Color calibration for monitor and printer - anyone done it?
Scott Smith
consistent colors out of it (through Photoshop 7.0.1 or any other software).
Over the last two years, I've tried many combinations of settings, etc. Once
again, I'm getting greenish prints and B/W prints with a distinct
blue-green-ish hue. In addition, we've got two monitors, and my images look
significantly different on each.
I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to break down and buy a hardware
solution (like GretagMacbeth?) if it means I can just calibrate my monitor
and printer and quit screwing around with guesswork (by "calibrate", I mean
create color profiles for each - the factory profiles aren't good enough,
apparently).
Has anyone gone down this road before? I'd be interested to hear about your
experiences and any solutions or advice you can offer.
Thanks in advance.
Min Smith
http://www.minsmithphotography.com
Mark˛
"Scott Smith" <scottse...@NO-SPAM.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:NKrOe.5399$UE2....@tornado.socal.rr.com...
If you're getting muddy green colors, you are most likely double-color
managing.
If you color manage via photoshop, you should turn off ICM in the Epson
driver.
Scott Smith
news:UNrOe.8226$Us5.382@fed1read02...
>
> "Scott Smith" <scottse...@NO-SPAM.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:NKrOe.5399$UE2....@tornado.socal.rr.com...
>>I have an Epson 2200 color printer, and I've had a difficult time getting
>>consistent colors out of it (through Photoshop 7.0.1 or any other
>
> If you're getting muddy green colors, you are most likely double-color
> managing.
> If you color manage via photoshop, you should turn off ICM in the Epson
> driver.
Thanks Mike. Actually, I've been through all of that. The prints I get now
are generally acceptable, but certain color prints come out looking a little
off, and B/W prints have always had a slight blue-green color cast. I've
talked to the Epson people, read various chapters on color management, yadda
yadda. Sometimes things are better as a result, but never spot-on.
The annoying thing about all of this has been that, except for B/W prints, I
never could say for certain which one was wrong, the printer, the monitor or
both. I don't like trying to solve a problem like this when I can't nail
down any of the variables - I just spin and chew up time.
I'm hoping that using hardware to calibrate some of this stuff can remove
some of that uncertainty...
-Min
birdman
significantly less expensive than GretaMacbeth and will lead you to color
management Nirvana.
In addition to calibrating your monitor you must learn how to use color
mangement in Photoshop. If you're prints are pinkpinkpink you are double
color managing (pink is the classic color for double color management with
Photoshop and Epson printers, I have never heard of green for that problem).
It is not that hard and there are many walkthroughs about how to do it on
the web.
Fortunately for you Epson's printer/paper profiles provided with their
printer drivers for use with Epson papers are pretty good and you may never
see the need to try to create custom printer/paper profiles (the Monaco
Optix XR bundle includes the software for doing this using a flatbed scanner
intermediary but I am not sure the results are all that better than the
Epson profiles mated to an accurately calibrated monitor).
If you implement basic color management correctly you should immediately see
a more reliable relationship between what you see on your monitor and what
you see coming out of your printer. As always, however, tweak for best
results.
McKev
Paul Schilter
Couldn't you take a picture of say a red, blue, and green cardboard and
then see how well the monitor and then printer reproduce it. This could
give you a standard to color match. Would a camera shop carry such an
item for this purpose?
Paul
Mark˛
"Paul Schilter" <paulsc...@nospamcomcast.net> wrote in message
news:s-2dnQYP44s...@comcast.com...
> Scott,
> Couldn't you take a picture of say a red, blue, and green cardboard and
> then see how well the monitor and then printer reproduce it. This could
> give you a standard to color match. Would a camera shop carry such an item
> for this purpose?
> Paul
It's not that simple.
Color profiles change for different paper media, too, for example. This is
another reason why there is no single cure-all color profile solution.
Also, screen change over time and must be re-calibrated. Further...with
that method, you might manage fairly accurate greens, but not other
variations, where differing factors bring out problems that don't show up in
the green used. Everything can change when any single element (paper,
printer, screen, capture device, etc.) are changes. This is why the whole
color profiling issue has to be done properly.
Mike Warren
> Couldn't you take a picture of say a red, blue, and green cardboard
> and then see how well the monitor and then printer reproduce it. This
> could give you a standard to color match. Would a camera shop carry
> such an item for this purpose?
It is, unfortunately, *way* more complicated than that.
Nothing in the system works in a linear fashion.
