viscountdriver Loc: East Kent UK

I haven't seen much in this forum on printing. I print my own pictures on a Canon MX350 which is a decent printer but seldom are the colours quite the same as on the screen.It is possible, of course to make adjustments but that gets expensive as it means printing several copies and ink is not cheap.I use Canon ink but have not noticed any difference between Canon ink and compatibles.
I would be interested in any thoughts on this topic.

snowbear

If you are seeing a difference between the screen and printer, I'd make sure the screen is calibrated and you are using the same color profile on both devices.

I don't know if there are any ink color standards. If there are, and the ink manufacturers follow them, you probably wouldn't notice any difference.

twowindsbear

I'm curious about this, too. Pictures look OK to GREAT on my monitor, and I'm happy with my prints - when my printer is 'not having a bad day.' but, I wonder - Are my prints really GREAT? Can I change something to make them 'better?' And, how can a monitor, that 'projects' light ever come close to matching the reflected light from a print? And what about a 'standard' light source? I can see the different color from a tungsten light bulb, or a flourescent bulb, and then toss in the varieties of 'daylight sunshine.'

I'd appreciate your comments.

Thanks

snowbear

You can get a card for setting white balance in post. The card typically has areas of white, black and a mid-tone grey. In Lightroom, you can set a custom white balance by sampling a neutral tone pixel in the photo; the grey card serves as a standard.

When I took a digital photo class a couple of years ago, we had a test print made at a lab (which did all of our printing). When we got the test prints back, we physically compared them to the same photo on screen adjusted the screen brightness to match (or get close). That gave us consistent results.

flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

Sounds to me like you could use a 5000K day light bulb with which to view your images to see if they "come close to matching your monitor". No matter what, they will never be exactly the same only close.

You do have to calibrate and profile your monitor and you also have to use the correct printer profile for your printer, ink, and paper combination.

One other thing to keep in mind when you are going through the printer driver menu when setting up to print is that you turn off color management by printer and only have your editing software manage the color; i.e. Photoshop or Lightroom or whatever software you use manages the color otherwise the printer will be doing it too and you'll get strange looking colors in your prints. This is called "double color managed".

See the video listed below on the "double color managed" problem and it's solution.

http://www.thedigitalphotographyconnection.com/LFDP_playerm4v.php?ID=jnng88nU

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

lost the dvd that came with my monitor,havn'tthe fogiest idea on how to calibrate a monitor.