I design artwork in Photoshop to be sold as downloadable files for printing.
However, I'm having ongoing issues with printed colour problems and seem to be going round in circles with this problem. I design the files in Adobe RGB and make sure no areas are out of gamut, as I'm assuming most people will print on their home printers or take the files to copy shops.
However, when I do a soft proof in Photoshop for my Canon Printer the colours change pretty dramatically - significantly darker, duller and more washed out. When printed they look just as bad, so the soft proof is pretty accurate.
Adjusting the colours of the artwork so that they look better on my printer isn't an option because I'm selling these as downloads, so the files will be printed on a wide range of printers.
I know that it is impossible to control how colours are managed once the file has left my hands, but I really want to be sure that it's not a problem with the colour profile I'm designing in, or something I'm doing wrong. I got hold of some PDI test images to do a comparison, and while they did print out a bit darker there didn't seem to be a noticeable difference between what was on screen and what printed on paper in terms of colour.
I certainly didn't look at them and think "YUCK!" like I do when I print out my own designs. This makes me think it's something I'm doing wrong. Having said that, when I took my designs to a copy shop they printed out very decently on their laser printer. I'm at a loss as to what I should do. Any insights would be VERY much appreciated! Thanks.