-Mike
Frank ess
> Couldn't you take a picture of say a red, blue, and green cardboard
> and then see how well the monitor and then printer reproduce it.
> This could give you a standard to color match. Would a camera shop
> carry such an item for this purpose?
> Paul
>
Kodak Licensed Product q-13 CAT 152 7654 includes a color patch card
and a gray scale (small). They are about two by eight inches, and are
included in a few example pages I have seen posted on the Web. I can't
remember where at the moment.
--
Frank ess
Scott Smith
> Couldn't you take a picture of say a red, blue, and green cardboard and
> then see how well the monitor and then printer reproduce it. This could
> give you a standard to color match. Would a camera shop carry such an item
> for this purpose?
> Paul
Paul,
Thanks, but there would still be a bunch of variables to contend with, the
first of which would be the lighting I use to illuminate the subject...
-Min
Bruce Coryell
www.gretagmacbeth.com. I actually should get one of those myself.
Rob Novak
<scottse...@NO-SPAM.hotmail.com> wrote:
>Has anyone gone down this road before? I'd be interested to hear about your
>experiences and any solutions or advice you can offer.
For monitor calibration, I've been using the Pantone/ColorVision
Spyder2Pro package. I bought it bundled with their PrintFix patch
reader, which is acceptable for color but really horrible for
monochrome work. They appear to have discontinued their SpectroPro
product, which I find a little odd. Perhaps they're headed
downmarket?
Gretag is good stuff, but expensive. I don't know what your budget
is, or if it's the cost that's putting you off, but I've tried to stay
somewhat sane in my cost outlay. Sure, a spectrocolorimeter is
probably the best solution to the problem, but at $1000+ for just
printer profiling, it eats into the wallet pretty hard.
In any case, the Spyder2 package has worked well for the monitor, and
my printer profiling has been very good for both color and
black-n-white with Profile Prism combined with VueScan and my flatbed.
VueScan allows me to get clean target scans with no clipping, and
Profile Prism does a very good job with both overall color balance as
well as providing a greyscale calibration that produces good neutral
tones on a non-monochrome-dedicated inkjet.
Pantone ColorVision:
http://www.colorvision.com
Profile Prism:
http://www.ddisoftware.com/prism/
VueScan:
http://www.hamrick.com/index.html
All this is JMO, of course. If you're wanting to outfit a
professional studio, perhaps you should bite the bullet and drop the
grand-and-a-half for the premium setup. However, the above
combination has worked well for me and my wife as a semi-pro outfit.
--
Central Maryland Photographer's Guild - http://cmpg.org
Strange, Geometrical Hinges - http://rob.rnovak.net
David Chien
1) To get better B&W prints
a) B&W Piezeography system at www.inkjetmall.com
b) One of the latest Epson printers with true three black/gray inks.
Keep in mind that no matter how well you try to 'calibrate' a color
inkjet system, there will always be some subtle color cast in some
shades/areas of the system due to the way that color dots are being
dithered together to create the illusion of a B&W print.
The perfect fix? Any of the two above using true gray/black inks.
2) LCD panels that have sRGB mode and are well-built (eg. Samsung, Eizo,
Apple) and factory calibrated to match such closely + sRGB mode for
printer & paint program.
The above works very well for me.
------
Keep in mind that what you get out of a color calibration system
(for LCD monitors, not talking about the CRTs which would benefit more)
is not perceived color matching, but rather color accuracy and consistency.
I'm using these terms loosely, but let me explain.
1) The color space (CIE color space) of any device that is printed
(eg. printer, press, etc) will be different from that of an illuminated
device (eg. LCD, CRT, TV).
In all of these color spaces, the white point (which colors mixed
together = white), as well as range of colors (the brightest reds, etc)
will all differ.
What does this mean to you?
SIMPLE!
YOU WILL NEVER EVER get the monitor to match what you see on the
print, or vice versa! PHYSICALLY impossible due to the different color
spaces.
Not only that, if you change the color temperature of your light
bulb in the room used to view the print, you will see a 'visually
different image color-wise' than what you had seen in another light
source, and vs. the monitor!
However, you will get as close as physically possible, so a
substantial range of colors will seem to match.
If you have a CRT monitor next to a LCD monitor, you will have
the same problem = physically, they can never 100% match.
So what do these color mgmt devices do?
a) Adjust the system to produce the 'closest' possible color the
device can output when you ask it to output a certain color.
b) Keep it consistent from day-to-day.
c) Spend a lot of your money.
d) And still not give you what most want - visual color matching
of prints to screen at 100%.
