Accurate colour printing - another question

[tonyw3026]

I have read the threads on matching the printer colour with the monitor and they mostly concentrate on monitor calibration. I have tried this many times using Adobe Gamma and Quickgamma and make the monitor look anyway I want. The problem is that the print colour just follows the monitor, always out of step colourwise. It seems to me that I need to alter the relationship between monitor and printer, regardless of how accurate the monitor is. How do I do that?

My HP 990CSE has a minor colour adjustment in the software that just alters red/blue balance. I always set Photoshop CS to print "same as source" I also saved a custom correction in Hue/Saturation that I apply just before printing. It makes the monitor look terrible but the print is now a reasonable match with the uncorrected monitor. What else can I do?

Thanks

[Motorsports Photo]

Despite everything written to the contrary, heres what I have found:

Dont mess with the color. You should make adjustments with levels or maybe contrast, etc.

Eveytime I tried, the output was miserable. Using the supplied printer profiles, the output color matched the original color. If the colors still dont match close enough, get a custom profile.

I found that my monitor calibration was still too subjective, but with a few changes in the way I looked at it, I do finally have a monitor that matches what the pics really are.

-Pete

[Jesper]

I have read the threads on matching the printer colour with the monitor and they mostly concentrate on monitor calibration. I have tried this many times using Adobe Gamma and Quickgamma and make the monitor look anyway I want. The problem is that the print colour just follows the monitor, always out of step colourwise. It seems to me that I need to alter the relationship between monitor and printer, regardless of how accurate the monitor is. How do I do that?

Calibrating and profiling your monitor with software-only tools like Adobe Gamma (I don't know Quickgamma but it's probably also a software-only tool?) is not very accurate. You're using your own eyes to estimate if the colours look right, but your eyes can easily fool you - the accuracy of your colour vision depends on a lot of things, such as the ambient lighting, what you've been looking at the last few minutes, etc.

To calibrate and profile your monitor accurately, you must really use a colorimeter device like a Colorvision Spyder or one of the other devices available.

My HP 990CSE has a minor colour adjustment in the software that just alters red/blue balance. I always set Photoshop CS to print "same as source" I also saved a custom correction in Hue/Saturation that I apply just before printing. It makes the monitor look terrible but the print is now a reasonable match with the uncorrected monitor. What else can I do?

If your monitor is calibrated and profiled accurately, and you have a good ICC profile for the printer / paper / ink combination you're using, and if you set up Photoshop correctly, the colours will most likely match very well.

But if you already have an alternate solution that works well for you, then maybe you shouldn't change your system. The result is what counts in the end...

[ejwebb]

You can always open a photo in CS, open Adobe Gamma and adjust the red/green/blue gamma while you compare the monitor to the print. This has worked reasonably well for me, although it's not perfect. It is much better than what I got before comparing to the print while tweaking.

Also, I use Printer Color Management rather than Same as Source - might be worth a try. I generally try not to fool with the color settings in the printer since it is so hard to tweak and examine the output. I used to try not to messl with the color in the images themselves but since I shoot a lot of available light photos most of them do have some color casts that need to be adjusted. I figure that it is my monitor that is the weak link until I get it properly calibrated - then I will focus on the printer profiles.

Good luck - with some patience you should be able to get acceptable results.

[tonyw3026]

Thanks for the responses, I haven't looked into ICC profiles, I guess that is the next step.

I am still confused about why everyone says monitor calibration is so important. My immediate concern is the monitor/printer match rather than absolute monitor accuracy. I can understand the need for monitor accuracy for consistant matches between different computers or the web, but for my personal system how does monitor calibration help me match the monitor with the printer?

[ejwebb]

That is the point I was trying to make. Changing the color settings for the monitor does not impact how the printer interprets the color and prints. They are making separate interpretations of the image data in order to represent the colors to you. That is why calibration of the monitor and profiling of the printer/ink/paper is necessary for true color management - to get consistency on how the image data is interpreted by the devices.

So, if the printer and monitor do not match you have to adjust one of them to get them more consistent. In the absence of actually calibrating the monitor with a colorimter, I just find it easier to tweak the monitor settings using Adobe Gamma to match the print since calibrating this way is not all that accurate to begin with. If you had a properly calibrated monitor I would recommend profiling the printer or making adjustments in the print driver.

As an example, take an image that you have that is well exposed in daylight where the camera probably got the white balance close to right. Open it in Elements with No Color Management selected, resize as necessary but do not edit the image and print with Printer Color Management selected. How does it look? Ignore any softness issues for now and focus on the color and contrast/brightness. Is it close to what you see on the screen? If not, can you open Adobe Gamma and get the monitor to more closely match the print?

