with the paper code and print size in its name.

My print screen is shown below, note I am running a Mac with Catalina, and C1 20 -- but the main thing you have to do is select the appropriate paper profile in the C1 dialog box -- in my case shown in the attachment for the Epson 7900 and Mk ink, then you have to carefully complete the printer set-up dialogs for your printer, paper, paper size, paper feed, etc., or you will not be running a fully managed workflow. (Personally, when I want critical control I still print from PS. But mainly because I was using it to print from long before C1 even had print capability and I'm facile with its print UI -- C1 essentially has the same utility, just presented differently.)

Anyway, a couple more comments... Getting WYSIWYG screen to print requires a very carefully profiled monitor and dedicated color-managed workflow. You may want to google "color managed printing" as there are several fairly good conceptual tutorials. If you are not starting from that point and using a canned profile for your monitor, or even generic drivers for your printer, you are begging for problems in output.

Hope this helps.

Jack, I don't know if you are answering my post or an other one.
My monitor is regularly calibrated and my paper profiles are made using the X-Rite soft and hardware and of course the setup dialog as shown by you which is essentially the same as in LR and other programs. Using the Lightroom Classic Print module my prints are extremely close to the on screen image, for both color and brightness, even on very difficult skin tones. However I must note that my too bright screen is calibrated to a brightness of 72 and D65.
regards

 

[Jack]

Above I was mainly replying to Spassig, the OP who posted his screenshots, about color management in general.

In your --archiM44-- case, you should only need to have your paper profiles loaded into your color library so C1 can access them for printing. Then most of the other issues are managed by the dialog boxes I circled above -- letting C1 manage color, perceptual, BP compensation and making sure all of your specific printer settings in the printer settings and page set-up dialog boxes as re paper base type, size, input tray, resolution, etc are all properly selected. This last step should alleviate the OS and Printer driver issues your C1 reply was referring to.

 

[Bill Caulfeild-Browne]

Jack, thank you for this primer on printing from C1.

For years I have been printing from Photoshop CS6, using the Canon 16 bit plug-in. Because I'm upgrading to Big Sur (for non photographic reasons) I will lose CS6. I don't want to start paying a licence fee to Adobe for the latest version when I only use it for printing.

But my question is with respect to sharpening. I have been using Pixel Genius and love it - buit it's been discontinued and again, it's CS6 Plug-In. Do you know of a similar application that I could use with C20?

 

[dchew]

Hi Bill,
I've been using Qimage One lately and really like it with the Canon 4100. It is not too expensive and seems to work really well. Workflow:

• Softproof in either C1 or LR.
• Export to Qimage One at size, 600 ppi (or 300 if a big print) without any output sharpening.
• Sharpen in Qimage One. I think Q1's sharpening is really good.
• Choose to either save or not save the output file. I generally do not save them. You can set up Q1 to automatically delete the file on close.

Dave

 

[Jack]

But my question is with respect to sharpening. I have been using Pixel Genius and love it - buit it's been discontinued and again, it's CS6 Plug-In. Do you know of a similar application that I could use with C20?

I still use Photoshop for final output sharpening as I mask and apply two different routines to enhance higher and lower frequency detail, then still print from it as well. Those and a few web-creation actions I use a lot, are the reasons I bought into the newest Photoshop. Unfortunately I have not played much with C1's printing module -- it includes an output sharpening option and I suspect it's excellent, but I simply have not experimented with it so cannot offer advice other than to give it a try and see what you get. When you do, please report back!

 

[vjbelle]

Jack, thank you for this primer on printing from C1.

For years I have been printing from Photoshop CS6, using the Canon 16 bit plug-in. Because I'm upgrading to Big Sur (for non photographic reasons) I will lose CS6. I don't want to start paying a licence fee to Adobe for the latest version when I only use it for printing.

But my question is with respect to sharpening. I have been using Pixel Genius and love it - buit it's been discontinued and again, it's CS6 Plug-In. Do you know of a similar application that I could use with C20?

I know I'm late to this - I should visit more often - but I use Focus Magic, Sharpen AI and PS smart sharpen and have had very good success with all three. It's just a matter of knowing how the print will turn out based on what you see on your screen.

Cheers.....

Victor B