monitor to print

paulc

paulc

Is leaving, again.
Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,149
Name
Paul
Edit My Images
Yes
since coming here I have discovered that my monito calibration was way out, so I have visited a few calibration sites and used the guidelines pointed out to get calibrated, my problem is that my pictures look great on my monitor but printing them reveals a totally different image, I have tried so many different ways to adjust my monitor to look like the printed image but to no avail, my colour space is rgb 1998 for adobe and the printer...I am getting a bit hacked off after getting a shot to my liking and then finding that the printed image is off colour, has anyone got any ideas?..could it be my video card?, is it my monitor or my printer? which is an epson 890

my monitor is fairly new and a pretty good one too.

I am using a d70 nikon and a fuji s2 pro, the fuji displays and prints closer than the nikon.
I dont want to spend hundreds on a spyder or anything, but just want a decent printed image from the image displayed on the monitor.

any ideas?.. as Im getting a bit fed up with printing 5 or 6 images before getting what I want.
 
A few things to bear in mind.

The Adobe 1998 is a very hard colour space to recreate on a monitor only the very best can do it ie the Eizo is one example at around £2500.

If your monitor isn't calibrated your whole workflow, colour wise will be compromised. Find someone to borrow one from or buy them a few pints to calibrate yours. its worth it.

Are you using the correct printer profile for the paper and printer, if not get one or have one made. Follow the instructions for the profile.

Use OEM inks as the quality / exact colour match of third party inks cannot be guaranteed.

Do Not adjust your monitor to match the print output, as that messes all colour settings up.

Doing all these things will give you better results.

what paper are you using

hope this helps a little
 
Best just to use sRGB for everything. What I think is happening is more than likely your printer is on sRGB but your mointor and pictures are Adobe RGB. AdobeRGB as I am aware is used for CMYK and most if not all print labs and printers use sRGB and nearly all web browsers. So overall I would say go with sRGB. Otherwise you have to make sure evertyhing you use is Adobe RGB which can complicate things. If you use a sRGB calibrated monitor and then a RGB printer and take photos in sRGB then there will be a lot less colour difference in these. That is mu opinion.
 
Thanks for the replies, I have the printer profile using rgb 1998 and the nikon d70 colour space using 1998 too in camera.

I am using non oem cartridges which may be a hinderance, although, when I take a shot, I check the historgram and if it looks ok, I save it, and its great on my monitor, but the printed image is awful.

also, the d70 is set for rgb1998 across the board and this is the worst culprit, I will post up some images that look good on my monitor and perhaps some of you guys can tell me if the they are ok or way out?

cheers
 
Do a search for profiles on here mate and there will be plenty of reasing for you.
 
I dont want to spend hundreds on a spyder or anything
Click to expand...

Buying some calibration kit could well be far more economical than all your wasted time, paper and ink. After all, you've already spent far more than hundreds I suspect on your cameras, computers, printers, monitors etc. etc. and all of that will only ever perform up to the level of the weakest link in the chain.
 
cheers m8, I have downloaded plenty of profiles and have even tried using custom curves for my nikon, to no avail and the profiles that I have been using are the correct ones for my printer, paper etc...I have searched, but am just getting frustrated.

thanks this photoguy I will try rgb alone.
 
dazzajl said:
Buying some calibration kit could well be far more economical than all your wasted time, paper and ink. After all, you've already spent far more than hundreds I suspect on your cameras, computers, printers, monitors etc. etc. and all of that will only ever perform up to the level of the weakest link in the chain.
Click to expand...

I would suggest my next move would probably be to chuck all my nikon gear in and move over to Canon, I have 3 monitors and 2 printers in my house and have similar results on all of them, I know that my fuji underexposes, its common knowledge and I adjust accordingly, but my nikon has no excuse, I dont have this problem with my Canon g2 or g3..not slrs granted, but WYSIWYG even when printing.
 
Lots of good resource out there on colour space and great comments above.

I struggled with my printer until I got ny head round the whole thing.

As said Adobe RGB is (in practical terms) for specialist printing. It has a wider gamut than sRGB but this is only of any use if your market/printer demands this colour space. If you think your market will ask for Adobe RGB then really you should shoot in it and add the change of colour space for web/standard printing into your workflow.

When printing of your own printer all that is important is that you get a good/accurate representation of what you see on screen. Monitor calibration is one thing but often the "calibrate by eye" gamma tool from Adobe is sufficient for most working purposes. After that it really is the software driver in the printer.

