Topic: Monitor & printer Callibration

[This-is-damion]

hello,

Just bought newself a new set of inks for my printer,  B&W looks great  but colour stuff looks dull compared to screen, I  have checked this site

http://epaperpress.com/monitorcal/       and looking at the first two boxes there is no difference at all  so im guessing my monitor needs calibration.

I dont want to go into this and make it any worse  so wondering if people have had experince of this  and have any advice??

ta

[derevaun]

that's about the most useful calibration tool I've seen on the web--thanks!

Another tool for adjusting a monitor is to sign up with http://www.ezprints.com/ and order their free screen calibration images. They'll send you two prints, color and BW, to compare to images on your screen at their site. If they're a good match, uploaded images will eyeball pretty good too.

I'm not connected to EZPrints, not even a frequent customer 

[Francois]

Hi Damion!

I know I use Adobe Gamma and I am quite happy with it. I too noticed that prints are always more dull than on the screen. There seem to be mainly two reasons for that. On the screen, image is seen through emitted light, much like a slide. A print is seen through reflective light. This is one reason. The second one is due to the fact that the screen has  different gamut than your printer. People often take the ICC profiles for granted, but they often are surprisingly different from one device to the next (let alone one paper to the next).

A tool which I have found very useful to visualise the difference is the Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/colorcontrol.mspx

It is a free applet that installs in the control panel that allowes you to see the difference in 3D between profiles. It is small and very nice. It also makes managing profiles much easier. I highly recommend it.

But if you want the ultimate in color management, get yourself a color spyder. X-Rite makes a ton of devices for such applications.

Hope it will help you get the most out of that nice printer.
(don't be afraid to calibrate your screen. If you use software to do it, there are no risks of screwing up)

[This-is-damion]

heres just a little example

Top one is the origanl scan from negative the other is a scan of the printed version.



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[warren]

Definitely calibrate your monitor if you're not seeing the difference on the page you linked.

If you want to really get into it, here's a link with a good rundown on a lot of the tools out there
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration_tools.htm

What kind of printer are you using?

[Susan B.]

Hey D--
Sent you an email.
It can be a variety of problems--not jut monitor calibration.
1. incorrect icc profile for paper selected
2. incorrect "color settings" in photoshop
3. incorrect media type selected in the printer box.

I use adobe gamma on my mac. But I always have a GRAY colored desktop screen. Specifically I use gray medium.
I also have a spyder, but it's unpredictable. So I've learned the correct settings via trial and error mostly.
And I update Adobe Gamma on every month or so, since settings can easily change.

Hope that helps and sorry you're having frustration with the 2400. It's a beautiful printer once you work out the kinks.

 

[Francois]

Susan's right. There can be a host of things going on.
Do you have a Plasma or CRT monitor?
Once they get turn on, their color shifts over a period of time. This includes when they enter power saver mode!
The other thing is ambient light. I once worked at a place where they had a special shade stuck to the screen to keep light out. Just the time of day will change how the colors look on the screen.
Also, the profiles change with the type of ink used and the type of paper.
Usually, the paper manufacturers will provide sets of profiles for each of them.
Susan's gray desktop (50% gray) is also a handy and simple trick to minimise the shifts.
I've also seen people print "test prints" with different settings for each image before settling on the final print.

[david b]

Colour management is the single biggest headache when it comes to digital printing - it can be pretty arcane to start with, and requires a fair bit of reading, playing with settings, and testing before you can get to that good WYSIWYG place.

I do recommend a Spyder or similar tool for calibrating monitors though.  It might just be my crappy eyes, but I've never been very confident about any sort of manual method - and the first time I used the Spyder everything looked slightly wrong, just because I'd been so used to looking at a screen that was improperly balanced. Now I just use the Spyder every couple of weeks and don't even think about it.