Photoshop CS and Adobe Gamma

The "poor man’s" calabration method is to adjust the monitor to match the printer’s output. That way all your work will look the way it will be printed. Viewsonic’s come with the contrast setting at about 95% which might prvide a bright looking picture but it does nothing for the real world use. Often a ‘Radeon’ graphics card in your PC will provide adjustments to the screen other brand cards cannot.

It’s Wilder on this side!
————————————

"Steven Wandy" wrote in message

I just got a new monitor (Viewsonic A90F+) and a new printer (Epson R800).

I

used Adobe Gamma to make a monitor profile. When I compare the output from the printer to what I see on the monitor the colors are pretty near

perfect

but the brightness/contrast is much "duller" on the print. Now I realize that the printed picture is not (atleast IMHO) going to look as vibrant as the same image file on the screen, but there is a considerable difference between the two.
Any suggestions (aside from purchasing a hardware calibration system – my better half would KILL ME after getting the printer and the monitor 🙂 )? Thanks

Steven Wandy wrote:

I just got a new monitor (Viewsonic A90F+) and a new printer (Epson R800). I used Adobe Gamma to make a monitor profile. When I compare the output from the printer to what I see on the monitor the colors are pretty near perfect but the brightness/contrast is much "duller" on the print. Now I realize that the printed picture is not (atleast IMHO) going to look as vibrant as the same image file on the screen, but there is a considerable difference between the two.
Any suggestions (aside from purchasing a hardware calibration system – my better half would KILL ME after getting the printer and the monitor 🙂 )?

The fact that you calibrated your monitor does NOT mean that the image on screen will be as close as possible to the output of the printer! That is a common misconception. If you want to see on your monitor what your print will look like, you have to do a ‘soft proof’ of that print. Select your printer profile in the Proof Setup and then make sure that "Proof Colors" is checked. Now your monitor should look like the print.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

If you want to see on your monitor what

your print will look like, you have to do a ‘soft proof’ of that print. Select your printer profile in the Proof Setup and then make sure that "Proof Colors" is checked. Now your monitor should look like the print.

I did that also, even selecting the paper profile for the particular printer. The colors look fine but the brightness/contrast on the screen are much "brighter" than on the actual print. That’s my problem.

Steven Wandy wrote:

If you want to see on your monitor what

your print will look like, you have to do a ‘soft proof’ of that print. Select your printer profile in the Proof Setup and then make sure that "Proof Colors" is checked. Now your monitor should look like the print.

I did that also, even selecting the paper profile for the particular printer. The colors look fine but the brightness/contrast on the screen are much "brighter" than on the actual print. That’s my problem.

What settings (both in Photoshop as well as in the printer dialog) did you use?

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

"Steven Wandy" wrote in message

If you want to see on your monitor what

your print will look like, you have to do a ‘soft proof’ of that print. Select your printer profile in the Proof Setup and then make sure that "Proof Colors" is checked. Now your monitor should look like the print.

I did that also, even selecting the paper profile for the particular printer. The colors look fine but the brightness/contrast on the screen

are

much "brighter" than on the actual print. That’s my problem.

Perhaps you need to make a profile for your printer.

It looks like you have a profile mismatch here.

Jim

Steven Wandy wrote:

I just got a new monitor (Viewsonic A90F+) and a new printer (Epson R800). I used Adobe Gamma to make a monitor profile. When I compare the output from the printer to what I see on the monitor the colors are pretty near perfect but the brightness/contrast is much "duller" on the print.

If you mean the overall contrast is duller, my guess is that your printer setup is wrong. Try setting your Photoshop working space to sRGB, and ditto for the epson settings – there is a checkbox in the advanced printer setup. If that improves things, I’d suggest you switch to PhotoEnhance, leaving all controls at their defaults. That should be a notch better. I’ve done hundreds of prints this way, including 13×19 prints.

At that point, it’s up to you to decide whether using one of the canned profiles is an improvement or not.

Now I realize that the printed picture is not (atleast
IMHO) going to look as vibrant as the same image file on the screen, but there is a considerable difference between the two.

Print a gray step wedge, and make sure all the shades of gray show up, and there is no color cast. They’re easy to make in Photoshop, but here’s one already done up:

http://curvemeister.com/downloads/TestStrip/digital_test_str ip.htm

Any suggestions (aside from purchasing a hardware calibration system – my better half would KILL ME after getting the printer and the monitor 🙂 )? Thanks

No need. Take her out to dinner – several nice dinners – instead 🙂 —

Mike Russell
www.geigy.2y.net