How do you calibrate Photoshop with your Printer???

In his posting of Sat, 19 Nov 2005, Tom writes

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop. Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

You need to get a profile made for the paper/ink/settings combination you use. If your screen is correctly calibrated and profiled you should get an excellent match provided you are working with the available gamut of both devices.

Cheers

Richard
—
Richard K

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 19:22:17 -0000, "Tom"
found these unused words floating about:

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop. Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Being an ‘occasional’ user, I didn’t want to spend the $$$$ for a ‘proper’ setup chip set and program.

That said, I DL’d a multi-colour chipset and used the color picker to tweak the screen to match the ‘proper’ shadings. Then I printed and compared the screen and print. Treid several of the presets until I got ‘almost there’. Tweaked the output curves and I’m a happy ‘amateur’.

said

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop. Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Being an ‘occasional’ user, I didn’t want to spend the $$$$ for a ‘proper’ setup chip set and program.

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

That said, I DL’d a multi-colour chipset and used the color picker to tweak
the screen to match the ‘proper’ shadings. Then I printed and compared the screen and print. Treid several of the presets until I got ‘almost there’. Tweaked the output curves and I’m a happy ‘amateur’.

Kudos to JA for outlining a good procedure to that does not cost a significant amount of money.

I would add that it is important to calibrate your monitor carefully with Adobe Gamma, and avoid the higher color temp settings – try to use 5000K and avoid 6500K as it is too blue.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

The most basic step is to make sure your monitor displays the genuine color of an image before color adjustment or tweaking. If you don’t like to spend $$$, there is a free way to calibrate your monitor by using adobe gamma (visual way). For printing, use the "print with preview…"check "show more option" and in the window choose "color management". In source space, check "document" and in print space choose "printer color management". Then proceed to print…, choose properties and in your printer program select whatever printing quality you prefer and type of paper you are using (use original ink and paper as you are using the canned profile) and you will be happy with color matches closely to your free (by adobe gamma) calibrated monitor.

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~kcpps

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 19:22:17 -0000, "Tom"
found these unused words floating about:

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop. Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Being an ‘occasional’ user, I didn’t want to spend the $$$$ for a ‘proper’ setup chip set and program.

That said, I DL’d a multi-colour chipset and used the color picker to tweak
the screen to match the ‘proper’ shadings. Then I printed and compared the screen and print. Treid several of the presets until I got ‘almost there’. Tweaked the output curves and I’m a happy ‘amateur’.

In his posting of Sun, 20 Nov 2005, kctan writes

The most basic step is to make sure your monitor displays the genuine color of an image before color adjustment or tweaking. If you don’t like to spend $$$, there is a free way to calibrate your monitor by using adobe gamma (visual way). For printing, use the "print with preview…"check "show more option" and in the window choose "color management". In source space, check "document" and in print space choose "printer color management". Then proceed to print…, choose properties and in your printer program select whatever printing quality you prefer and type of paper you are using (use original ink and paper as you are using the canned profile) and you will be happy with color matches closely to your free (by adobe gamma) calibrated monitor.

Be aware that there is no way that Adobe gamma can come even close to achieving the degree of correction and repeatability that a good hardware and software solution can offer. If you are looking for cheap then OK it’s better than nothing but not much better. If you are really concerned about quality of earn your living as a designer of photographer than you owe it to yourself and your clients to get this part of your workflow right.

Cheers

Richard
—
Richard K

"Mike Russell" wrote in message

said

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop.
Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Being an ‘occasional’ user, I didn’t want to spend the $$$$ for a ‘proper’
setup chip set and program.

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

That said, I DL’d a multi-colour chipset and used the color picker to tweak
the screen to match the ‘proper’ shadings. Then I printed and compared the
screen and print. Treid several of the presets until I got ‘almost there’.
Tweaked the output curves and I’m a happy ‘amateur’.

Kudos to JA for outlining a good procedure to that does not cost a significant amount of money.