Test out the impact by making color adjustments (even if none are needed) and print again. Are the adjustments reflected in the print similar to the monitor? Unfortunately, unless you properly calibrate the monitor and use printer profiles you will have to suffer through this process to get results that you can live with. The other option is to tweak the printer settings to match what you see on the monitor but if the monitor is not properly calibrated I tend to place more confidence in how the printer is interpreting the color information (assuming you are using Printer Color Management) and OEM inks and papers.

Not the easiest option but probably necessary if you want decent prints and don't want to fork over the cash for proper calibration and profiling.

Jus my $.02 - gets me decent results until I get color managed!! Others may have better recommendations.

[Jesper]

Thanks for the responses, I haven't looked into ICC profiles, I guess that is the next step.

I am still confused about why everyone says monitor calibration is so important. My immediate concern is the monitor/printer match rather than absolute monitor accuracy. I can understand the need for monitor accuracy for consistant matches between different computers or the web, but for my personal system how does monitor calibration help me match the monitor with the printer?

Accurately calibrating and profiling your monitor in itself does not help to match your monitor and your printer. However, if your monitor is set up accurately, and you also have an accurate ICC profile for the printer / paper / ink combination you're using, and you've set up Photoshop properly, the images on your monitor and printer should match very closely, without the need for trial-and-error tweaking of settings.

If you've found a way to match your monitor and printer without the whole colour management and ICC profiles hassle, then that's OK for you - as I wrote above, the end result is what really counts, so if you have a different way to get the end result you want, there's no problem to do it that way.

The disadvantage is, like you say yourself, that it will only work well on your particular monitor and printer. If someday you want to print your images on a different printer, or you want to use an online printing service, or you want to put your images on the web for other people to view (on other monitors), you'll have to correct your images again and tweak settings until it looks right on the other printer or monitor.

Note that your camera is also part of the system. Your camera probably records images in the standard sRGB colour space. Suppose you make a photo of a green subject. The camera records the RGB value of the green subject as (0, 255, 0). In the sRGB colour space, this colour looks like light, yellowish green. If your monitor is not calibrated and profiled accurately, you don't know if on your monitor (0, 255, 0) looks like the light, yellowish green that it is supposed to look like. Maybe on your monitor it looks darker or has a slightly different hue than it should. So you're not seeing the colours like your camera recorded them.

[tonyw3026]

Thanks everyone for your helpful comments, you have confirmed my understanding of my monitor calibration question.
As I said in my original post, I can get the print to match the monitor by applying a colour correction to the monitor in PS just before printing, I can also do this by applying a strong gamma correction to the monitor. In both cases the monitor colours look all wrong but the printer responds to my changes on the monitor. I then have to put the monitor back to normal after printing.

One more question - how do I go about getting accurate ICC data for my printer/paper/ink combination and how do I use it? My printer is a HP990CSE

[ejwebb]

Based on the severe disconnect between your monitor and printer as you describe, I think you have a larger issue than what I have dealt with. When I talk about tweaking Adobe Gamma it is because the colors are already pretty close and I am merely fine-tuning them - not making large-scale changes that cause the print or monitor to look "terrible".

While I am no expert, I suspect that you probably have some issues with the color management settings you are using within Photoshop. I am using Elements and not CS so you definitely have more color management options that could trip you up.

You should start from the beginning by providing more details on your settings, such as:

What are the color space settings you are using in Photoshop?

What is the color space of your image listed in the exif info?

I also recommend that you try letting the print driver do its own interpretation of the image by selecting the "printer color management" setting instead of the "same as source" setting.

I would also like to clear one thing up that confuses me in your discussions. When you apply color changes in Photoshop you are adjusting the color in the image - not the monitor. When you make changes in Adobe Gamma you are changing how the monitor interprets the colors in the image - not the image itself. The printer is using the image data - as interpreted in any number of ways based on the print settings described above - to prepare the prints. Changes made in Adobe Gamma can change how the image looks on the screen but they have no affect on how the image prints.

One more question - how do I go about getting accurate ICC data for my printer/paper/ink combination and how do I use it? My printer is a HP990CSE

By either purchasing software and scanning prints made on different media for the software to create profiles or by sending prints to outside services to profile for you. You may be able to find free or not so free generic profiles for your model printer and maybe for the paper you use but they are not as accurate as custom profiles. So again, cost is an issue on both the monitor calibration and printer profiling side.

Isn't color management fun?

[Motorsports Photo]

Isn't color management fun?

Not having to manage it is funner. I've lucked out that my pics and my output pretty much match, and from using similar settings most of the time, my adjustments are easy.

I suppose my output might be tweaked just a little bit more for slightly higher quality, but my customers are still in awe so why screw it up? 8)

-Pete