Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

I am pretty sure I know how to calibrate my monitor. But I am unsure how I calibrate my monitor so that what I see on the monitor comes out right in the print. I just need some general directions. I have a Dell Monitor and an Epson Artisan 710 inkjet printer.
Thanks in advance,
Bill

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I don't do serious high quality printing, so calibration doesn't matter to me. However, here's something I have observed. If I print the same image on my HP and my Canon, the colors are slightly different. Calibrating the monitor wouldn't help that situation.

Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

Thanks for the reply Jerry.
Bill

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

If you use the printer driver, paper and ink provided by Epson, you'll be fine on the printer end.

If you are concerned about print brightness, chances are your display is too bright. During profiling (you are not calibrating which is a different operation with a different outcome, and something not usually done outside the factory or repair facility), you should opt for manual setting of black and white points, and use 80 cda/m^2 for white point and .4 cda/m^2 for black point That should put you in the ballpark. If your prints are still too dark, drop the white point, and vice versa.

If the colors are off - there are several reasons, but most likely the main culprit is color gamut and bit depth. Entry level panels, and most laptops only offer 6 bit color depth and a percentage of sRGB color space. Professional displays offer 8 or 10 bit color depth, and at least Adobe RGB color space, and sometimes more. Most printers can print colors that were captured by the camera but cannot be displayed in a 6 bit smaller-than-sRGB color space - so naturally there will be some clipping, remapping of colors, and some colors may print even if you don't see them on a screen.

Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

Thanks Gene.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

My pleasure. Good luck.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

If your printer does not have IRC profile available, you can and should calibrate it if you are going to print on it. But you need a device that can calibrate both a monitor and a printer. A color measurement device is needed for the printer. These normally cost around $300 or more. The X-Rite for instance is $459 http://www.adorama.com/GHCMP.html?gclid=CjwKEAjw6Z2pBRCmvaXq6d7FjUoSJAAc5LrifWUIdQS67wvlrUbhYRa22fDF5Fs0eRrBpr3vSPBY6xoC8N7w_wcB

The purpose of calibrating your printer is so software, like Lightroom knows what colors that printer can reproduce. Then using LR you can bring any colors that are out of gamut back into gamut before printing them. This is just a fancy way of saying that if your printer can't reproduce a color in the photo, it will make it's best guess at that color. But you can change that color before sending it to the printer to a color or tone that you know it can reproduce. This is know as "Soft Proofing"

In my photo example the printer/paper profile I am using is telling me the photo has colors that are out of gamut. But only slightly, if I adjust very slightly and desaturate those colors the printer can produce the colors. So I am in control, not the printer. AS far as how to do this, it depends on your PP software. In LR I create a printer paper combination calibration, and load that when soft proofing. There are plenty of tutorials out there on this. But it depends on your processing software and the calibration device you have.

Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

Thanks for the information Capture. I appreciate your detailed response.
Bill

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

It's a rather expensive process although very easy one to profile a printer. The expense is why most don't do it if they do occasional printing at home. But if you send to a printer company I ask for their profile so I can run it through LR before sending as well. Most printing companies have downloadable profiles on their web sites.

BTW, I chose a kind of bad example in my previous post, kind of what happens when I've not finished my coffee yet, but you get the idea.

Here is a LR tutorial on soft-proofing. It's LR4 but the process is the same.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/whats-new-in-lightroom-4/soft-proofing-images/

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

In addition to the already mentioned,if you really want to get into Color Management, no easy task, nor cheaply done.
One of the biggest complaints I hear is "my print is so much darker than my monitor" aside from the obvious, if your using PS, I use Control+Shift+ALT+E, (Be sure the upper most layer is selected prior to shortcut), creating a new merged layer, set the new layer to Screen Mode and Opacity to about 20%-25% and print...Adjust the percentage to your liking.
I calibrate my monitors, and use an Epson Pro 3880.(Not calibrated) And the above is all I ever need to do.

Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

Thank you Doug, I will give that a try.
Bill

woolpac Loc: Sydney Australia

I run an EPSON 4000 with dell and I calibrate with ColorMunki to create profiles for both. Works well for me especially as I use 3rd party inks

Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

Thank you Woolpac. I have been considering running third party inks myself.
Bill

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

Your welcome, I got that tip a while back from Matt Kloskowski back when he was with Kelby...

Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

Yes, thank you, Matt knows his stuff.