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#1
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Matching print colors to Monitor screen
Cross-posting here FYI so nobody spends 6+ months trying to find a
'solution', only to realize what I found. ================================================== ===== Subject: Matching print colors to Monitor screen Ive acquired an Epson C82 which I plan to use primarily for printing of Duotone images and some color. When I print in color, the color of the print varies considerably from the monitor image. I've run Adobe Gamma, as well as being careful to match the paper choice in the driver with the paper I'm using, but not much help. After printing, I can match the print fairly close to the monitor by adjusting it with "Color Balance", cyan slider to -10, magenta and yellow each to - 50. The same problem and "correction" is evident with duotone printing. Using the uncorrected monitor image, I can get the print I want by adjusting those colors in the printer driver just prior to printing. Is there a more "global" solution to this problem, rather than my tedious procedure? I'm aware of the ColorVision/Spyder, etc. approach, but that's a little tough on my budget. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks ========================== 1) Realize that the color gamut of the monitor will =never= match the color gamut of the printer!!! Sorry! This is the most crucial mistake most people make when they start looking into color matching, and most don't realize until after spending $$$ that the two will never match. You can stop now if you don't understand this point. The reason for this is that the two technologies produce mostly the same colors, but at the outer edge of their color gamuts, they differ. 2) Realize that viewing the prints under various lights of different color temperatures will make them look different!!! This is another big mistake people make. If you print everything as good as can be, but view the prints under, let's say, standard indoor nightime tungsten lighting (soft white bulbs), you'll see something very, very different than if you view the exact same print outdoors in daytime, under a fluorescent bulb, etc. The only way to ensure you're getting the 'best' color matching is to view the prints under a standard color temperature light source (in most cases, 5000k/5500k are common, graphics arts viewing temperatures). You will need to get a light bulb that'll produce this light temperature, install it, and only use this light source to view your prints. (yes, there's what they call viewing booths used in print presses and graphic arts that are super-duper calibrated, stable and accurate, but well outside your budget. Besides, only the light really needs to be fixed to a standard color temperature - so swapping out light bulbs is the cheapest way to get almost there.) Here, it's easiest to buy a fluorescent bulb from bulbs.com and install it into a desktop fluorescent lamp. Remember, == you must == turn off all other light sources (block off daylight if you're viewing prints in daytime) and only use this standard color temperature light source to view prints for the best evaluation of prints. 3) Keep in mind that print colors will look different under different light sources!!! Just because the prints look stunning under that 5000k light source doesn't mean they'll look as good under tungsten lighting!!! That said, you have to make a choice here - do I make prints that look great under a standard color light temperature (just about all of the books, magazines, prints published today are done so) but not perfect under other lights? Or, let's say I only view and hang my prints to view indoors under tungsten lighting, do I make them look great under the tungsten lighting, but terrible under a standard color light temperature or even outdoors in daylight? This is a ====huge==== point that people fail to realize! Just because you can print something that's 'correct and accurate' according to 'standard practices and lighting temperatures' doesn't mean you can't throw that out the door and print something that looks great =under your specific display lighting conditions=! Almost always, people will try and try and try to print an image so that it looks perfect under 5000k lamps, then stick it on their hallway walls that are only lit indoors by tungsten. Well, then, if you know a bit about colors, you know that those pictures will have a strong yellow cast over them due to the tungsten lights (you'll see this in 35mm photographs at night indoors w/o flash; your eyes automatically adjust after a few minutes to correct for the excessive yellow and make it seem white). Does this make for a perfect print?!? No! Even after your eyes have adjusted for the tungsten yellow cast, the prints still won't look as good vs. under 5000k lamps because the print colors aren't optimized for that lighting. Here, you'll have to hand-tweak prints to get the very best colors as nobody's done any real work on making prints that look great under these conditions. 