I would add that it is important to calibrate your monitor carefully with Adobe Gamma, and avoid the higher color temp settings – try to use 5000K and avoid 6500K as it is too blue.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

I too was reluctant to spend the money for a real "color checker" but when I was in a stationary and graphics supply store (Pearl Paint) a while ago, I stumbled across a Kodak Color Chart — IIRC around 10-12 2" squares of (reasonably) pure colors originally intended for checking film reproduction. For just a few bucks I got a really fine standard target that I could start at my scanner and follow through the monitor to the printer. I’m sure that many full-service camera stores will have something like this on a dusty shelf too.

Norm

"Richard" wrote in message

In his posting of Sun, 20 Nov 2005, kctan writes

The most basic step is to make sure your monitor displays the genuine color
of an image before color adjustment or tweaking. If you don’t like to spend
$$$, there is a free way to calibrate your monitor by using adobe gamma (visual way). For printing, use the "print with preview…"check "show more
option" and in the window choose "color management". In source space, check
"document" and in print space choose "printer color management". Then proceed to print…, choose properties and in your printer program select whatever printing quality you prefer and type of paper you are using (use original ink and paper as you are using the canned profile) and you will be
happy with color matches closely to your free (by adobe gamma) calibrated monitor.

Be aware that there is no way that Adobe gamma can come even close to achieving the degree of correction and repeatability that a good hardware and software solution can offer. If you are looking for cheap then OK it’s better than nothing but not much better. If you are really concerned about quality of earn your living as a designer of photographer than you owe it to yourself and your clients to get this part of your workflow right.

Having grown up in the slide&print-film era, I’ve become very accustom to seeing very large differences in color reproduction for different brands (and within brands styles) of film. Just knowing that Kodachrome and Kodak Gold are going to give me quite different renditions of a scene has made me more tolerant of what I’d like to term sloppy calibration of monitors and printers. In fact, way back when B&W film was what most serious photographers shot, Kodak (and others) published charts of the spectral response of each type of film and it became apparent that there was no such thing as "true color" rendition.

Of course, that said, I’d still like to be able to manipulate the appearance of a picture on my computer based on what the monitor is showing me and know that it will look pretty much the same way on the print. But that’s a more limited calibration of only part of the chain. I’m very much less concerned about the stuff that gets me there since I regularly shoot two different digital cameras and three or four different kinds of film to be scanned.

Norm

Norm

I would add that it is important to calibrate your monitor carefully with Adobe Gamma, and avoid the higher color temp settings – try to use 5000K and avoid 6500K as it is too blue.

Not true as white point is simulating the paper white of a printing paper. Therefore it depends on the paper white and viewing light color temperature. The print industry (offset print) practice 5000degreeK (sunlight) but due to our eyes’ response to light and we seldom view print under sunlight, 5000degreeK is too yellow. 6500degreeK is about right.

Well anything that is free usually is not perfect. Adobe Gamma is for this group of people and it is based on human visual for calibration. If you are good in judging, it may be quite OK. But if don’t understanding anything about color management, even the best colorimeter given to you won’t make thing better but worst.

"Richard" wrote in message

In his posting of Sun, 20 Nov 2005, kctan writes

The most basic step is to make sure your monitor displays the genuine color
of an image before color adjustment or tweaking. If you don’t like to spend
$$$, there is a free way to calibrate your monitor by using adobe gamma (visual way). For printing, use the "print with preview…"check "show more
option" and in the window choose "color management". In source space, check
"document" and in print space choose "printer color management". Then proceed to print…, choose properties and in your printer program select whatever printing quality you prefer and type of paper you are using (use original ink and paper as you are using the canned profile) and you will be
happy with color matches closely to your free (by adobe gamma) calibrated monitor.

Be aware that there is no way that Adobe gamma can come even close to achieving the degree of correction and repeatability that a good hardware and software solution can offer. If you are looking for cheap then OK it’s better than nothing but not much better. If you are really concerned about quality of earn your living as a designer of photographer than you owe it to yourself and your clients to get this part of your workflow right.

Cheers

Richard
—
Richard K

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 00:12:06 +0800, "kctan"
wrote:

Well anything that is free usually is not perfect. Adobe Gamma is for this group of people and it is based on human visual for calibration. If you are good in judging, it may be quite OK. But if don’t understanding anything about color management, even the best colorimeter given to you won’t make thing better but worst.

