Color management/printing stuff...

...I'm really trying to get a handle on color and printing. I like what I see on my monitor and I've done what I call a 'poor man's' calibration check. That is, I went around to many sites of top photographers and compared color. I figure if their shots look great on my monitor, then I should be in the ballpark, right?

The thing is, no matter what I do, I get a slightly greenish and or cyan cast when I print. Granted, I don't have the right printer for this yet (Deskjet 890C), but I'm trying to figure out if it is the printer, calibration or a color management issue.

I have PSE2 set for no color management. I've tried full and partial and while there is a difference, I still have that printing issue. What color management settings do you guys use and is there anyone that's getting a decent print with that printer?

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Andy
FCAS Member #120
http://imageevent.com/ajrphotos

Mail me the file that prints with a cast if you like. I'll tell you if it would print OK here. See any banding (faint lines) in reds and blues?

Andrew

I just started a two-part series in my blog about color management. part one looks at the idea of it, and part two looks at what I use and WHY. Settings are offered as options for users, and usually if there is a problem it is simple in that you are doing something that will not make perfect sense logically--once you know what it really is doing--often not your fault (if you consider Adobe choices, there are some that just sound better than others).

have a look at the blog: http://hiddenelements.com/blog

Part 2 will be out next week.

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Richard Lynch
author of seven Photoshop and Photoshop Elements books
galleries:
http://aps8.com/gallery1.html
http://aps8.com/gallery2.html

calibarting your monitor and calibratiing your printer... Your monitor can be cal'ed perfectly but if you printer is using the wrong profile you prints will still suck...

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Andy
FCAS Member #120
http://imageevent.com/ajrphotos

That's terrific! Thanks for the heads up. I will certainly take a look at that.

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Andy
FCAS Member #120
http://imageevent.com/ajrphotos

That's the thing with this printer. I have no idea how to do the whole printer profile thing. Of course mon calibration is not a problem. I just don't have much experience with printing.

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Andy
FCAS Member #120
http://imageevent.com/ajrphotos

many printers, especially home printers, convert from RGB. While this may be an issue in some cases, getting too hyped about the printer profile can cause more harm than good.

--
Richard Lynch
author of seven Photoshop and Photoshop Elements books
galleries:
http://aps8.com/gallery1.html
http://aps8.com/gallery2.html

hiddenelementscom said:

I just started a two-part series in my blog about color management.
part one looks at the idea of it, and part two looks at what I use
and WHY. Settings are offered as options for users, and usually if
there is a problem it is simple in that you are doing something
that will not make perfect sense logically--once you know what it
really is doing--often not your fault (if you consider Adobe
choices, there are some that just sound better than others).

have a look at the blog: http://hiddenelements.com/blog

Part 2 will be out next week.

--
Richard Lynch
author of seven Photoshop and Photoshop Elements books
galleries:
http://aps8.com/gallery1.html
http://aps8.com/gallery2.html

Click to expand...

Interesting commentary, but I have found the problem compunds when “labs” are involved in the print process. One can make all the right settings in PS, but once the photo lab has control of your work, all bets are off. I have addressed this very issue which can be read at the following link:

http://www.shanghaiphotogallery.com/index_files/Page2009.htm

AJohn said:

That's the thing with this printer. I have no idea how to do the
whole printer profile thing. Of course mon calibration is not a
problem. I just don't have much experience with printing.

Click to expand...

AJohn Andy

Your right you don't have much experience with color management, with calibration and with Photo printing. You also do not have a calibrator and a photo quality printer. I don't have a hardware calibrator but I do have a couple of photo quality printers.

First I don't have much faith in what you "call a 'poor man's' calibration check" I can give you a link for a good check page that also has lots of information on color management. Also if you have an LCD a good starting point is to start by downloading the manufactures color profile for your model LCD and then use Adobe Gama use its load option to load the manufacturer's color profile as a starting point and maybe make a minor tweak using the single or multiple adjustment sliders and save new color profile for your environment. The link http://normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

Now your printer 10 years old not photo quality is hopeless. I don't think you will be able to find any color profile you can download for it. It would not be worth buying a hardware calibrator to try to create a color profile for it. Buy a Photo Printer some of the older printers like the Epson 1280 are quite cheap now. It can print on paper up to 13" wide and supports roll paper. Epson has Down loadable Color Profile for there Photo Printer for their Inks and Paper. Other Paper manufactures also provide profiles for their paper used in Epson printers. I have a Epson 1280 and one of their professional printers a 4800 the is calibrated at the factory and burned into the printers firmware.