To get close to d), you need 1) a print that is made to the same
color space and printed accurately (color-wise) 2) viewed under a
'standard' color temperature light source (eg. 5000k, 5500k, etc.) 3)
know and realize that monitor will never equal print, but can come close
in the relative representation of your image.
The one thing that people often forget is 2) above, the lighting
source color temperature, and you'll go nuts trying to 'calibrate' an
entire system, yet find that the print consistency varies throughout the
day (as the sun rises and sets, and color temp. of the sun varies).
Finally, it's been shown that peoples eyes vary in color response
throughout the day, so what you assume was a nice red one moment may be
a duller red later in the day. Color mgmt. and measurement devices
don't have this problem, and if you rely upon the 'numbers' of a color
spect. to tell you what the color actually is at any time, you will know
that it's the right color even though your eyes or lighting make it
impossible to believe.
-0--
So what does all of that mean?
If you want to color manage, etc., you can spend hundreds, if not
thousands to get the proper devices - color puck for the screen,
software, color spect. for the prints, etc. - just to be able to lock
things down.
and then you'll still realize that if you measure a print in the first
couple of minutes vs. first couple of hours vs. first couple of days
after it has come out of your inkjet printer, they will all differ
significantly as the water/alcohol/etc. carrier evaporates during the
first week!!!! (This is a well known problem of trying to color manage
an inkjet printer - wet inks will take up to a full week to dry, and the
color shift has been measured and is significant during this period.)
So, then, if you want to lock things down and really color
manage, you'll have to wait a week to measure the prints and really know
what the 'final' (what's given to the client and what he'll see when
everythings dry) colors are like. Round and round you'll go, spending
weeks before you can guarentee that your setup is locked to spec and as
perfect as can be. (until you change the inks.....)
-----
Much easier?
sRGB color.
Cameras output in sRGB color space. Printers can be set to print
in sRGB color space. Printer makers have already made ICC profiles of
the papers for this space. LCD monitors, the good ones, come with sRGB
color space mode, and closely match the sRGB color space (eg. see PC
User japanese computer magazine test results - eg. Eizo, Apple both
closely match the sRGB space out of the box; Apple esp. so).
Simply set everything to that, AND REALIZE that the Monitor will
never PHYSICALLY match the Print color space (close, but not 100%), and
you'll get consistent results w/o much work.
I should have done this right away, but spent time going through
the typical process - evaluating packages, checking out the LCD pucks
(eg. Spyder) and trying to calibrate everything, and winding up with a
very complicated setup that really didn't get me any closer (watch out
here! try to calibrate a monitor that's already sRGB close, and you may
find that all the calibration in the world only messes things up more,
not make things better).
Today, it's brain-dead easy - sRGB everything, make a few test
prints of the standard color test targets (eg. Photodisc test target) to
get a 'feel' of the color response of both devices (monitor vs.
printer), and off I go. Easy to tweak what's on the screen to get a
great print w/o much trouble then.
Mark˛
"David Chien" <chi...@uci.edu> wrote in message
news:defnaq$qve$1...@news.service.uci.edu...
> Been there, done that.
>
> 1) To get better B&W prints
> a) B&W Piezeography system at www.inkjetmall.com
> b) One of the latest Epson printers with true three black/gray inks.
<snip of a fantastic post...thanks, David>
You were talking about how eyes differ, and how we're easily fooled...
--I have often discovered that I cna work and work on color correcting
images so that it looks accurate...only to find that the next day, they look
off when I look at them again. :)
Our eyes do change and adjust depending even on what we've been staring at
for a while.
**Here's an interesting little experiment that's easy to try:**
1) Open a nice color photo in photoshop (especially with blues and greens).
2) Now completely desaturate it (simple B&W).
3) Once you do this, now hit control-z (or undo/redo toggle) to get it back
to color.
4) Stare at the image for about 30 seconds, being careful to keep you eye in
the same spot.
5) Now, while still staring, hit the redo (or control-z) again...making it
instantly turn back to grey scale/B&W.
**-If you pay close attention, you'll notice that immediately after
switching back to B&W, your eyes temporarily tell your brain that the grey
areas that were once green (for example)...are now their opposite color
(though faint)...even though you're really looking at a grey-scale image.