Try as I might, I cannot calibrate my monitor to accurately reproduce some colors in print to what they appear to be on screen. For example, the color "RGB Green" (0-255-0) is a very bright green on the screen, but prints as "Dark Green" (0-114-54) on paper. Yet, my photographic images print very true to the screen image.

—

Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

Having set up with AG, my ‘new’ (then) colour laser wasn’t printing even close to the screen using the suggested ‘match’! That’s why I worked out the ‘other’ additional steps.

YES, set the monitor first – thought that was a ‘given’! <G>

On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:21:15 +0800, "kctan" found these unused words floating about:

The most basic step is to make sure your monitor displays the genuine color of an image before color adjustment or tweaking. If you don’t like to spend $$$, there is a free way to calibrate your monitor by using adobe gamma (visual way). For printing, use the "print with preview…"check "show more option" and in the window choose "color management". In source space, check "document" and in print space choose "printer color management". Then proceed to print…, choose properties and in your printer program select whatever printing quality you prefer and type of paper you are using (use original ink and paper as you are using the canned profile) and you will be happy with color matches closely to your free (by adobe gamma) calibrated monitor.

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~kcpps

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 19:22:17 -0000, "Tom"
found these unused words floating about:

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop. Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Being an ‘occasional’ user, I didn’t want to spend the $$$$ for a ‘proper’ setup chip set and program.

That said, I DL’d a multi-colour chipset and used the color picker to tweak
the screen to match the ‘proper’ shadings. Then I printed and compared the screen and print. Treid several of the presets until I got ‘almost there’. Tweaked the output curves and I’m a happy ‘amateur’.

"Norm Dresner" wrote in message

"Richard" wrote in message
Having grown up in the slide&print-film era, I’ve become very accustom to seeing very large differences in color reproduction for different brands (and within brands styles) of film. Just knowing that Kodachrome and Kodak Gold are going to give me quite different renditions of a scene has made me more tolerant of what I’d like to term sloppy calibration of monitors and printers. In fact, way back when B&W film was what most serious photographers shot, Kodak (and others) published charts of the spectral response of each type of film and it became apparent that there was no such thing as "true color" rendition.

Of course, that said, I’d still like to be able to manipulate the appearance of a picture on my computer based on what the monitor is showing me and know that it will look pretty much the same way on the print. But that’s a more limited calibration of only part of the chain. I’m very much less concerned about the stuff that gets me there since I regularly shoot two different digital cameras and three or four different kinds of film to be scanned.

Norm

Film era is different from digital. The color information in the slide and negative will never change as it was formed permanently. Your print or post production task will be handled by the professional lab who is serious about calibration. In digital file, you do your post production task and that depends on a monitor to see and judge the color, not the true but a pleasant one. If your monitor is not displaying properly in brightness, contrast, and color, I wonder how you manipulate your image to your liking. If your printer don’t print to match your monitor, then it defeats the purpose of your manipulation. The worst is that you will ruin the information of you digital file dues to wrong monitor color and tonal display. It analogous to adding color to your slide blindly. Try to view your slide(5500degreeK type) under different lighting. Tungsten light shows warm color, daylight should be normal and against a blue sky will shows cool color. Monitor is like a lightbox with appropriate viewing light having the right brightness and color while contrast is from the slide. How do you know your scanned image is right when you care less of the device that shows the output? So you still don’t concern?

In his posting of Mon, 21 Nov 2005, kctan writes

"Norm Dresner" wrote in message

"Richard" wrote in message
Having grown up in the slide&print-film era, I’ve become very accustom to seeing very large differences in color reproduction for different brands (and within brands styles) of film. Just knowing that Kodachrome and Kodak Gold are going to give me quite different renditions of a scene has made me more tolerant of what I’d like to term sloppy calibration of monitors and printers. In fact, way back when B&W film was what most serious photographers shot, Kodak (and others) published charts of the spectral response of each type of film and it became apparent that there was no such thing as "true color" rendition.

Of course, that said, I’d still like to be able to manipulate the appearance of a picture on my computer based on what the monitor is showing me and know that it will look pretty much the same way on the print. But that’s a more limited calibration of only part of the chain. I’m very much less concerned about the stuff that gets me there since I regularly shoot two different digital cameras and three or four different kinds of film to be scanned.

