Printed copy doesn’t look like what’s on screen

"peter" wrote in message

I guess this is probably a common problem. I have a photo that looks beautiful on my screen and lousy on the printer. It is a high quality printer. I am actually making these photos for a brochure, but it won’t be printed using this printer. I’m not sure what to do. I guess I could alter the image, perhaps through trial and error, so it looks good on the printer and lousy on the screen. But I don’t know if that makes any sense since we are using an outside printing company to print the brochures. I realize I could go trial and error with the printing company’s printer, but I am wondering what else I can do. There are a lot of shots and there would probably be several back and forths for each shot. Is there a question I can ask the printing company, or a color profile I can get from them, so I don’t have to view each tweaked version of each shot that their printer prints?

Thanks,

Peter

Hi.

You probably could get an ICC Profile from your Printers.

But, if you are not currently running a Colour Managed workflow, (you never mentioned C.M.), it won’t be lot of use to you.

You do not seem to know if your Monitor is showing accurate Colours, so a profile for a Printing Service is not going to solve that Problem.

Even if you do manage to get your own Printer to match your Monitor. If your Monitor is inaccurate, then your Image will Look wrong and Print wrong in a correctly Calibrated system.

You really need to ensure your Monitor has been Calibrated, and is showing the Colours and Density correctly.

It seems to be rather too late to try and learn about Colour Management, at the start of a big task.

I would suggest you pass the work on to someone who has a fully calibrated system, while you start reading up on CM, or delay the Project until you have an effective Colour Managed workflow.

Have a look at the Ps Help Files, or go to www.digital-darkroom.com, and try to follow their "Basic Printing" workflow, (designed for Epson Printers, but can be adapted for any make).

Roy G

Have a look at the Ps Help Files, or go to www.digital-darkroom.com, and try
to follow their "Basic Printing" workflow, (designed for Epson Printers, but can be adapted for any make).

Roy G

I can’t seem to get the above website to work. Is it still active?

"tg" wrote in message

Have a look at the Ps Help Files, or go to www.digital-darkroom.com, and try
to follow their "Basic Printing" workflow, (designed for Epson Printers, but can be adapted for any make).

Roy G

I can’t seem to get the above website to work. Is it still active?

This is Ian Lyon’s page.
It’s been changed to www.computer-darkroom.com
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"tg" wrote in message

Have a look at the Ps Help Files, or go to www.digital-darkroom.com, and try
to follow their "Basic Printing" workflow, (designed for Epson Printers, but can be adapted for any make).

Roy G

I can’t seem to get the above website to work. Is it still active?

Sorry about that. Comes from not bothering to look it up, and just doing it from memory.

It is www.computer-darkroom.com

Roy G

That look like a very helpful website.

Thanks!

Peter

Oh ok, CJ, that’s good to know.

Thanks!

Peter

"Tesco News" wrote in message

You probably could get an ICC Profile from your Printers.
But, if you are not currently running a Colour Managed workflow, (you

never

mentioned C.M.), it won’t be lot of use to you.

You do not seem to know if your Monitor is showing accurate Colours, so a profile for a Printing Service is not going to solve that Problem.
Even if you do manage to get your own Printer to match your Monitor. If your Monitor is inaccurate, then your Image will Look wrong and Print

wrong

in a correctly Calibrated system.

You really need to ensure your Monitor has been Calibrated, and is showing the Colours and Density correctly.

It seems to be rather too late to try and learn about Colour Management,

at

the start of a big task.

I would suggest you pass the work on to someone who has a fully calibrated system, while you start reading up on CM, or delay the Project until you have an effective Colour Managed workflow.

Have a look at the Ps Help Files, or go to www.digital-darkroom.com, and

try

to follow their "Basic Printing" workflow, (designed for Epson Printers, but can be adapted for any make).

All good advice – one thing you might like to check first though is that the type of paper in your printer matches the type of paper that you’ve told the printer you’re using. Monitor calibration is important, but my experience suggests that if, for example, you tell your printer you’re using hi-gloss photo paper when you’re actually using plain photocopy paper then you’ll get a far bigger deviation from what you intended (more than likely a big soggy mess) – and vice-versa.

Try printing on photopaper with the correct settings first.

Another tip is to ensure you are printing on the right side of the paper – if you are using a matt paper both sides look similar but normally only one side is printable. Touch the paper lightly to your tongue – one side will feel sticky, the other not. The sticky side is the printable side.

Also – what CJ Southern says about the paper settings is correct, but the settings in the printer driver normally only apply to paper supplied by the printer manufacturer – e.g,. Epson papers for Epson printers. If you use another make of paper, to get the best results you need a profile for the paper. I have had some awful results on some papers – the paper makes quite a difference.

So before going any further I would suggest you ensure you are using paper from the printer manufacturer and use the right settings. If your printer uses pigment inks it may not print on gloss paper.

Ok, Tom, I didn’t realize paper was so important.

Thanks!

Peter

peter wrote:

I guess this is probably a common problem. I have a photo that looks beautiful on my screen and lousy on the printer. It is a high quality printer. I am actually making these photos for a brochure, but it won’t be printed using this printer. I’m not sure what to do. I guess I could alter the image, perhaps through trial and error, so it looks good on the printer and lousy on the screen. But I don’t know if that makes any sense since we are using an outside printing company to print the brochures. I realize I could go trial and error with the printing company’s printer, but I am wondering what else I can do. There are a lot of shots and there would probably be several back and forths for each shot. Is there a question I can ask the printing company, or a color profile I can get from them, so I don’t have to view each tweaked version of each shot that their printer prints?

Thanks,

Peter

Peter, I have the same problem but it seems to be due to changing my monitor to an LCD screen. I have both a PC and a MAC and have the same problem with both, even tho’ the Mac has been professionally calibrated. I waste so much expensive ink trying to get what I want.

An easy, cheap solution would be to go back to a clunky old-style monitor which gives a much more accurate rendering of what’s going come out of the printer. Daft isn’t it? progress is meant to forward not back!

wrote in message

Peter, I have the same problem but it seems to be due to changing my monitor to an LCD screen. I have both a PC and a MAC and have the same problem with both, even tho’ the Mac has been professionally calibrated. I waste so much expensive ink trying to get what I want.
An easy, cheap solution would be to go back to a clunky old-style monitor which gives a much more accurate rendering of what’s going come out of the printer. Daft isn’t it? progress is meant to forward not back!

Well LCD may be progress in terms of desk real estate and weight but it is definitely NOT an improvement in viewing. LCD have hideous colors, very cartoonish and can’t view from the side at all.
Real progress would give us a CRT display in a laptop! (I wish)

Wow, that never occurred to me. I’ll have to look into that.

Thanks!

Peter

KatWoman wrote:

wrote in message

Peter, I have the same problem but it seems to be due to changing my monitor to an LCD screen. I have both a PC and a MAC and have the same problem with both, even tho’ the Mac has been professionally calibrated. I waste so much expensive ink trying to get what I want.
An easy, cheap solution would be to go back to a clunky old-style monitor which gives a much more accurate rendering of what’s going come out of the printer. Daft isn’t it? progress is meant to forward not back!

Well LCD may be progress in terms of desk real estate and weight but it is definitely NOT an improvement in viewing. LCD have hideous colors, very cartoonish and can’t view from the side at all.
Real progress would give us a CRT display in a laptop! (I wish)

There are a few that give good color, can be viewed from angles, and can be calibrated. They cost a bundle, but you can get them. For example, Apple’s LCD larger monitors will do this. I’d certainly like those big wide-screen monitor on my Windows computer, but I can’t afford that.

Clyde