Canon Marketing Philippines recently held a free color management seminar at the showroom of their corporate headquarters in Taguig last 23rd of September 2010. This event is the latest in Canon’s Print-Like-A-Pro seminar series, which aims to help printer owners and photography enthusiasts achieve the best results possible from their printers.
There are a lot of times that inkjet printer buyers get unsatisfactory results when printing their photographs; the resulting prints are usually duller or have color tints very different from what they saw on screen. This is because the way that pictures are seen on a computer screen is not the same as the way they are printed.
Seminar at the Canon HQ Showroom
Color management is the process by which one can ensure that what one sees on screen will be very close to what comes out of the printer.
The speaker for the seminar is photographyer Jo Avila, Canon DSLR Ambassador and one of the better known photography instructors in the country. With his technical expertise and evangelism on printing out pictures and color management, he is a printer ambassador for the brand.
To start things off, Canon also provided a simple but tasty buffet dinner for the attendants; Free food and drinks seem to be a common hallmark of Canon’s recent public events. Due to the heavy traffic that day, I arrived late and missed the dinner.
Photographer Jo Avila explains Color Gamuts
I also missed the beginning of the seminar, as Mr. Avila was already discussing color spaces by the time I got there.
This is the second Print-Like-A-Pro seminar that I have attended (the first one was held at the old Bella Luce studio in Makati a couple of
years back). This seminar is similar to the color management/printing module of Jo Avila’s Basic Photography course, but is less technical and geared
towards educating the general public. While the technologies and terminologies used in this event are mostly Canon’s, the principles and techniques used will also apply for those with non-Canon printers and gear.
The seminar covers the basics of color management and printing, which includes the following topics:
- Calibrating and profiling one’s computer display (ensuring that the computer screen is displaying the right colors)
- Color spaces / Color Gamuts (basically the range of colors that is available to a specific device)
- Picking the right print settings before printing (helpful because some programs like Adobe Photoshop can have an overwhelming amount of options)
- Importance of using right inks and paper for one’s printer (Genuine supplies will give best results because they’re designed for a specific printer series)
- Tips and tricks in color management and printing
To illustrate his points, Mr. Avila walked the audience through the calibration and profiling of his computer screen using a Datacolor Spyder3 colorimeter, projected his screen so that people could see how he prepares a picture file for printing, and ended his talk by printing the end result of his work process. A question-and-answer session followed afterwards, with Mr. Avila answering queries about color management and printing.
Ace Porlet of Canon and team raffling out prints by Jo Avila
Prizes were raffled off after the discussions. 20 A3-sized prints done on a Canon Pro-series printer and signed by Mr. Avila were raffled off to the attendees. Nobody went home empty-handed as everyone got a Canon PIXMA canvas bag and PIXMA pen each. Canon’s PIXMA printers were also available for printing out 4R/4″ x 6″ prints, free for those who brought CF/SD cards or USB drives with pictures. There were also special discounts for attendees who wished to buy a new Canon PIXMA printer that night.
The seminar was well-attended considering that Canon’s headquarters is relatively out-of-the-way, and vehicular traffic that day was horrible.
Raffle winners with their A3 prints signed by Jo Avila.
I was informed that the next two seminars in the Print-Like-A-Pro series are to be held out-of-town, and will be something for people in the
Southern parts of the Philippines to look forward to.
It was also mentioned that while there are no plans of holding another Metro Manila-based session anytime soon, it is not an impossibility. If another one is announced, sign up for it immediately, as the slots get filled up fast. Registration for this one was closed 2 hours after the event was announced on the local forums and Facebook.
In summary, the Print-Like-A-Pro seminar series is a great way for one to learn how to learn about proper color management and how to get the best possible result from your printer.
P.S. I got to sample the buffet dinner after the event, as there really was a lot of food. Yum.
Best kebab EVAR.
[...] Jo Avila took the center stage soon after, and the flow and content of his talk was similar to the one he gave in the last one. More details about the lecture itself can be found in my write-up of the last Print-Like-A-Pro. [...]
[...] I’ve already attended a couple of Print-Like-A-Pro seminars previously and highly recommend this for photographers who are serious about their output and want to ensure the best prints of their photos. To know what to expect in this seminar, you can read my recap about a previous Print-Like-A-Pro. [...]