:)
Once you've tried this a few times, it becomes clear how our eyes adjust to
color after looking at it for a while, which can mean that we are slightly
misled after a while as to what we're actually looking at, and what
corrections REALLY need to be made. What are we looking at, vs. what we've
simply become temporarily unable to fully perceive.
I'm sure similar tricks can be found in optical illusion books, but the
implications of this trick are more easily revealed in a real-world-issue
context such as a Photoshop screen. It may mean we need to adjust our
habits a bit.
I'm now tending to make it part of my routine to momentarily (or longer)
leave an image unobsereved for a bit, before deciding if it's right. Upon
second inspection (after a break), you'll often find that your eyes were
tricking you, and you need to back up a few steps.
:)
Try the B&W trick described above.
It's fascinating, easy to do, and fun to let others try on your screen
-Mark.
Paul Schilter
Yeah I guess that was too simple, well the good thing is that I'm
learning how much I don't know, about what I don't know. Maybe that's
where the expression "Ignorance is bliss" came from. :-)It's painful to
learn how ignorant I am. ;-(
Paul
Paul Schilter
Well that is interesting. Is that sort of like when you see the green
flash around the sun (not always) when watching a sunset, or is the
flash due to retina damage? ;-)
Paul
Mark˛
> Mark²,
> Well that is interesting. Is that sort of like when you see the green
> flash around the sun (not always) when watching a sunset, or is the flash
> due to retina damage? ;-)
> Paul
Did you try it with an image yet?
james
"David Chien" <chi...@uci.edu> wrote in message news:defnaq$qve$1...@news.service.uci.edu...
> Been there, done that.
> Much easier?
>
> sRGB color.
>
> Cameras output in sRGB color space. Printers can be set to print in sRGB color space. Printer makers have already made
> ICC profiles of the papers for this space. LCD monitors, the good ones, come with sRGB color space mode, and closely match
> the sRGB color space (eg. see PC User japanese computer magazine test results - eg. Eizo, Apple both closely match the sRGB
> space out of the box; Apple esp. so).
>
> Simply set everything to that, AND REALIZE that the Monitor will never PHYSICALLY match the Print color space (close,
> but not 100%), and you'll get consistent results w/o much work.
>
> I should have done this right away, but spent time going through the typical process - evaluating packages, checking out
> the LCD pucks (eg. Spyder) and trying to calibrate everything, and winding up with a very complicated setup that really didn't
> get me any closer (watch out here! try to calibrate a monitor that's already sRGB close, and you may find that all the
> calibration in the world only messes things up more, not make things better).
>
> Today, it's brain-dead easy - sRGB everything, make a few test prints of the standard color test targets (eg. Photodisc
> test target) to get a 'feel' of the color response of both devices (monitor vs. printer), and off I go. Easy to tweak what's
> on the screen to get a great print w/o much trouble then.
David, just wanted to say thank you for the above info. I tried out your statement about setting everything to sRGB color space
and then made a print of an image I have had problems getting my LCD monitor and printer ( Epson C84..........yeah, I know it's
crappy) to even be in the same ballpark much less, near to each other in image color etc. Well, your method, worked so much
better! I made a couple of prints and both matched the monitor's colors so close, that I almost couldn't believe it. The same
image printed before looked great on the monitor and crappy(darker and muddier) on the print. Setting the LCD and the printer
to both using sRGB really helped. On the LCD, I set it to 6500K and the Contrast and Brightness to a setting that my old Dell
UltraScan P1110 used for sRGB settings and now the LCD looks good.
I think I am going to invest in some good lighting for my computer room too. That should help as the regular light bulbs add
some color cast to the images on screen that I don't see with the lights off and even with the window blinds open.
I also copied and saved your entire post, not just the portioned I left here to quote.
james
Brian
monitor - my problem isn't really that the color is off, just that
prints (especially from kodakgallery or mpix) are significantly darker
than they appear on my screen...thanks! I have a Samsung 710N analog
LCD.
Brian
Unspam
Mark˛
"Brian" <ripcu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1124830295.4...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Most LCDs are set WAY WAY too bright out of the box.
I think this is because they know people's eyes are drawn to bright displays
in stores.
It's good to have brightness to spare (for future dimming issues), but they
almost always have to be turned way down.
Paul Flackett
<jjam...@earthlink.net> writes
>At bottom:
>
>
>"David Chien" <chi...@uci.edu> wrote in message
>news:defnaq$qve$1...@news.service.uci.edu...