4) A locked down sRGB workflow is one easy step to perfection, and a good one to try first. If you have a CRT monitor, you may just have to use Adobe Gamma (if you're using Photoshop, etc.) or a color calibration tool just to get the monitor to look right - CRTs are terrible at giving you accurate colors right out of the box. Let's assume you have a LCD monitor - you'll likely be able to get 90%+ match to sRGB easily. Why? Most LCD gamuts practically sit on top of the sRGB gamut - if you get an Apple with their Apple LCD Displays, the color match is almost perfect. Most of these monitors can be set to sRGB mode. If that's not present, usually you can set it to factory default, then press an AUTO button to get it mostly there matching wise. Look for color temperature and sRGB mode...it helps to buy a LCD panel that already has these. (That said, my Winbook 15" was that easy - press factory default, press auto, and I'm 95% matched to sRGB right away according to my ColorVision Spyder.) * Next, you'll want to set your color workspace (if you're using a program that handles this - most windows programs simply assume sRGB; Adobe products should be set for sRGB), and your printer mode to sRGB (eg. most Epson printers have this option; other printers, well, suck because they often don't have this option), and your scanner as well (eg. Epson, you can set in advanced mode the scanning target color space to sRGB). There, now that everything's locked to sRGB, what you see on screen will generally match what you scan in, and what you print. PLEASE!!! Keep in mind still that what you see =will never perfectly match= what you print (point #1 above). So even now that everything's working just peachy, prints still won't look just 100% like the screen. Sorry! 5) So what to do? Take a test target image like the Photodisc Test Target (free, search for it), open it up on screen, print a copy in your locked down sRGB workflow, and compare the print to monitor -- this is, for the most part w/o tweaking, about as good as you'll get even after some heavy duty color calibration/management tools. Now, what you want on print will have to be adjusted for on screen based on what you see, experience, and what you've seen printed. But, because you have this standard test target on screen and on paper, you will know that when your own picture looks good vs. the test target, it'll look good in print - you will use the test target as a standard reference point for rapid image adjustments and tweaks ot make it look right. That's right! If you adjust =your= images while viewing a =standard= test target image that prints great, you can make great prints faster because you have something to adjust your own images to! If you only tweak an image by itself, you'll soon find yourself wondering is that blue really this blue or so so blue? It's because when your eyes look at certain colors too long, they lose any objectivity and reference as to what's neutral, good, and correct -- and it's very difficult to adjust correctly without some reference image (like driving at night without any points of reference - just pure darkness). 6) You'll quickly find that with the above, you can easily reduce the process down to one or at least two tweak then print steps before achieveing a perfect print by using an onscreen reference image and a locked down sRGB workflow with a little practice and experience. What you'll do is simply adjust your image to look perfect next to that test target, print and move on to the next image. ================================== That said, what about the color management/calibration/correction tools that cost a bundle ala ColorVision Spyder, MonacoEZ, etc? They do have their place -- usually, the reason is for consistency -- ie. no matter which monitor you drop in, or printer, or scanner, they'll all give you as close of a representation of color to what can be expected of them. It =does not= mean they won't look different after being managed/calibrated/corrected!!!! Only that they'll produce as true of a representation of color as possible. Why is this useful? If you're matching your red to CocaCola's special red, you'd naturally want the most exact match possible. But when printing images, that's totally different - you usually don' t care if that color or this is perfectly matched, but rather, only that they look stunning in combination with the rest of the picture. Here, you're an artist, and you can choose to make the colors a bit more dramatic to achieve the effect you want in a final print. Yes, if you're doing catalogs for clothing, you'd want the colors of that dress to match as close as possible to the real thing - good for the $$$ tools, but most of the time, you can do without these tools in a sRGB workflow. --- Q: But isn't color m/c/c supposed to give you stunning prints?!? A: NO!!!! Color m/c/c/ only gives you the most accurate production of colors possible, not the best image possible -- this is why we still have humans running all of the print machines, to double check what's coming out and to make 'subjective' adjustments to make a nice print into a stunning print. What does this mean?!? =No matter how much you spend= on a color m/c/c/ setup, your 'average' images will still print 'dull and flat', your 'poor' images will print 'poorly', and rarely will your 'great' images print 'stunningly' well. ( You can run right over to any press shop today and ask them, can you print my book of 'stunningly' perfect images I've taken w/o doing a test run, trial print, or