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Home: Video University Forums: Digital Photography for Videographers:
How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor?

szerangue
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Mar 17, 2007, 10:02 PM

Post #1 of 7 (571 views)
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How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor?	Can't Post

I have calibrated my monitor. I feel my colors are correct. But when I print to my printer (Epson R320 and Canon IP6700) the colors look different, the brightness and contrast are different also. I have tried different printer setting but nothing seems to change it.
Miracle Pictures
"If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!"

"Life Productions, coming out of the dark, into the light"
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Colvin ADTR
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Mar 18, 2007, 1:42 AM

Post #2 of 7 (560 views)
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Re: [szerangue] How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Couple of things to try:
Are you soft proofing in Photoshop to preview the prints?
Are you sending your printer a colour profile set for it?
Make sure your printer is set to leave colour alone, let photoshop do the only colour management.
Try a different colour setting - relative or perceptual and see if that improves things.
Sometimes it is easier to set photoshop to match the prints than the other way round. At least that way, you see what you get. Not so good if you send files out.
What are you using to calibrate your monitor?

szerangue
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Mar 18, 2007, 8:55 AM

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Re: [Colvin ADTR] How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks. I am using the Spyder Pro 2 to calibrate.
Miracle Pictures
"If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!"

"Life Productions, coming out of the dark, into the light"
4EVER GROUP AFFILIATE

Colvin ADTR
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Mar 19, 2007, 3:46 AM

Post #4 of 7 (527 views)
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Re: [szerangue] How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor? [In reply to]	Can't Post

You will have to register to read this article but it hints that the spyder could be part of the problem.

szerangue
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Mar 19, 2007, 7:16 AM

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Re: [Colvin ADTR] How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks.. well my monitor (LG) and my Spyder Pro2 do not make the list and yes they did have some rather bad things to say about Colorvision. But before I go out and spend another $250 on a new monitor, I would want to find out where my monitor falls in the color accuracy scale. How do I find that out?
Miracle Pictures
"If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!"

"Life Productions, coming out of the dark, into the light"
4EVER GROUP AFFILIATE

Colvin ADTR
Enthusiast

Mar 19, 2007, 12:28 PM

Post #6 of 7 (505 views)
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Re: [szerangue] How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor? [In reply to]	Can't Post

If it's less than 5 years old, it shouldn't be that bad. LG are normally solid in their products and most of their monitors get decent reviews. TBH, I haven't got round to using hardware calibration on my monitors yet. I have been using them long enough to know what to expect from them. The trick is to spend time setting them to suit you and then not fiddling with anything. Of course, Mr Knowitall has recently decided to use the ProPhoto colour space now Blush

. I used to use Adobe RGB and set my monitors up with WiziWYG XP software from Praxisoft. That gives me a quick way of setting them up to a profile. You should be able to get standard profiles for your monitors and printers from the manufacturers to start off with. Most online printers have their colour profile for you to download too. I think that Adobe has some help file tutorials to show you the best way to go about it.

Postal Boy
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Mar 19, 2007, 2:23 PM

Post #7 of 7 (497 views)
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Re: [Colvin ADTR] How to get my printer to print the way my photos look on my monitor? [In reply to]	Can't Post

A book was recently mentioned on the forums that is called "Skin" - sounds bad on a photography forum Tongue

but it is full of info on how to color correct without the use of setting your monitor up. I wouldn't recommend doing that for everything, but it goes through the process of doing a manual white balance that is extremely accurate. Then you can compare that white balance with what you actually see and see if it is "off".

By the way, I have had the book for about 3 days and it has a ton of good information about all sorts of image adjustments. I just don't have the time to go throug it all because it has so much. I will keep plugging away at it, though. It also has samples on how to pull image info out of shots that are washed out with one color or another that I hadn't thougth about before.

-Postal