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JJMack

JJ:

You mention the Epson 1280 profiles, I have the Epson 780 (same thing but smaller) and am not happy with my colors. When going to the site I see there are two options, the 2880 ICC Profile, and the 1440 ICC Profile, I can't seem to tell the difference, do you which to download and install?

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=14393&prodoid=176021&infoType=Downloads&platform=All
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It is not always easy to find and download Color Profiles for some Epson Printers. The profiles do not reside in a single download. In fact some of the profiles are sometimes hard to find. Some Profiles get loaded when you install the Epson Drivers. Others may be loaded when you install things like P.I.M.. Others are downloaded as profiles you can also load and third party profiles are also available. The File Names are often cryptic. Inside the Profile there most ofter is some better description then the file name. If you have a windows system you can download Microsoft Color Applet and install it. Then you can start the Color Applet from the control panel. The Applet has three tabs two of the tabs show a great deal of information about color profiles installed on your system. The Profile Tab and the Device tab. Here are a couple of fudged up screen captures showing the 1280 profiles I have installed. The Color applet window itself can not be resized and one must scroll through the profiles. I fudged the captures to make the scroll window size the size I needed to show all the 1280 profiles. The scroll window has titles you can click on to sort the entries in the window. I first sorted on the description field the the profile type. The Profile type column is off to the right and not shown in the screen capture scroll window. I show the 1280 Profile in both the Profile tab and the device tab where I selected the 1280 printer which then shows only the current profiles that are currently associated with the 1280.



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JJMack

I'm using an "old" HP 970Cxi printer myself. I was unable to find any downloadable profiles on the internet.

You could either use a custom profile service or get yourself a hardware profile solution, e.g. PrintFix Pro. These will probably give you very accurate results.(e.g. http://www.profilecity.com/ or http://www.calibration-direct.com/prodprintfixpro.html?gclid=CKfr-97DjowCFRAkggodvnr-Bg . There are many more, just do some research).

If you have a good scanner, you might want to consider "Profile Prism"

http://www.ddisoftware.com/prism

It comes with an IT8 target and allows you to generate custom profiles for any of your ink/paper combinations. It's probably not as exact as a spectrocolorimeter solution but it is not as expensive on the other hand either. I'm very happy with it on my HP 970Cxi.

Frank

I'm using an "old" HP 970Cxi printer myself. I was unable to find any downloadable profiles on the internet.

You could either use a custom profile service or get yourself a hardware profile solution, e.g. PrintFix Pro. These will probably give you very accurate results.(e.g. http://www.profilecity.com/ or http://www.calibration-direct.com/ ... ...tml?gclid=CKfr-97DjowCFRAkggodvnr-Bg . There are many more, just do some research).

If you have a good scanner, you might want to consider "Profile Prism"

http://www.ddisoftware.com/prism

It comes with an IT8 target and allows you to generate custom profiles for any of your ink/paper combinations. It's probably not as exact as a spectrocolorimeter solution but it is not as expensive on the other hand either. I'm very happy with it on my HP 970Cxi.

Frank

Replied to the wrong post, so please have a look here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=23226035

Thanks for the links. I'll certainly check them out. I probably won't go too far with this printer since I will upgrade before long. I just really wanted to find out if it was the printer/ink/paper or my system and monitor calibration. I think it's pretty much been proven that it's the printer setup at this point. I'll still see what's out there at your links. Thanks again.

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Andy
FCAS Member #120
http://imageevent.com/ajrphotos

JJ or others:

I have the Color settings device, here is what it says:



I performed an experiment to show how off my colors are, the top image is how it appears, The other 6 are scans of that same image I've printed out, the red lettering refers to the printer settings I've set in the printer dialog box. I got what appears to be the closest results with the last one by setting the paper wrong, setting matte paper but printing on gloss paper. When I took a Photoshop class from a photographer who uses the 1280 he said it's all trial and error manually adjusting colors in the advanced printer dialog until you get it right, that can't be right.

Can you tell from the profiles on the Epson site if I should download one of them instead of what I'm showing?



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