tweak? They'll all laugh at you when they ship you some poor looking books! Every press on the planet has to adjust and tweak even though they're all color m/c/c to produce the best looking prints! ) --- Of course, you don't want the monitor to change colors from one day to the next -- makes it very difficult to know what colors look good, so that's why you'd want to lock it down to an sRGB 5000k/5500k state, and just don't touch it (here, a LCD panel will do this 100% better than a CRT). ====================== That said, is the Colorvision Spyder useful? I though so, bought one, used it on my PC, and took it right off after weeks of use and never looked back. Why? My LCD panel, like most sRGB gamut LCDs, was already 90%+ there matched to the sRGB gamut. What little difference I saw on screen was like the choice between cool white and warm white - something I can easily do with my head, and a good test target on screen. Otherwise, what I saw was basically just like I saw before, only a touch warmer overall. (Don't even need to use Adobe Gamma here - a very subjective and 'bad' tool IMO on a sRGB LCD monitor that's already accurate enough.) Did the colorvision make better prints? No! I still had to tweak each image for the best 'subjective' print - it didn't make better prints all by itself. I also have Epson everything - Epson 1200/925 printer in sRGB mode, Epson 1200S scanner in sRGB mode, and the whole input to output pipeline simply gave me pretty good base colors from one end to the other w/o having to touch anything. That said, I can firmly state today that these silly color m/c/c devices perhaps are of use to a CRT monitor user (where most CRTs vary greatly and aren't locked to sRGB gamuts), and to professionals wanting exacting color matching, but for the most part, most consumers today wanting a great print will 1) still have to hand-tweak 2) can use a sRGB workflow to produce generally accurate colors 3) not have to spend $$$ on these color m/c/c/ tools at all. You can also easily reduce the cycle of tweak & print down to one or two prints by simply having a standard test target visible on screen as a reference to adjust your image to in a locked down sRGB workflow. Whew! =) ps. that said, I've happily wasted 6+ months researching this whole silly color m/c/c/ thing, spent $$$ more than I should, and found that I'm back to where I began - hand-tweaking images for the best prints, but now, in only one or two tweak & print cycles - and thrown the Colorvision Spyder and Adobe Gamma out the door for a locked down, free sRGB workflow. honestly! Never once produced a better looking print with those color m/c/c/ tools vs. those made without. As good, yes. Better, never. |
#2
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Thanks for the GREAT post, David.
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#3
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David Chien wrote:
Cross-posting here FYI so nobody spends 6+ months trying to find a 'solution', only to realize what I found. ================================================== ===== Subject: Matching print colors to Monitor screen Ive acquired an Epson C82 which I plan to use primarily for printing of Duotone images and some color. When I print in color, the color of the print varies considerably from the monitor image. I've run Adobe Gamma, as well as being careful to match the paper choice in the driver with the paper I'm using, but not much help. After printing, I can match the print fairly close to the monitor by adjusting it with "Color Balance", cyan slider to -10, magenta and yellow each to - 50. The same problem and "correction" is evident with duotone printing. Using the uncorrected monitor image, I can get the print I want by adjusting those colors in the printer driver just prior to printing. Is there a more "global" solution to this problem, rather than my tedious procedure? I'm aware of the ColorVision/Spyder, etc. approach, but that's a little tough on my budget. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks ========================== 1) Realize that the color gamut of the monitor will =never= match the color gamut of the printer!!! Sorry! This is the most crucial mistake most people make when they start looking into color matching, and most don't realize until after spending $$$ that the two will never match. You can stop now if you don't understand this point. The reason for this is that the two technologies produce mostly the same colors, but at the outer edge of their color gamuts, they differ. 2) Realize that viewing the prints under various lights of different color temperatures will make them look different!!! This is another big mistake people make. If you print everything as good as can be, but view the prints under, let's say, standard indoor nightime tungsten lighting (soft white bulbs), you'll see something very, very different than if you view the exact same print outdoors in daytime, under a fluorescent bulb, etc. The only way to ensure you're getting the 'best' color matching is to view the prints under a standard color temperature light source (in most cases, 5000k/5500k are common, graphics arts viewing temperatures). You will need to get a light bulb that'll produce this light temperature, install it, and only use this light source to view your prints. (yes, there's what they call viewing booths used in print presses and graphic arts that are super-duper calibrated, stable and accurate, but well outside your budget. Besides, only the light really needs to be fixed to a standard color temperature - so swapping out light bulbs is the cheapest way to get almost there.) Here, it's easiest to buy a fluorescent bulb from bulbs.com and install it into a desktop fluorescent lamp. Remember, == you must == turn off all other light sources (block off daylight if you're viewing prints in daytime) and only use this standard color temperature light source to view prints for the best evaluation of prints. 