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04/25/2003 09:34:39 AM · #1 |
| Does anyone know any way to match the colors on your monitor to your printer? I know the best way is with a hardware profiling kit but they seem to start at about $300. I am not looking for perfection (although it would be nice), just a technique or low cost program to get the colors close fairly close. |
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04/25/2003 10:50:38 AM · #2 |
Option 1/ print out a colour target or something colourful, tweak the screen settings so it looks closer.
Option 2/ Use calibration software like Adobe Gamma to judge it with your eye, and then use colour management and the correct paper/ink/printer profiles for your printer.
Option 3/ buy a decent colour profiler, use colour management, get precise results and less frustration.
Good info on colour profiling.
a review of colour profiling methods
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04/25/2003 01:05:55 PM · #3 |
Actually, I have been playing around today and realized that the pictures look the way I want them on the screen but not when I print them. Therefore, (being the genius that I am) :) I figure I have to modify my printer settings. Anyone know an easy way to configure your printer colors without wasting 50 sheets of photo paper???
BTW - I have an Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX. |
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04/25/2003 01:20:27 PM · #4 |
| Could still be your screen. If you print on other printers, or send away (ie, DCPrints) to print, do they still look wrong? Adjust your monitor to match your printer, then adjust your photos to look good on your monitor, then they will print fine. However, if they look fine on other printers, or from DCPrints, or whatever, then your printer does need adjusting. |
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04/25/2003 01:36:49 PM · #5 |
Method One. First use the combination of Gordon's options 1 and 2. Print an image that has a large range of colours and tones (including skin tones and subtle gradations of grey) - your target. Now hold it close to your monitor under the lighting conditions as neutral as possible and using Adobe Gamma fine-tune the settings of the monitor, so the display matches your target as closely as possible. Use all three colour squares in Adobe Gamma. Save this profile as smth like "MonitorPrinter". Now open any file in Photoshop and go to View>Proof Setup. Photoshop allows softproofing your prints on screen. Choose "MonitorPrinter" from the list of output profiles (it might be uder "Custom", every Windows version stores it differently). Toggle View>Proof Colors (CTRL+Y) on and off to preview your future print. Do not forget to untick softproofing when you are finished.
(Tip - on my computer I reserved Monitor RGB to preview how my photo would look on the web without any profiles).
Method Two. If you are going to use your image both for the web and for print, or have several printers, etc. you can further adjust softproofing. To it through an adjustment layer (Curves or Levels, Hue/Sauturation, Brightness/Contrast whatever you prefer). First activate Proof Colors, add an adjustment layer, make corrections until the softproof image on the monitor closely matches the original image. Do not flatten this layer, just save it with the name which refers to the intended output (Web, CanonPrint, printer/paper combo etc.) Next time you can reuse your saved settings.
This works very well on a closed loop workflow (that is when you regularly use the same monitor and printer).
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04/25/2003 02:07:39 PM · #6 |
Galina's way does work well if you are always using the same paper/ printer/ ink combination, otherwise it gets quite frustrating pretty quickly. The reason is you really want to have your monitor in a known colour space, and then translate from that to the particular output space for the printer/ink/paper.
If you set up the monitor to look right for one printer, you've combined
the monitor/printer/ink/paper settings all in to one 'profile' which limits your ability to print to another paper or printer and still get good colours.
Adobe Gamma usually tries to profile your screen to a known space, like AdobeRGB and then you should use printer profiles (usually from your printer manufacturer) for particular ink/ paper/ dpi settings.
Of course if you really want good results, you need a profiled monitor, controlled lighting and a custom profile for _your_ particular printer/ ink and paper, rather than a generic one - that is the sort of service that drycreekphoto.com offers. |
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04/25/2003 02:08:38 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by grcamp:
Actually, I have been playing around today and realized that the pictures look the way I want them on the screen but not when I print them. Therefore, (being the genius that I am) :) I figure I have to modify my printer settings. Anyone know an easy way to configure your printer colors without wasting 50 sheets of photo paper???
