GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

I'm using WIndows XP and my wife is using Windows 7. I am having trouble calibrating my monitor.

When I have basic prints made, only the stores using HP print machines seem to print just as I see it at home. (I'm using a Gateway laptop computer.) The other stores use Fugi, Kodak, and a third party printing machine, all seem to provide prints with too little red and green.

For this "test", I used only a few of my images that I stored on an SD storage memory card. That way I can compair apples to apples. I also made sure the machine would not make any automatic corrections.

The funny thing about this is that when I have a larger poster or a canvas print made, I have no problems. Only the basic prints(8"x10" or smaller type), has this problem.

At a nearby Costco store, they told me that happens because the print machines use chemicals to make the ink and the poster and canvas print machines use real ink and the HP printer uses CMYX.

Can anyone explain this?

Also, can anyone tell me how I can properly calibrate my monitor, just in case?

dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

alaskanfrog Loc: Alaska

CMYX inks are water based inks and are susceptible to atmospheric changes. The air can change specific colors of a print during the drying period because a little bit of the ink evaporates along with the water in the water based inkjet printers.

Calibrating your monitors might help, but the huge underlying differences are the inks used for your larger prints. The larger inkjet printers use a denser ink that is less susceptible to color changes during drying.

There are commercial and consumer grade calibration devices on the market that allows you to calibrate your computer monitor, but they can be expensive. I do a simpler approach.

I downloaded a color calibration image from online that filmmakers and videographers use to calibrate and color balance their cameras. I used the "color bars" to manually calibrate both of my computer monitors to achieve the most accurate colors I could. The settings are built into my flat screen monitors. It was a complicated and time consuming process, but it allowed me to have both computer monitors closely calibrated to the same resolution. This way I know that when I make my prints they will closely resemble what I see onscreen. Of course, I also needed to calibrate my printer by selecting the "Color Match" utility option so that the printer will attempt to print what is displayed on my monitor. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

egglady Loc: Knoxville, Tn

I don't know a whole lot but I heard if you order on line you csn specify not to touch or tweek the color. I did that at the wal-mart kiosk and they came out just ad I put them on my stick.