>>
>> Today, it's brain-dead easy - sRGB everything, make a few test
>>prints of the standard color test targets (eg. Photodisc
>> test target) to get a 'feel' of the color response of both devices
>>(monitor vs. printer), and off I go. Easy to tweak what's
>> on the screen to get a great print w/o much trouble then.
>
>
>
>David, just wanted to say thank you for the above info. I tried out
>your statement about setting everything to sRGB color space
>and then made a print of an image I have had problems getting my LCD
>monitor and printer ( Epson C84..........yeah, I know it's
>crappy) to even be in the same ballpark much less, near to each other
>in image color etc. Well, your method, worked so much
>better! I made a couple of prints and both matched the monitor's colors
>so close, that I almost couldn't believe it. The same
>image printed before looked great on the monitor and crappy(darker and
>muddier) on the print. Setting the LCD and the printer
>to both using sRGB really helped. On the LCD, I set it to 6500K and the
>Contrast and Brightness to a setting that my old Dell
>UltraScan P1110 used for sRGB settings and now the LCD looks good.
>I think I am going to invest in some good lighting for my computer room
>too. That should help as the regular light bulbs add
>some color cast to the images on screen that I don't see with the
>lights off and even with the window blinds open.
>I also copied and saved your entire post, not just the portioned I left
>here to quote.
Daft question, but how do you set your LCD to sRGB? I have one of the
latest digital Samsungs (193P) and can't see anything that obviously
mentions sRGB. I have had a go at colour calibration using the supplied
MagicTune software and that has certainly helped me to get the colour of
my digital photos to closely match their final appearance on the web (it
was way off before). Also I have one of the latest Epson printers
(R1800) - where do I tell that to use sRGB and will the print dialog
from Photoshop undo it unless I choose certain exact settings?
Thanks.
--
Paul Flackett
Father Kodak
wrote:
>Been there, done that.
>
>1) To get better B&W prints
> a) B&W Piezeography system at www.inkjetmall.com
> b) One of the latest Epson printers with true three black/gray inks.
Which models?
Are you implying that OEM inks are also required?
>
> Keep in mind that no matter how well you try to 'calibrate' a color
>inkjet system, there will always be some subtle color cast in some
>shades/areas of the system due to the way that color dots are being
>dithered together to create the illusion of a B&W print.
>
> The perfect fix? Any of the two above using true gray/black inks.
>
>2) LCD panels that have sRGB mode and are well-built (eg. Samsung, Eizo,
Just priced some Eizo flat panel monitors. All I can say is, "Gee, if
I am a really good boy and save up my allowance for several thousand
years, then maybe I could buy one of these.
Any suggestions for something a little closer to budget reality that
also works?
[snip ]
>
> If you want to color manage, etc., you can spend hundreds, if not
>thousands to get the proper devices - color puck for the screen,
>software, color spect. for the prints, etc. - just to be able to lock
>things down.
>
>
> and then you'll still realize that if you measure a print in the first
>couple of minutes vs. first couple of hours vs. first couple of days
>after it has come out of your inkjet printer, they will all differ
>significantly as the water/alcohol/etc. carrier evaporates during the
>first week!!!! (This is a well known problem of trying to color manage
>an inkjet printer - wet inks will take up to a full week to dry, and the
>color shift has been measured and is significant during this period.)
>
> So, then, if you want to lock things down and really color
>manage, you'll have to wait a week to measure the prints and really know
>what the 'final' (what's given to the client and what he'll see when
>everythings dry) colors are like. Round and round you'll go, spending
>weeks before you can guarentee that your setup is locked to spec and as
>perfect as can be. (until you change the inks.....)
So if you "lock down your colors" after say 1 day, how much change do
you expect between day 1 and day 7? I had the impression (yes/no?)
that you do the printer/ink/paper calibration once.
Of course, if you do want to change inks or papers, you would need to
repeat this. But how many of us change inks a lot? in the same
printer of course?
It seems that you are tossing the baby out with the bathwater here.
>
> -----
>
> Much easier?
>
> sRGB color.
>
> Cameras output in sRGB color space. Printers can be set to print
What about camera RAW?
>in sRGB color space. Printer makers have already made ICC profiles of
>the papers for this space. LCD monitors, the good ones, come with sRGB
>color space mode, and closely match the sRGB color space (eg. see PC
>User japanese computer magazine test results - eg. Eizo, Apple both
Do you have a URL here?
[snip]
thanks for posting a contrarian view. It makes me think about how
much I really need to spend even a few hundred bucks.
