No specific question but printing generally

[martcol]

At the risk of showing myself up as a real novice, I need some help with achieving good prints.

I shoot in RAW, convert with C1 and have PS CS but tend to print with Epson Photoquicker which is painfully slow. I don't really understand ICC profiles and all that but would like to.

What should I read to get myself a fool-proof system for printing. I use an Epson 2100 and 950 both decent printers. I want to use the 950 with cheaper papers and inks and then the 2100 for "best," keeping that machine up together with Epson inks and paper.

I will accept any advice anyone can give and pointers to good links and/or books that would help. Christmas is coming so, I could ask Santa for the book.

Thanks

martin

[Scottes]

Thanks to some troubling times and then help from John_T, I learned to get the image the way I wanted so it looked good, then converted to sRGB and printed. On my Epson 1280 the prints came out very good.

However, I was getting too many highlights blown in the print and too many shadows blown to black so I was losing details at the extremes. So I've learned to back off my whitepoint and blackpoint - I just don't run my levels to the extremes but ease them off a little.

There's probably a better way to do that part but I haven't printed in some time so I haven't looked into it further.


But in a nutshell, try converting to sRGB and try that. It seems that most home printers kinda default to this. I'd like to know more, but like I said I haven't printed in some time.

[martcol]

Thanks Scottes, I'll try that.

What I really want to achieve the print looking like my monitor! That's my Holy Grail! And I suppose, I want to achieve it without having to do much!

My next option is to offer week-end breaks at very reasonable rates to professional photographers etc....

Any takers?

Regards

Martin

[Belmondo]

What I really want to achieve the print looking like my monitor! That's my Holy Grail! And I suppose, I want to achieve it without having to do much!

Maybe your prints are fine and it's your monitor that needs calibration. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I have a Canon i9000 that produces stunning prints of images that tend to look a little over-saturrated on my monitor.

[martcol]

Thanks Belmondo

In my persuit of the Holy Grail, I have spent the equivallent to a week's holiday on a Greek Island on

i) Lacie Monitor
ii) Epson 2100 with Gretag eye1

The monitor is amazing, by the way!

I have the kit, I just need to get it working and producing fabulous results. Then I'm definately gonna learn to take some pictures :oops:

Regards

Martin

[Belmondo]

I have spent the equivallent to a week's holiday on a Greek Island on

i) Lacie Monitor
ii) Epson 2100 with Gretag eye1

The monitor is amazing, by the way!

Martin:
I concur on the monitor. I have the LaCie 22" monitor, too. I bought it with their calibration setup, but have really had mixed results. I'm going to look at other calibration devices and am interested to see how yours works.

[samdring]

Thanks Scottes, I'll try that.

What I really want to achieve the print looking like my monitor! That's my Holy Grail! And I suppose, I want to achieve it without having to do much!
Martin

If you really don't want to do TOO much, then custom settings on the printer are a simpler approach to calibration but are trial and error.

I use C1 and the 950 (common items in your setup) hence my reply (I print, though, through ACDSee 6 - my album software)

950 settings can be quite extreme - for 1440 dpi I use

Brightness +2, Contrast +4, Saturation +6, Cyan +5, Magenta -10 and Yellow at 0

[robertwgross]

Recently, I was composing my 2005 Calendar to send to family and friends and clients for the holidays. I had selected a few dozen image files to begin with, and I was going to use the same program, same paper, same printer, and same ink that I had used last year.

I figured that I ought to make a few test prints, just to make sure that I did not have some weird color shift going on, so I printed one image in one quadrant of the first sheet of paper. It was a very dark and contrasty image, but it printed out gray and muddy. Hmmm. That must be a fluke.

So, I selected another image file and printed it in another quadrant of the same sheet. It was very colorful, but it printed out gray and fuzzy. Hmmm.

I printed out the third and fourth images on the rest of the sheet, and they came out about the same. Hmmm.

So, I reached into the paper package and pulled out the next sheet. That is when I noticed that I had used the wrong side of the first sheet. The correct side is very white and coated for inkjet. The wrong side is dull white and not coated. Now it is fine. What a relief!

---Bob Gross---

[samdring]

Robert!

Is it something to do with your second anniversary on this board...?

A genuine question from you a couple of days ago and now an admission of this nature - halo slippng :wink:

[martcol]

That's' not fair Bob Gross! For a moment there, I thought that it was looking like even you had trouble but then, that's just a mistake. My prints look equally as bad sometimes no matter what side of the paper I put in! Well, perhaps that's an overstatement but you get what I mean.

I'm no expert but I am just about getting to grips with DSLR photography, am coming on in leaps and bounds with RAW conversion (thanks C1) and think that Photoshop is just awesome! Now, if I could achieve some similarity between monitor and printed paper then I would die happy. I don't want absolute perfection, accuracy, and colours that would stand laboratory testing. I want to print photos that will look how I want them. I want to print photos first time. I want to be confident that the settings I am using are the right ones and not pot luck....

Is it too much to ask?

Regards

Martin

[robertwgross]

I plead guilty to making a human error now and then. Fortunately, I find most of my own errors, and I can clean up my own before others see them, so my friends think that I can walk on water.

Martin, either you have your entire computer color-calibrated, or else you don't. Most of that is getting your monitor calibrated to a standard, and some of that is getting your printer calibrated. Then there is the color space issue.

If you can't get your entire system calibrated officially, then you might be able to do it defacto. I had one friend give me a perfect print and an image file from his calibrated system. Then I viewed the file on my monitor to see I had a match to his print. Then I printed the file to see that my print matched his print.

Then there is the matter of getting your eyeball calibrated to the camera.

---Bob Gross---