3) Keep in mind that print colors will look different under different light sources!!! Just because the prints look stunning under that 5000k light source doesn't mean they'll look as good under tungsten lighting!!! That said, you have to make a choice here - do I make prints that look great under a standard color light temperature (just about all of the books, magazines, prints published today are done so) but not perfect under other lights? Or, let's say I only view and hang my prints to view indoors under tungsten lighting, do I make them look great under the tungsten lighting, but terrible under a standard color light temperature or even outdoors in daylight? This is a ====huge==== point that people fail to realize! Just because you can print something that's 'correct and accurate' according to 'standard practices and lighting temperatures' doesn't mean you can't throw that out the door and print something that looks great =under your specific display lighting conditions=! Almost always, people will try and try and try to print an image so that it looks perfect under 5000k lamps, then stick it on their hallway walls that are only lit indoors by tungsten. Well, then, if you know a bit about colors, you know that those pictures will have a strong yellow cast over them due to the tungsten lights (you'll see this in 35mm photographs at night indoors w/o flash; your eyes automatically adjust after a few minutes to correct for the excessive yellow and make it seem white). Does this make for a perfect print?!? No! Even after your eyes have adjusted for the tungsten yellow cast, the prints still won't look as good vs. under 5000k lamps because the print colors aren't optimized for that lighting. Here, you'll have to hand-tweak prints to get the very best colors as nobody's done any real work on making prints that look great under these conditions. 4) A locked down sRGB workflow is one easy step to perfection, and a good one to try first. If you have a CRT monitor, you may just have to use Adobe Gamma (if you're using Photoshop, etc.) or a color calibration tool just to get the monitor to look right - CRTs are terrible at giving you accurate colors right out of the box. Let's assume you have a LCD monitor - you'll likely be able to get 90%+ match to sRGB easily. Why? Most LCD gamuts practically sit on top of the sRGB gamut - if you get an Apple with their Apple LCD Displays, the color match is almost perfect. Most of these monitors can be set to sRGB mode. If that's not present, usually you can set it to factory default, then press an AUTO button to get it mostly there matching wise. Look for color temperature and sRGB mode...it helps to buy a LCD panel that already has these. (That said, my Winbook 15" was that easy - press factory default, press auto, and I'm 95% matched to sRGB right away according to my ColorVision Spyder.) * Next, you'll want to set your color workspace (if you're using a program that handles this - most windows programs simply assume sRGB; Adobe products should be set for sRGB), and your printer mode to sRGB (eg. most Epson printers have this option; other printers, well, suck because they often don't have this option), and your scanner as well (eg. Epson, you can set in advanced mode the scanning target color space to sRGB). There, now that everything's locked to sRGB, what you see on screen will generally match what you scan in, and what you print. PLEASE!!! Keep in mind still that what you see =will never perfectly match= what you print (point #1 above). So even now that everything's working just peachy, prints still won't look just 100% like the screen. Sorry! 5) So what to do? Take a test target image like the Photodisc Test Target (free, search for it), open it up on screen, print a copy in your locked down sRGB workflow, and compare the print to monitor -- this is, for the most part w/o tweaking, about as good as you'll get even after some heavy duty color calibration/management tools. Now, what you want on print will have to be adjusted for on screen based on what you see, experience, and what you've seen printed. But, because you have this standard test target on screen and on paper, you will know that when your own picture looks good vs. the test target, it'll look good in print - you will use the test target as a standard reference point for rapid image adjustments and tweaks ot make it look right. That's right! If you adjust =your= images while viewing a =standard= test target image that prints great, you can make great prints faster because you have something to adjust your own images to! If you only tweak an image by itself, you'll soon find yourself wondering is that blue really this blue or so so blue? It's because when your eyes look at certain colors too long, they lose any objectivity and reference as to what's neutral, good, and correct -- and it's very difficult to adjust correctly without some reference image (like driving at night without any points of reference - just pure darkness). 