BTW - I have an Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX. |
Problem is there, you don't know if your screen is set up right or not. You can get it to look right on your screen, but you might be having to skew colours all over the place to get that result. If you don't calibrate your screen, you can't really say.
E.g., if my screen is set far too dark compared to a properly calibrated screen, I can make my picture much brighter to compensate. When I print it, the result would be 'over exposed' and far too light, but it looked right on my (badly set-up) screen. The answer is to fix the screen first, not make the printer print everything as under exposed. Two wrongs, don't make a (very reliable) right.
Message edited by author 2003-04-25 14:10:06. |
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04/25/2003 02:24:13 PM · #8 |
| I have a similar problem with calibration. I have calibrated my monitor with Adobe gamma, when pic are viewed with Photoshop 7 and ACDSee v4, pics in PS& came out much darker. Y? |
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04/25/2003 02:25:33 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by zerocusa:
I have a similar problem with calibration. I have calibrated my monitor with Adobe gamma, when pic are viewed with Photoshop 7 and ACDSee v4, pics in PS& came out much darker. Y? |
Depends how you've set up the monitor profiles, but photoshop supports colour management, not sure if ACDSee bothers or can use embedded profiles.
It's hard to say without seeing your colour management settings in photoshop
Dry creek photo has some good intro articles (start here for some basics)
Message edited by author 2003-04-25 14:26:30. |
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04/25/2003 02:33:54 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by zerocusa:
I have a similar problem with calibration. I have calibrated my monitor with Adobe gamma, when pic are viewed with Photoshop 7 and ACDSee v4, pics in PS& came out much darker. Y? |
Depends how you've set up the monitor profiles, but photoshop supports colour management, not sure if ACDSee bothers or can use embedded profiles.
It's hard to say without seeing your colour management settings in photoshop
Dry creek photo has some good intro articles (start here for some basics) |
Thanks for the quick reply, i'll try it and see what happens... |
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04/25/2003 03:37:46 PM · #11 |
I find it difficult to calibrate the monitor with adobe gamma. It's too subjective for me. When I look out of the window for a second or two after I've adjusted the settings on the colored squares, it looks as if I have to reset the whole thing again. I'm not getting it right.
Is there a more objective way to adjust the gamma settings? |
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04/25/2003 04:25:54 PM · #12 |
| You can buy a hardware/software calibration package which includes a sensor to measure your monitor's output directly. It's kind of expensive. |
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04/25/2003 04:38:01 PM · #13 |
Hmmm, thanks Paul. I could have guessed it would cost me some money...
Well, I'll stick with option one I think. |
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04/25/2003 05:14:35 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by marco:
I find it difficult to calibrate the monitor with adobe gamma. It's too subjective for me. When I look out of the window for a second or two after I've adjusted the settings on the colored squares, it looks as if I have to reset the whole thing again. I'm not getting it right.
Is there a more objective way to adjust the gamma settings? |
The only way to do it is to get the human factor out of the equation. That's what color calibration tools do - costs about $250 for an entry level version. |
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04/25/2003 05:19:45 PM · #15 |
Don't know if it might be possible to rent one for a day somewhere - like from an AV company or photo studio? After all, you'd only really need it for one day ...
Ed
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04/25/2003 05:28:49 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by e301:
Don't know if it might be possible to rent one for a day somewhere - like from an AV company or photo studio? After all, you'd only really need it for one day ...
Ed |
Technically yes, legally no. You need to run the software every time you start your computer, to load the generated profile. So you could illegally load the software and run the profiler, but you probably wont find anyone renting these out (as it is against the license) You might have more luck finding a friend with one.
Also you really need to re-profile every couple of weeks or so as the colours change over time. They also change if you move your monitor (variations in the magnetic fields).
Also, it is worth noting that you shouldn't really do any work on a monitor if it has been on for less than 30 minutes, as the colours change as the monitor warms up.
Message edited by author 2003-04-25 17:29:44. |
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