desaturating for smaller prints

[Rob Ingram]

When you are printing an image of say 8x10 to a smaller format, say 7 1/2 x 9 1/2, do you desaturate the original image? And, if so, by how much? I am printing on a Canon Pro 300 and find that reducing the size of the image tends to oversaturate the colours. There must be some kind of formula for this. 

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

I have never noticed an effect like you describe, and have never seen the need to do any color adjustment based on the image size. Nor have I ever seen a suggestion that it's needed.

Interesting question. I await further responses

[Lee D]

I'm with @walt.farrell it's not something I've never noticed myself or had any reports of before especially resizing. In printing are you using a colour profile in the Print window?

[Rob Ingram]

Tried using a colour profile for the paper and printer I am using and the colour went off a mile. So, I am tending to stick to Adobe RGB  (1998) as that is what all my work was in before and it worked with my Canon 9500 printer. I confess to having just changed to a Canon Pro 300 at the same time as switching from Photoshop to Affinity so I may indeed have some calibration issues. The images turn out fine save for the over saturation issue when I print smaller than the original image.  

[walt.farrell]

11 hours ago, Rob Ingram said:

Tried using a colour profile for the paper and printer I am using and the colour went off a mile. So, I am tending to stick to Adobe RGB  (1998) as that is what all my work was in before and it worked with my Canon 9500 printer. I confess to having just changed to a Canon Pro 300 at the same time as switching from Photoshop to Affinity so I may indeed have some calibration issues. The images turn out fine save for the over saturation issue when I print smaller than the original image.  

It's not clear from that description where you used the color profile.

Ideally, your image color profile would be sRGB or possibly Adobe RGB, and you would specify your paper/printer profile using a Soft Proof adjustment so you can see how it will look when printed, and add further adjustments as needed to get it to look right. And then you would turn off the Soft Proof adjustment before printing, and specify the paper/printer profile in the Print dialog.

[Rob Ingram]

This is very useful. Thanks so much. 

 

[Rob Ingram]

Okay, I did that and it looks almost perfect, if anything, a little less saturated in the proof than in the original. But it is still printing way too saturated. i will just have to tinker some more.