Padre Kodak
Paul Schilter
It appears that the colors drop out one after the other and the last
one to drop is a greenish color.
Paul
james
"Paul Flackett" <no_...@rainow.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:4sG5+8CM...@rainow.demon.co.uk...
>>
> Daft question, but how do you set your LCD to sRGB? I have one of the latest digital Samsungs (193P) and can't see anything
> that obviously mentions sRGB. I have had a go at colour calibration using the supplied MagicTune software and that has
> certainly helped me to get the colour of my digital photos to closely match their final appearance on the web (it was way off
> before). Also I have one of the latest Epson printers (R1800) - where do I tell that to use sRGB and will the print dialog
> from Photoshop undo it unless I choose certain exact settings?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Paul Flackett
>
Paul, I am not sure all LCD monitors support sRGB. I have two and one a Balance ( Wal-Mart Store brand) has Color Temp settings
that match pretty closely at 6500K. The Balance lists itself as a RGB monitor and not sRGB. But, at that setting and using the
settings from my Dell UltraScan P1110 (CRT) which does support sRGB) I can set a contrast of 76 and brightness to 56 (or a bit
less since the LCD is so bright). That sets that monitor to be extremely close to what my printer gets. I also use the sRGB
printer settings in the Start Menu and select Printers and Faxing. Then, select your printer and Right click on it and select
Color Management from the popup box. There you can select the Color Space you want. When you click on ADD, it will give a popup
that will have the sRGB colorspace selection in it. Then, in Photoshop
CS2, I check off using sRGB there too, under Color Settings. This works pretty good with the cheap monitor and printer. My
other LCD monitor(Viewsonic) does have a setting for sRGB that I have used and it seems to work pretty good too. I am currently
saving towards a new printer and cannot decide if I want the Epson R1800 or R2400 (well, I do want the R2400, but money might
change that idea too).
james
Unspam
Why bother getting a printer when you can get a lab to print 9x6 inch prints
for 30p on Fuji Crystapix photographic paper using an sRGB printer
(Frontier)
Mark˛
> Mark²,
> It appears that the colors drop out one after the other and the last one
> to drop is a greenish color.
> Paul
I've noticed that too.
I find the whole thing fascinating.
Our brain/eye combo is more variable than we tend to assume.
There's another little experiment that has blown away every single person
I've ever had try it:
--I have a little exe file that has only one purpose:
It sets in motion this strange spiraling shape on the computer
screen... -Not a simple spiral, but a compex one with black and white lines
that appear to move both inward and outward.
If you stare at the center of it for about 30 seconds, and then look away at
something else, your entire vision goes into this incredibly strange warping
perception for about 5-10 seconds! I've never used any kind of drug, but it
is what I imagine some drugs must be like (aside from their damaging
aspects). :)
WHat happens is that as your eyes/brain look at the moving pattern for a
bit, the brain tries to "normalize" the movement, and so attempts to
compensate for it. In doing so, it sets into motion some sort of mental
balance to counteract what it thinks is a wrong perception. So...when you
move your vision back into a normal scene, it takes a bit of time for you
brain to stop it's compensation...and during that time, it REALLY screws up
what you think you're looking at!! A bizzare view indeed!!
It's not like being dizzy. It is ONLY a visual motion, perception thing.
Items seem to undulate and pulse in a strange wave-like way that is
completely involuntary.
I wish I could send the file, but most e-mail programs block .exe files, and
I don't have my own web-site. It's only about 1 mb. If you're interested,
maybe I can figure out a way to send it to you.
Vision is a mysterious thing.
-Mark
Paul Schilter
That's why motorists don't see motorcycles, they're not mentally
looking for them. They're looking for another car or truck.
Paul
james
"Unspam" <uns...@mail.com> wrote in message news:BF32A4F8.1CBB8%uns...@mail.com...
>
> Why bother getting a printer when you can get a lab to print 9x6 inch prints
> for 30p on Fuji Crystapix photographic paper using an sRGB printer
> (Frontier)
>
Because most of those labs (if you are talking about the 1-Hour Photo varity) adjust your images for you and even if you tell
them not to, they do it anyway. I have had a lot of my photos ruined because of employees with no knowledge of how to use their
equipment.
Besides, I don't do all my printing at home. Only those that I really care about and want done a certain way.
