I have a problem with printing in X5

Hi,

The biggest difference between X5 and X4 color printing is that X5 will automatically pick up and use printer color profile associated with device in OS color management settings. Printer color profiles are usually installed by the printer driver installer. The idea is that using printer color profile produces better color match, which it usually does. Using printer color profiles does not however guarantee that printed colors would look like X4, which did not use any printer color profiles automatically. On top of that, X5 is using standard US SWOP color profile for document CMYK color space, the Kodak's SWOP proofer CMYK profile used by X4 is neither identical nor standard for that matter. X5 was designed to take full advantage of printer color profiles and provided these profiles are accurate X5 is capable of rendering colors far more accurately compared to X4. If this is not your goal and you still want to get the same, or at least close, color rendering at print time as in X4 here is what you can do:

1)  In X5 Print dialog, Color tab, "Correct colors using color profile:" control by default would have one of the printer color profiles selected, for example  "Canon LBP-2410/LBP5200 (Photo )". Change it to the document's RGB color space - i.e. just select from the list color profile with "(Document)" keyword , e.g. "(Document) sRGB IEC61966-2.1". This will ensure that document's RGB colors are sent to the printer unchanged, the same way X4 printed colors by default. The profile selection for the particular printer will be remembered automatically, you need to do it only once.

2) if you have any CMYK colors in the document doing 1) is not sufficient. Your CMYK colors have to be converted to printer RGB color profile before they can be sent to the GDI ( Non Post Script ) printer. As far as X5 is using different CMYK color profile compared to X4 the conversion will be different. To get better match with X4 you need to change default CMYK color profile in X5. The Kodak SWOP proofer profile is not shipped with X5 as Kodak color engine is not included into installation, however you can just load this profile from X4 installation. Locate gen_prn.cc color profile in X4 install location - e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4\Color or copy it from another system that have X4 installed. In X5 - go to Tools/Color Management/Document Color Settings, expand "CMYK:" profile control, click on "Load color profiles.." item, navigate to gen_prn.cc profile, hit OK. This will make your current document to use  "Kodak SWOP Proofer CMYK - Coated Stock" X4 profile. You would need to do that for any existing X5 document you want to have similar colors to X4. You can do the same thing in Tools/Color Management/Default Settings dialog and this CMYK color profile will be used by default for all new document you create as well as for X4 documents you open in X5.

3) if you print grayscale content, you would also need to select "Gray Gamma 2.2" grayscale color profile in document's/default  color settings dialogs. X4 was using internal sRGB color  profile with gamma 2.2. for grayscale rendering, therefore you need to use the same gamma 2.2 in X5 where we have dedicated grayscale color profiles.  They are included in X5 profiles sets.

Doing these things will get you X4 colors, which are not necessarily as accurate as they can be or are the ones adhering to CMYK printing standards. This is your call though. 

Gennady