calibrating monitor

this is somthing that as been bugging me for a while.
i have a tft and ive read all the threads on having to use hardware for this task.
so i decided to try my old crt screen and calibrate it with the adobe gama software. i did a print that i had done on my tft and guess what. they looked the same. why???????????

Maybe I missed something! It's supposed to be the same, is it not?

the prints off the printer are the same regardless of which monitor i use.
so are you saying that whatever the picture looks like on the screen is not going to be the same as what the printer outputs

The printer doesn't know what monitor you used!

The aim of calibration and profiling is to get monitors that display to 'standard'. The next task beyond that is to calibrate and profile your printer. If all this is done correctly, and you make correct use of your profiles, your output will be very close to what is on screen - give or take the differences caused by one medium being transmissive and the other reflective, also the two media having different gamuts.

David

so how do you set about calibrating the printer.

The best thing to do with the printer is to try to find a profile for the printer, inks and paper that you use - this will be easiest if you're using manufacturer's inks and paper.

There are systems to calibrate printers, but you're best off spending any money you're prepared to put into calibration on monitor calibration, in my opinion.

David

There are more toys you can buy to calibrate your printer. Here is a review of Colourvision PrintFX Pro.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/​Printfix%20Pro.shtml

Now I understand what you were trying to say. The first message meant something different than I thought it meant. You initially said "they looked the same". I took that to mean that each print looked the same as what you saw on the monitor. Now, I understand that what you really meant was that the two prints were the same as one another but different from what you were seeing on the monitors.

Aha!

Starting with a calibrated monitor, you need to go to my tutorial on Soft Proofing and Printing under Color Management:
http://www.zaffora.com …gUnderColorMana​gement.htm
or the downloadable PDF version from:
http://www.zaffora.com …gUnderColorMana​gement.pdf