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Photoshop Elements interface

Printing with Photoshop Elements
Published on April 11, 2011 | Updated on October 31, 2019

One of the great advantages of printing your photos from Photoshop or Photoshop Elements - here in its 2018 version - is that you can do it by activating color management, i. e. by using print profiles, if possible that you have created yourself with the excellent i1 Studio kit ($489).

How frustrating it is to retouch your most beautiful images over long minutes to see them so poorly printed because of poor color management ! Well, even the "beginner photographer" version of Photoshop allows you to do things correctly, using the color management tools, i. e. the ICC printing profiles. The ideal solution is obviously to create your own with the Datacolor SpyderPRINT or X-Rite i1 Studio kits. These are "affordable" solutions (less than 450 dollars) but really very efficient, even more so for the X-Rite version.

Photoshop Elements Print Menus

Epson SC-P600 Printer Photoshop Elements, like its big brother, has its own printing menu and the good surprise of this "light" version is that it also manages the printing profiles. It is therefore quite possible to print very qualitatively your photos from Photoshop Elements, a good photo printer (whose driver allows you to disable your own color management) and ICC profiles that you have created yourself or have made remotely.

Print with Photoshop Elements (CMD + P ou CRTL + P)

You have just retouched your photo in the color space of it. The printing of an image is done through the File / Print menu. This window has a "Color Management" option, which can be activated by clicking on the button at the bottom "More options..." (photo below).

Then, you must activate the advanced color management options of Photoshop Elements : click on the left menu "Color Management".

Then click on the "Let PSE manage colors" option. This is MANDATORY to use ICC print profiles correctly. Don't let the printer get involved!

Then choose the following options:

1 - One last check : Let PSE manage the colors!

2 - Color space of the image : in this case sRGB but this could be Adobe RGB.

3 - Printer profile - Choose the ICC profile of your printer/paper pair that you have created or had made by a remote service provider.

4 - Rendering mode - Leave "Relative Colorimetric".

How to set the printing options of your printer - Very important!

One last precaution unless it has already been done: do not forget to open the printer driver properties panel (in the "print format" part of the Print with Photoshop Elements menu, at the bottom) to choose the right printing settings :

Very important! The options you will choose in the "Print format" menu must be the same as when you printed the test charts when creating the profile of this selected printer/paper pair.

Disable printer color management - Essential!
Choose the right type of paper - the brand is not important but the type: Premium glossy, matt, thick Canson paper is very important because it determines the ink rate.
Choose the printing fineness - often between 720 and 2880 dpi -
Speed, finer details, etc.
Not to mention... putting the right paper in the printer!

Example with the printer driver of the Epson 7800:

Options d'impression d'une imrimante Photo Epson

1 - Printer - Choose the printer model from your printer list.

2 - Choose the right paper - the same one that was used to print the calibration chart for this printer/paper pair.

Attention! This choice only determines the inking rate. If you use paper from the printer's brand, your paper will be in the drop-down list. If you use another brand, choose the same type of paper as at Epson in this example. Indeed, all the brands have the "same" paper ranges: Premium gloss, Archival matt, baryta, etc.

3 - Color settings - Be sure to disable the printer's color management otherwise it would duplicate Photoshop's.

How to choose? The conversion engine in the expensive Photoshop is simply the best current one. That's also why Photoshop can seem expensive and for me it has always been a determining criterion that greatly justifies this cost.

4 - Quality - Choose the same printing fineness as when printing the test pattern. I even created two profiles at 1440 dpi and 2880 dpi but I admit I'm not sure there's a difference!

You can also choose the speed without, in my opinion, having an influence on the calibration. But note that I never check "Thinner details" because I have a bug on my 7800 Epson when I print my panoramas in very long.

Once the options have been correctly selected, you can close the "print format" options window. And all you have to do is start printing by clicking on the "Print" button!

To be remembered!

The key to good print quality is the creation of an ICC profile for your printer/paper pair.

Photoshop Elements, with a few exceptions, allows you to print as in Photoshop, i.e. using custom ICC profiles. This is a significant guarantee!

The printing options must be exactly the same as when you printed the test patterns used to create your ICC profile.

If you want the highest printing fineness, choose 2880 dpi (for Epson or Canon printers): this allows you to have more beautiful and progressive gradients in the sky, in particular, especially visible at close range, so on small format prints because you get closer to them. It's subtle but, personally, I see the difference and I clearly prefer it.

The dpi of the printer have nothing to do with the dpi (ppi) of the image. If you want to print a photo at 240 dpi, the gradients will be more beautiful if you print it at 2880 dpi (printer) than at 1440 and even more so at 720 dpi. They will also look better at 240 dpi (image) than at 120 dpi.

Beyond 240 dpi for an inkjet print, I don't see any difference but from 200 dpi I start to perceive it if I get closer to the print run. 300 dpi is only used for offset printing at the printer's but does not contribute anything to inkjet printing.

In these 2 pages I will share with you all my advice to manage the colors of your photos in Photoshop Elements...

- Color management in PSE

- Printing with Photoshop Elements - 2/2

- Printing menu of PSE
- To be remembered...

- My 30 monitor reviews!
- How to choose your monitor ?
- How to calibrate your monitor ?

Calibrate your photo printer with the best quality/price ratio: X-Rite i1 STUDIO !

Read my full review...

$471.98

Calibrate your monitor with your favorite colorimeter : Datacolor SpyderX PRO !

Read my full review...

£159.00

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