Help with printing

[Paulu]

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Friends -

 

I am having problems printing. I use Leica M8, various lenses, Aperture 2, and an Hewlett Packard Photosmart 9120.

 

Although I have printed very successfully I now seem to have gone into a magenata dominant mode; however, I have other problems - my prints are sometimes too dark, sometimes dominated by other colours.

 

Does anyone have a clear minded workflow they might share; clearly the most significant moment is the choices in terms of how to set up the printer.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Thanks

 

Paul

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[TonyG44]

I'm not sure you will ever be happy with the results from that printer.

I guess you are also using the HP in built rip which I have tested with very mixed results

 

If you are serious about doing your own high quality prints you will need to spend some serious dosh

I tested many RIPs which nowadays are not much better than the inbuilt rip (the epson one i tested)

I ended up with an epson 4800pro using the epson pigment inks, the important bit is the rip

The one I ended up with is Imageprint

This is superb, virtually no paper goes in the bin, it's consistently outstanding

although it only prints Tiffs.

All the colour management is run through Photoshop

To add to that a good monitor is essential like an Eizo

Then you do justice to the cost of the Lieca

sorry I can't be anymore help, hope you have a good bank manager!

Tony

[Paulu]

Thanks for such a quick reply - what is RIP?

 

Regards Paul

[haroldp]

There are several important steps to take if you have not taken them yet. These matter much more than printer model or print control software (rip or otherwise ), and are cheap or free.

 

1- calibrate your monitor. There are any number of good spectrometers that you can use and all are way better than not doing it. I personally use a Spyder 2, but others are as good or better. If you can borrow one, you can use it and keep the monitor profile developed, and return the device.

 

2 - Get or use correct ICC profiles for the printer / paper combo you are using. The paper manufacturer will often provide these for free, and HP printers come with profile libraries for their common papers.

 

3- When printing, set the driver to 'color managed by application', and use the ICC profile in the printing application. I do not use aperture, but it probably supports this.

 

Consider a more specialized printing controller. I and many others on this forum use Qimage which is USD 59 .

 

Remember that most monitors are set way to bright and properly color managed prints will often be darker than the monitor display. Calibration should mostly fix this.

 

The above steps will get you pretty close. Since most of us do not need our color to be exact, only credible and close, this should do it.

 

If these results are not good enough, than further steps like a real graphics monitor (at least adobe RGB coverage ) and generation of custom print profiles will be needed.

 

Remember also that at the base, monitors are RGB and printers are CMYK , Monitors are light sources and prints are light reflectors, and will never be an exact match unless you acquire hideously expensive ( even by leica standards ) professional equipment, and the skills to use it .

 

I hope this is helpful

[TonyG44]

wooooah

are you ready

the image you print is basically 'numbers'

the RIP (rasta image processing) converts these numbers into data for the printer

and also 'manages the print heads'

for example, if you send a jpg image with text and maybe a vector logo to the printer the RIP converts it all into numbers the printer understands

 

you can write profiles over the data for different papers

or download them from Imageprint site which are excellent

they will even write them for you!

 

add color management into the equation and it all becomes extremely complicated

what I did is simplify it, but first you need to understand it and talking to 'color management consultants' is very confusing

[Nicoleica]

wooooah

are you ready

the image you print is basically 'numbers'

the RIP (rasta image processing) converts these numbers into data for the printer

and also 'manages the print heads'

for example, if you send a jpg image with text and maybe a vector logo to the printer the RIP converts it all into numbers the printer understands

 

you can write profiles over the data for different papers

or download them from Imageprint site which are excellent

they will even write them for you!

 

add color management into the equation and it all becomes extremely complicated

what I did is simplify it, but first you need to understand it and talking to 'color management consultants' is very confusing

 

Is this why pictures of Jamaica always print so beautifully? (Rasta/Raster)

[Jeff S]

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Understanding color management, a complicated subject, is fundamental to getting good prints, regardless of equipment and software used. The tutorials on this site...http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/about.htm provide a decent introduction.

Jeff

[Shootist]

If the images you are trying to print look good/OK on your screen then it is a problem with the printer, the paper profile/type you are using or the color management you are using.

Try letting the printer do the color management. I'm not familar with that model HP printer but in the properties of the printer select a color space to use, like Adobe RGB or sRGB. Do all your editing in whatever photo editing software you are using in that same color space. When you go to print a image in the print dialog select something that looks like or says "Let the printer manage color". Then in the properties of the printer, accessed through the print dialog window (Printer or page setup) select the correct type of paper and the size. See if you now get acceptable prints.

If not then more then likely the printer is at fault. Which could be as simple as doing a full cleaning and calibration (it that is a option on that printer model).