6) You'll quickly find that with the above, you can easily reduce the process down to one or at least two tweak then print steps before achieveing a perfect print by using an onscreen reference image and a locked down sRGB workflow with a little practice and experience. What you'll do is simply adjust your image to look perfect next to that test target, print and move on to the next image. ================================== That said, what about the color management/calibration/correction tools that cost a bundle ala ColorVision Spyder, MonacoEZ, etc? They do have their place -- usually, the reason is for consistency -- ie. no matter which monitor you drop in, or printer, or scanner, they'll all give you as close of a representation of color to what can be expected of them. It =does not= mean they won't look different after being managed/calibrated/corrected!!!! Only that they'll produce as true of a representation of color as possible. Why is this useful? If you're matching your red to CocaCola's special red, you'd naturally want the most exact match possible. But when printing images, that's totally different - you usually don' t care if that color or this is perfectly matched, but rather, only that they look stunning in combination with the rest of the picture. Here, you're an artist, and you can choose to make the colors a bit more dramatic to achieve the effect you want in a final print. Yes, if you're doing catalogs for clothing, you'd want the colors of that dress to match as close as possible to the real thing - good for the $$$ tools, but most of the time, you can do without these tools in a sRGB workflow. --- Q: But isn't color m/c/c supposed to give you stunning prints?!? A: NO!!!! Color m/c/c/ only gives you the most accurate production of colors possible, not the best image possible -- this is why we still have humans running all of the print machines, to double check what's coming out and to make 'subjective' adjustments to make a nice print into a stunning print. What does this mean?!? =No matter how much you spend= on a color m/c/c/ setup, your 'average' images will still print 'dull and flat', your 'poor' images will print 'poorly', and rarely will your 'great' images print 'stunningly' well. ( You can run right over to any press shop today and ask them, can you print my book of 'stunningly' perfect images I've taken w/o doing a test run, trial print, or tweak? They'll all laugh at you when they ship you some poor looking books! Every press on the planet has to adjust and tweak even though they're all color m/c/c to produce the best looking prints! ) --- Of course, you don't want the monitor to change colors from one day to the next -- makes it very difficult to know what colors look good, so that's why you'd want to lock it down to an sRGB 5000k/5500k state, and just don't touch it (here, a LCD panel will do this 100% better than a CRT). ====================== That said, is the Colorvision Spyder useful? I though so, bought one, used it on my PC, and took it right off after weeks of use and never looked back. Why? My LCD panel, like most sRGB gamut LCDs, was already 90%+ there matched to the sRGB gamut. What little difference I saw on screen was like the choice between cool white and warm white - something I can easily do with my head, and a good test target on screen. Otherwise, what I saw was basically just like I saw before, only a touch warmer overall. (Don't even need to use Adobe Gamma here - a very subjective and 'bad' tool IMO on a sRGB LCD monitor that's already accurate enough.) Did the colorvision make better prints? No! I still had to tweak each image for the best 'subjective' print - it didn't make better prints all by itself. I also have Epson everything - Epson 1200/925 printer in sRGB mode, Epson 1200S scanner in sRGB mode, and the whole input to output pipeline simply gave me pretty good base colors from one end to the other w/o having to touch anything. That said, I can firmly state today that these silly color m/c/c devices perhaps are of use to a CRT monitor user (where most CRTs vary greatly and aren't locked to sRGB gamuts), and to professionals wanting exacting color matching, but for the most part, most consumers today wanting a great print will 1) still have to hand-tweak 2) can use a sRGB workflow to produce generally accurate colors 3) not have to spend $$$ on these color m/c/c/ tools at all. You can also easily reduce the cycle of tweak & print down to one or two prints by simply having a standard test target visible on screen as a reference to adjust your image to in a locked down sRGB workflow. Whew! =) ps. that said, I've happily wasted 6+ months researching this whole silly color m/c/c/ thing, spent $$$ more than I should, and found that I'm back to where I began - hand-tweaking images for the best prints, but now, in only one or two tweak & print cycles - and thrown the Colorvision Spyder and Adobe Gamma out the door for a locked down, free sRGB workflow. honestly! Never once produced a better looking print with those color m/c/c/ tools vs. those made without. As good, yes. Better, never. I've never heard such a load of garbage. My advice is to get a life and preferably go back to film photography. It was always a surprise what you would get back in those good old days |
