Digital Photo Blog

Edit March 29, 2010: Unfortunately, updating to 10.6.3 did not correct the problem with V4 ICC profiles for me….

My photos suddenly started printing with great wide gray borders, for no reason I could imagine. I thought nothing had changed… but obviously something had.

I tried reinstalling Photoshop CS4; reinstalling the Mac 10.6.2 update; moving ICC profiles around… and generally messed with it until frustration took over.

I finally wrote to a group that provides Photoshop support, but they simply gave me basic lessons on where ICC profiles should reside, and then became fairly condescending when I suggest that I knew all that, and the sudden appearance of these gray borders pointed at something deeper.

Shortly, I discovered that it was only the custom profiles I’d made with my ColorMunki that were causing the problem. I wrote to X-Rite and they responded courteously, admitting that others had started experiencing it too, and offered several suggestions.

I reinstalled CS3, and the profiles worked. I remade the profiles in version 2 ICC format instead of version 4, and they worked in CS3 and CS4.

I am continuing to work with X-Rite so see if there is a better solution, and will keep this note updated.

I’ll cut to the chase here: what it turns out to be is the combination of 10.6.2, version 4 ICC profiles, and PhotoShop CS4. Change any of these (including substituting version 2 profiles, or printing from CS3) and the gray borders go away.

At this point, it appears that one can either remake (or replace) custom ICC profiles with version 2 profiles, or simply wait for Apple to fix it (10.6.3 anyone?) or Adobe to fix Photoshop.

I should note that just before I did my detective work, another blogger also reached the same conclusion, and you can read his report here:

http://exactexposure.blogspot.com/2009/12/adobe-photoshop-cs4-and-apple-os-1062.html

I’ll also note that there is one other effect of 10.6.2: the ABW (Advanced Black and White) profiles I created* for B&W output, using the data from the ColorMunki, and the QuadTone RIP generator, no longer show up at all in the CS4 profile list. These are listed as version “2.10″ instead of “2.0″ but I’m not sure whether that is the issue, or something else. Again, it may just be up to Apple to undo whatever they did in 10.6.2 with ICC profiles.

I’m still working on this one.

(later…) Aha! If you are creating these ABW profiles described above, use the script “QTR-Create-ICC-RGB” instead of “QTR-Create-ICC” and the profiles will be seen. Yes: this means you have to make them all over again… (or, as noted, wait and see if Apple fixes it in 10.6.3…)

Hope this helps someone else from pulling their hair out.

*http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/bw_printing/bw_print_colormunki.html

LATER

How to print a target without Apple’s Colorsync mucking it up:

Please read the full page where I got this: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/solving.shtml

The heart of that page is printed below for your convenience. I take no credit for this solution.

Open (untagged) profile target image in CS4.
Edit -> Assign Profile… -> Adobe RGB. Click OK.
File -> Print…
Set Color Handling = Photoshop Manages Colors.
Set Printer Profile = Adobe RGB.
Set Rendering Intent = Relative Colorimetric.
Uncheck Black Point Compensation.

Click Print…

In the Epson driver, disable color management, and choose whatever driver settings you normally want to use for printing on your chosen paper (e.g., 16-bit, appropriate media type, thickness, High Speed = Off, etc.)
Print.

Please note that it does NOT matter that Adobe RGB is used as the profile in the workaround. You could use Pro Photo RGB instead, for example. It DOES matter that you choose the exact same profile in the “Assign Profile” dialog box and the “Print” dialog box. Make sure that you DO NOT choose “Working RGB-xxxx” as the printer profile.