Norm

Film era is different from digital. The color information in the slide and negative will never change as it was formed permanently.

Sorry but I have to strongly disagree with your there! Nothing in that department stays without changing, more so if the film was poorly processed, the storage conditions poor, or the enclosures not of an archival quality.

Your print or post
production task will be handled by the professional lab who is serious about calibration.

Oh I wish they were, but many, many pro as opposed to high street shops are still not up to speed.

In digital file, you do your post production task and that depends on a monitor to see and judge the color, not the true but a pleasant one.

Well it rather depends on the type, quality and age of the monitor, the way it is set up, the surroundings etc., etc. and your degree of a lack of colour blindness.

If your monitor is not displaying properly in brightness, contrast, and color, I wonder how you manipulate your image to your liking.

Indeed.

If your
printer don’t print to match your monitor, then it defeats the purpose of your manipulation. The worst is that you will ruin the information of you digital file dues to wrong monitor color and tonal display. It analogous to adding color to your slide blindly. Try to view your slide(5500degreeK type) under different lighting. Tungsten light shows warm color, daylight should be normal and against a blue sky will shows cool color. Monitor is like a lightbox with appropriate viewing light having the right brightness and color while contrast is from the slide. How do you know your scanned image is right when you care less of the device that shows the output? So you still don’t concern?

Spot on! There is much ignorance in this whole area of getting colour correct but it really is quite straight forward these days….seven or eight years ago it was not so easy but still achievable with a bit of effort.

Cheers

Richard
—
Richard K

RGB 0-255-0 green color is too saturated and it is an out of gamut color for printing. Use the eyedropper to drop this color and check on the color palette, you will see a triangle icon enclosed an exclamation mark indicating that this color cannot be reproduced by printing. It is normal. Photographic print color usually works within the printing color gamut. Try to drop any color in your photographic image to look for any out of gamut color.If there is, usually just a small area due to over adjustment and could be masked by other majority colors.

"Tony Cooper" wrote in message

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 00:12:06 +0800, "kctan"
wrote:

Well anything that is free usually is not perfect. Adobe Gamma is for this group of people and it is based on human visual for calibration. If you are
good in judging, it may be quite OK. But if don’t understanding anything about color management, even the best colorimeter given to you won’t make thing better but worst.

Try as I might, I cannot calibrate my monitor to accurately reproduce some colors in print to what they appear to be on screen. For example, the color "RGB Green" (0-255-0) is a very bright green on the screen, but prints as "Dark Green" (0-114-54) on paper. Yet, my photographic images print very true to the screen image.

—

Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

Even your monitor is well calibrated, it is only for viewing the genuine color of your image file and it can’t make good color print. It is analogous to a well calibrated lightbox for viewing slide. You still need printing skill. Laser printer is not very appropriate for photographic image and if you are referring to solid colors, then watch out for out of gamut color for printing. Drop the color in PS and look for the triangle icon enclosed an exclamation mark on the color palette indicating this.

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

Having set up with AG, my ‘new’ (then) colour laser wasn’t printing even close to the screen using the suggested ‘match’! That’s why I worked out the
‘other’ additional steps.

YES, set the monitor first – thought that was a ‘given’! <G>

On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:21:15 +0800, "kctan" found these unused words floating about:

The most basic step is to make sure your monitor displays the genuine color
of an image before color adjustment or tweaking. If you don’t like to spend
$$$, there is a free way to calibrate your monitor by using adobe gamma (visual way). For printing, use the "print with preview…"check "show more
option" and in the window choose "color management". In source space, check
"document" and in print space choose "printer color management". Then proceed to print…, choose properties and in your printer program select whatever printing quality you prefer and type of paper you are using (use original ink and paper as you are using the canned profile) and you will be
happy with color matches closely to your free (by adobe gamma) calibrated monitor.

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~kcpps

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 19:22:17 -0000, "Tom"
found these unused words floating about:

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop.
Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Being an ‘occasional’ user, I didn’t want to spend the $$$$ for a ‘proper’
setup chip set and program.