If printing from Photoshop print as follows:

File | Print with Preview
Check settings on "Colour Management" tab:
Colour handling = Let Printer determine Colours
Rendering Intent = you can decide on this but start with relative Colormetric.
Press "Print" and when printer dialog comes up press "properties"
The "ICM" profile should be appiled by printer software with options you want (perceptual /saturated / whatever)

If printer software allows a print preview you can have a few goes at this and see the efforts it produces with different settings. saves a little paper once you have a few reference points.

Hope that adds to already good advice given.
 
Hmmmm, I can see how that would be really frustrating.

I don't know if your on the track though. I don't know for a fact as I don't use nikon but I always thought they were supposed to produce better colours out of the camera than the similar canons.
 
Here are two images that look ok on my monitor, taken on my s2, one with a 18-70 and one with a 50mm f1.4 stopped down to 5.6, i know that one has fringing, but the histograms is ok, the other has had the levels adjusted but looks good on my monitor...however they both print out very warm....do these look ok on anyone elses monitor?..please


 
Thanks himupnorth, I will try printing in adobe, I normally use paintshop pro, thanks for the advise, I'm going to give it a go..believe me, I have searched until I'm blue in the face and i truly believe that it is my printer, although, before coming to this forum, my monitor was way off as the first pictures that I posted here upon joining show.

thanks for the advice, I'm taking it all on board.
 
Two from my Nikon, converted straight from raw and although a little flat, they look ok on my monitor, however, they print out very dark in the shadows.
If i remember rightly, they were both taken with an 80-200f2.8 af ed

BTW, that picture aint me, its my m8, the mad birder and despite all appearances he is a really great lad, he just likes the birdies.

how do these look on anyone elses monitor..please?

 
They look a little flat but nothing major, just done a quick retouch, hope you dont mind.

aplm.jpg


Alanpg.jpg
 
Dont mind at all, although they look ok on my monitor, they still print out different to the way they look, I'm going to take a cd of images round to my brothers and try them on his pc and printer, hopefully it will point me in the right direction.
Thanks for the help.
 
If I remember rightly Adobe RGB is 16bit and not many printers can handle that so the printer tries to make adjustments accordingly. Might be worth printing in an sRGB profile instead and checking wether you have colour management enabled on the printer management. If so turn it off.
 
Oh the fun of it all :)

Colour management is all about translation. Your print speaks one lanaguage, your monitor another and the image a third. In order for the system to work you need to tell it what language each of the three is speaking and this is why using the right profile is so important.

Sadly, Paint Shop Pro colour management for printing is broken, you'll never get a good print out of it if your trying to use a colour managed workflow.

Photoshop works great but even better is QImage and is well worth the money.

If you've calibrated your monitor by eye using charts from a web site be aware that you'll only get the brightness correct, the colours could still be way out but it's better than nothing.

Once you've done that set your monitor profile to sRGB which is what you've calibrated it against. Normally this would be the wrong thing to do as sRGB is a working space not a device profile but as you've tweaked the device (monitor) to match the working space it does make sense.

Now set your working space to sRGB, in effect you're turning off colour management because you indicated that your image and monitor have the same colour space. Of course if you've got an image in aRGB then the colour management will do the translation between the two.

Finally, use the correct paper profile for your printer. You might need to download or install these before they are available. When you print you will need to select the correct profile for the paper you're using each time - in Photoshop use Print with Preview to access the setting. The printer profile is important because it tells the software how to translate the colours in the image so they look right on the printer - use the wrong profile and the colours will be wrong, a bit like using a English/German dictionary to translate some French!

Finally, expect your prints to appear darker than the on-screen version - this is the difference in brightness between brightly glowing pixels and the reflected light from the paper.
 
Thanks for the great advice, I can definately confirm that it is summit to do with my printer, as my images look and print ok on my brothers setup, so the tinkering goes on..this whole monitor/ printer thing started as a little task that I was enjoying, untill I couldn't get it right, then obsession set in, then anger, then tantrums and now I am just happy that my monitor is calibrated in some sort of a fashion, It may be my paper profile, but I am now hedging my bets on those dang cartridges that I bought at the computer fair.

thanks again to all inputters.
 
I use an Epson 950 which has always printed darker than the image on screen showed, so much so that I gave up on printing altogether and out sourced all the printing i needed doing.

I bought an eye-one monitor calibration kit at the focus on imaging show and now i'm pretty sure that my screen is as accurate as it'll ever be.
I then downloaded some printer profile charts from pureprofiles, they'll be in the post tomorrow and then we'll see how the printer goes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top