Downloadable Colour Monitor Profiler

[Guest flatfour]

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I continue to be annoyed by my monitor showing an acceptable Photoshop 7.0 image only to find that my HP 7960 printer produces a darker version. Is there a free downloadable profiler that can at least set me off in the right direction?

[wda]

Anthony, if you are satisfied with the colour rendering of your monitor, it is your printer which needs a profile. That is far from easy without appropriate software or an independent profile service.

 

The easiest solution is to look on the website for the paper you use (try Ilford for the Gallerie range) and download a generic profile for your printer/paper combination. I was well pleased with that step but could not find equivalent profiles for other papers. I eventually bought Monaco software and use my scanner to help produce custom profiles for all of the papers I use.

 

Do make sure that you have set colour management on your preferences.

 

David

[cbretteville]

I continue to be annoyed by my monitor showing an acceptable Photoshop 7.0 image only to find that my HP 7960 printer produces a darker version. Is there a free downloadable profiler that can at least set me off in the right direction?

If you can turn off colourg management in the printer driver and let PS handle that part all the way it might be worth a try. This is how I do my printing. Go though the "print with preview" from the file menu and make sure the "colour handling" option is set to "let photoshop determine colours" then in the printer driver dialogue box turn colour management off.

 

So a word of warning - I don't use PS7, but CS and CS2 and I don't have an HP, I have an Epson.

 

Finding a set of ICC profiles for the paper you use with the printer is a good thing to do regardless.

 

- Carl

[Guest flatfour]

I think I have got the darkness rectified but color images are much too red - need some input of yellow. Should I use colour RGB in the printer or AdobeRGB - my camera is a Digilux 2. ? Sorry to ask so many questions but it is rather frustrating

[Guest stnami]

This site should answer all your questions , there are no,instant answers, shortcuts or quick fixes it is an art within itself. Paper profiles are paramount

http://www.outbackphoto.com/ and http://www.computer-darkroom.com/home.htm

[stunsworth]

"Paper profiles are paramount..."

 

Very true indeed, using the profiles supplied by the paper manufacturer can transform the quality of the print.

[gareth_c]

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Sadly, profiles sometimes aren't supplied. I am still annoyed that as the owner of a large format plotter which uses very expensive gloss film roll there is no specific driver (at least as a mac user).

 

Our office finally gave in and got a colour specialist in to educate us in the ways of colour spaces and management. Not cheap but worth every penny.

[sean_reid]

Anthony,

 

You may want to start using the Adobe Gamma utility that comes with Photoshop. It will allow you to calibrate the monitor by eye but can be quite useful.

 

Sean

[ho_co]

You may want to start using the Adobe Gamma utility that comes with Photoshop.

 

Anthony,

 

Sean is right; for general purposes, Adobe Gamma is more than good enough. (Or if you're on a Mac, use the ColorSync utility, which is part of the OS. Adobe no longer supplies Adobe Gamma on Mac versions of Photoshop.)

 

First step in getting good printed output is to calibrate the monitor, as I'm sure you know. Only after you're (reasonably) sure that it is right should you start tweaking the printer.

 

--HC