That said, I DL’d a multi-colour chipset and used the color picker to tweak
the screen to match the ‘proper’ shadings. Then I printed and compared the
screen and print. Treid several of the presets until I got ‘almost there’.
Tweaked the output curves and I’m a happy ‘amateur’.

"Tom" wrote in message

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop. Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Hi.

I have been reading this thread with interest.

The general opinions about Col. Management are true, but the assertion that Adobe Gamma, (for CRT), is not anywhere near accurate, is a bit of hyperbole. While a hardware calibrater will be more accurate, Adobe Gamma can be very effective if used carefully under the correct lighting conditions.

The resulting Print, using the correct profiles, will still be different from the On Screen view, because of Gamut differences and the effect of the applied Profiles.

It will be much more like the "Soft Proof" view, in "VIEW" > "Color Proofing" when that is set up correctly using the Paper Profiles.

Roy G

But you -have- to stary with something that represents what you have – the monitor, then make the print agree.

I strongly disagree about laser not being ‘suitable’, inkjunks are far worse IMHO! I -never- got the same print twice fro any inkjunk … very clean and repeatable with my Phaser.

You DO have to have a good one, though and that’s more $$$ than most will pay.

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 05:45:53 +0800, "kctan" found these unused words floating about:

Even your monitor is well calibrated, it is only for viewing the genuine color of your image file and it can’t make good color print. It is analogous to a well calibrated lightbox for viewing slide. You still need printing skill. Laser printer is not very appropriate for photographic image and if you are referring to solid colors, then watch out for out of gamut color for printing. Drop the color in PS and look for the triangle icon enclosed an exclamation mark on the color palette indicating this.

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

Having set up with AG, my ‘new’ (then) colour laser wasn’t printing even close to the screen using the suggested ‘match’! That’s why I worked out the
‘other’ additional steps.

YES, set the monitor first – thought that was a ‘given’! <G>

On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:21:15 +0800, "kctan" found these unused words floating about:

The most basic step is to make sure your monitor displays the genuine color
of an image before color adjustment or tweaking. If you don’t like to spend
$$$, there is a free way to calibrate your monitor by using adobe gamma (visual way). For printing, use the "print with preview…"check "show more
option" and in the window choose "color management". In source space, check
"document" and in print space choose "printer color management". Then proceed to print…, choose properties and in your printer program select whatever printing quality you prefer and type of paper you are using (use original ink and paper as you are using the canned profile) and you will be
happy with color matches closely to your free (by adobe gamma) calibrated monitor.

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~kcpps

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 19:22:17 -0000, "Tom"
found these unused words floating about:

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop.
Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Being an ‘occasional’ user, I didn’t want to spend the $$$$ for a ‘proper’
setup chip set and program.

That said, I DL’d a multi-colour chipset and used the color picker to tweak
the screen to match the ‘proper’ shadings. Then I printed and compared the
screen and print. Treid several of the presets until I got ‘almost there’.
Tweaked the output curves and I’m a happy ‘amateur’.

"Tesco News" wrote in message

"Tom" wrote in message

hi I am just wondering how to calibrate my printer for use with Photoshop.
Some of the results are quite different from what I see on the screen.

Hi.

I have been reading this thread with interest.

The general opinions about Col. Management are true, but the assertion that
Adobe Gamma, (for CRT), is not anywhere near accurate, is a bit of hyperbole. While a hardware calibrater will be more accurate, Adobe Gamma can be very effective if used carefully under the correct lighting conditions.

The resulting Print, using the correct profiles, will still be different from the On Screen view, because of Gamut differences and the effect of the
applied Profiles.

It will be much more like the "Soft Proof" view, in "VIEW" > "Color Proofing" when that is set up correctly using the Paper Profiles.
Roy G

I have never used the hardware monitor correction, I use the Adobe Gamma and it matches what my printer outputs. (with a little fiddling on install to get set up.) Prints are always a bit different than what you see on a monitor (different whites, and the difference between a "transparency" view and a print) My outputs to outside shops are very close to what I see on screen.
In preferences I choose my printer profile for the output. The Epson drivers are quite good if you want to let them decide the colors, I actually get a better match to what’s on screen than with PS.