Try getting a decent Black & White Print from Wal-Mart's 1-hour photo center. That is one of the reasons I want the Epson
R2400. But, everyone has different wants and needs and I like to control the proccess as much as I can. Letting a 1-Hour Photo
Center control printing, is not always worth it to me.
james
( oh, and Wal-Mart's Photo Centers all use the Fuji Frontier printer system. And I haven't been that impressed with the output
from them)
Mark˛
> Mark²,
> That's why motorists don't see motorcycles, they're not mentally looking
> for them. They're looking for another car or truck.
> Paul
I don't think that's so much a vision trick as it is simply an attentional
issue.
(no more comments below...following included for context)
:)
LarryC
out how to get images that looked great on-screen to print correctly in PS7.
I had many good reasons for upgrading to CS2, but one unexpected side effect
is the ease with which one selects color management options. My first print
after loading CS2 was green, leading me to think I hadn't made progress. but
in the Options section, I fiddled with four choices for Color Handling:
No Color Management
Let Printer Determine Colors
Let Photoshop Determine Colors
Separations (grayed out; I am too new at CS2 to know if I need this)
I selected Let Photoshop Determine, and the green cast is gone!
B&W prints are still purplish-gray, and will be as long as the standard
Epson inks are used, since the Epson driver "secretly" mixes colors in with
the black and light black.
There are third party ink makers that sell "small gamut" monochromatic inks
that are said to allow for true gray scale prints for the 2200. Lyson is
one.
"Scott Smith" <scottse...@NO-SPAM.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:NKrOe.5399$UE2....@tornado.socal.rr.com...
>I have an Epson 2200 color printer, and I've had a difficult time getting
>consistent colors out of it (through Photoshop 7.0.1 or any other
>software). Over the last two years, I've tried many combinations of
>settings, etc. Once again, I'm getting greenish prints and B/W prints with
>a distinct blue-green-ish hue. In addition, we've got two monitors, and my
>images look significantly different on each.
>
> I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to break down and buy a hardware
> solution (like GretagMacbeth?) if it means I can just calibrate my monitor
> and printer and quit screwing around with guesswork (by "calibrate", I
> mean create color profiles for each - the factory profiles aren't good
> enough, apparently).
>
> Has anyone gone down this road before? I'd be interested to hear about
> your experiences and any solutions or advice you can offer.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Min Smith
> http://www.minsmithphotography.com
>
David Chien
simply printing straight into their sRGB color space managed system:
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/faq-signup.jsp#e1
markah...@gmail.com
the premium profiles from Epson for my R2400 when prinintg on Epson
paper and when using third party papers I will use the profiles they
developed for their paper and my Epson R2400.
If you have spent the money on a 2200 than why not spend the 220.00 at
Adorma and order it and calibrate your monitors for consistent output.
I have read a few posts where people as about the reason to print at
all when they can upload to a service, but wouldn't you want to see a
soft proof what your print will look like?
My only advice when using services such as MPix or Shutterfly is to
make sure you edit your photos in the sRGB colorspace as this is the
color space their printers use.
John McWilliams
>
>>Mark²,
>>That's why motorists don't see motorcycles, they're not mentally looking
>>for them. They're looking for another car or truck.
> issue.
>
> (no more comments below...following included for context)
> :)
Too much of a good thing. How 'bout more snipping and less context? But
as a motorist and sometimes biker, I do see 'em. Sometimes only after I
hear 'em.
--
John McWilliams
Peter Pagé
> I never could say for certain which one was wrong, the printer, the
> monitor or both. I don't like trying to solve a problem like this when I
> can't nail down any of the variables - I just spin and chew up time.
That's the problem all right! That's why I finally decided to spend the
money and get my printer profiled professionally by DryCreek Photo. That
took one variable out of the equation and things got a LOT easier after
that. (Didn't solve everthing though - my monitor is four years old and
it's starting to go wonky - I can see that with the naked eyeball! ...
sigh...)
Peter
Olin K. McDaniel
David - I admire your fortitude for making the pitch you did here.
Especially since it seems to smack into the conventional wisdom, at
least as it's been preached to me for some time.
My requirements of prints matching my monitor have diminished over
time, so even though your approach seems far more practical than that
being preached - I've gone even further. After wasting countless
hours and sheets of photo paper, etc. attempting to make the printer
output match the monitor, I finally found a much simpler approach
that SUITS ME. I say - to hell with what the monitor shows.
All I attempt to do nowadays is make the print come as close as I can
to the colors of the original subject that was photographed, and
preferably with both under equivalent subdued daylight. (Preferably
in light shade.) Your observation that the daylight changes throughout
the daylight hours is a good one, one which I try to avoid by doing my
comparison at close to the same time of day. Of course the nitpickers
can argue this varies with the seasons of the year, but I'm not quite
that picky. My goal is simply - match the print to the subject
under somewhat controlled lighting condition, and forget all the crap
in between.
Oh, btw, I don't do B&W printing, only color.
Olin McDaniel
On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 10:46:40 -0700, David Chien <chi...@uci.edu>
wrote:
>Been there, done that.
>
(Much snipped)
>
> What does this mean to you?
>
> SIMPLE!
>
> YOU WILL NEVER EVER get the monitor to match what you see on the
>print, or vice versa! PHYSICALLY impossible due to the different color
>spaces.
Agreed!
> Not only that, if you change the color temperature of your light
>bulb in the room used to view the print, you will see a 'visually
>different image color-wise' than what you had seen in another light
>source, and vs. the monitor!
Agreed!
>
> The one thing that people often forget is 2) above, the lighting
>source color temperature, and you'll go nuts trying to 'calibrate' an
>entire system, yet find that the print consistency varies throughout the
>day (as the sun rises and sets, and color temp. of the sun varies).
>
> Finally, it's been shown that peoples eyes vary in color response
>throughout the day, so what you assume was a nice red one moment may be
>a duller red later in the day. Color mgmt. and measurement devices
>don't have this problem, and if you rely upon the 'numbers' of a color
>spect. to tell you what the color actually is at any time, you will know
>that it's the right color even though your eyes or lighting make it
>impossible to believe.
>
Agreed again!
>-0--
>
> So what does all of that mean?
>
> If you want to color manage, etc., you can spend hundreds, if not
>thousands to get the proper devices - color puck for the screen,
>software, color spect. for the prints, etc. - just to be able to lock
>things down.
>
>
> and then you'll still realize that if you measure a print in the first
>couple of minutes vs. first couple of hours vs. first couple of days
>after it has come out of your inkjet printer, they will all differ
>significantly as the water/alcohol/etc. carrier evaporates during the
>first week!!!! (This is a well known problem of trying to color manage
>an inkjet printer - wet inks will take up to a full week to dry, and the
>color shift has been measured and is significant during this period.)
>
> So, then, if you want to lock things down and really color
>manage, you'll have to wait a week to measure the prints and really know
>what the 'final' (what's given to the client and what he'll see when
>everythings dry) colors are like. Round and round you'll go, spending
>weeks before you can guarentee that your setup is locked to spec and as
>perfect as can be. (until you change the inks.....)
>
The above may indeed be correct for Epson printers and inks, but not
using such, I can't agree nor disagree.
> -----
>
> Much easier?
>
> sRGB color.
>
> Cameras output in sRGB color space. Printers can be set to print
>in sRGB color space. Printer makers have already made ICC profiles of
>the papers for this space. LCD monitors, the good ones, come with sRGB
>color space mode, and closely match the sRGB color space (eg. see PC
>User japanese computer magazine test results - eg. Eizo, Apple both
>closely match the sRGB space out of the box; Apple esp. so).
>
> Simply set everything to that, AND REALIZE that the Monitor will
>never PHYSICALLY match the Print color space (close, but not 100%), and
>you'll get consistent results w/o much work.
>
> I should have done this right away, but spent time going through
>the typical process - evaluating packages, checking out the LCD pucks
>(eg. Spyder) and trying to calibrate everything, and winding up with a
>very complicated setup that really didn't get me any closer (watch out
>here! try to calibrate a monitor that's already sRGB close, and you may
>find that all the calibration in the world only messes things up more,
>not make things better).
>
> Today, it's brain-dead easy - sRGB everything, make a few test
>prints of the standard color test targets (eg. Photodisc test target) to
>get a 'feel' of the color response of both devices (monitor vs.
>printer), and off I go. Easy to tweak what's on the screen to get a
>great print w/o much trouble then.
If my technique ever fails me OR I get picky enough, I might be
persuaded to try the above myself. Not sure it's worth it to meet my
criteria, however.
Olin
Oliver Costich
wrote:
My local Costco uses a Noritsu and Fuji paper, lustre or gloss. There
is a profile for this specific printer at Dry Creek Photo. All
enhancements are off by default which I can verify by the coses
printed on the back of the print. I get 11X14 or 12x18 for $3.