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"Terry D" wrote in message ... David Chien wrote: [big, big snip] I've never heard such a load of garbage. My advice is to get a life and preferably go back to film photography. It was always a surprise what you would get back in those good old days Some of it (the proof lighting, for example) is actually good, but...where to begin with the rest? Color matching using a *notebook*, a spyder that "knows" a working color space, "locking down sRGB", yada, yada, yada. Wow. -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
#5
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I have switched to Adobe color space for both scanner and PhotoShop. I was
advised to do that from af person who work every day with PhotoShop and has done this in many years. The sRGB color space is for web work ect. and not for high quality color prints (I was told). What I have done until now for adjusting monitor/printer is to use the Epson Gray Balancer (Epson 2100 printer). I use primary the Premium Semigloss paper. So I printed the test gray chart on this paper. Then I used the gray scale paper sheet which is part of the gray balancer kit to find 20%, 45%, 70% and 90% grays and typed the numers into the Gray Balancer program and saved the profile and set it to be active. Then I choosed a gray scale test image and loaded it into photoshop. To my eye the image had no color errors on my monitor. Then I printed it in the mode where it is possible to adjust the printed colors using CMY sliders (the Epson 2100 uses all color when printing B/W). The first test print looked at bit magenta. Then I took some magenta out. Then it looked a little to green. Then I choosed a value in between. Then the print looked quite perfekt. After this adjustment the color print also looked quite similar to what I have on the screen. 100% match is never possible. But it is possible to come very close. Max "David Chien" skrev i en meddelelse ... Cross-posting here FYI so nobody spends 6+ months trying to find a 'solution', only to realize what I found. ================================================== ===== Subject: Matching print colors to Monitor screen Ive acquired an Epson C82 which I plan to use primarily for printing of Duotone images and some color. When I print in color, the color of the print varies considerably from the monitor image. I've run Adobe Gamma, as well as being careful to match the paper choice in the driver with the paper I'm using, but not much help. After printing, I can match the print fairly close to the monitor by adjusting it with "Color Balance", cyan slider to -10, magenta and yellow each to - 50. The same problem and "correction" is evident with duotone printing. Using the uncorrected monitor image, I can get the print I want by adjusting those colors in the printer driver just prior to printing. Is there a more "global" solution to this problem, rather than my tedious procedure? I'm aware of the ColorVision/Spyder, etc. approach, but that's a little tough on my budget. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks ========================== 1) Realize that the color gamut of the monitor will =never= match the color gamut of the printer!!! Sorry! This is the most crucial mistake most people make when they start looking into color matching, and most don't realize until after spending $$$ that the two will never match. You can stop now if you don't understand this point. The reason for this is that the two technologies produce mostly the same colors, but at the outer edge of their color gamuts, they differ. 2) Realize that viewing the prints under various lights of different color temperatures will make them look different!!! This is another big mistake people make. If you print everything as good as can be, but view the prints under, let's say, standard indoor nightime tungsten lighting (soft white bulbs), you'll see something very, very different than if you view the exact same print outdoors in daytime, under a fluorescent bulb, etc. The only way to ensure you're getting the 'best' color matching is to view the prints under a standard color temperature light source (in most cases, 5000k/5500k are common, graphics arts viewing temperatures). You will need to get a light bulb that'll produce this light temperature, install it, and only use this light source to view your prints. (yes, there's what they call viewing booths used in print presses and graphic arts that are super-duper calibrated, stable and accurate, but well outside your budget. Besides, only the light really needs to be fixed to a standard color temperature - so swapping out light bulbs is the cheapest way to get almost there.) Here, it's easiest to buy a fluorescent bulb from bulbs.com and install it into a desktop fluorescent lamp. Remember, == you must == turn off all other light sources (block off daylight if you're viewing prints in daytime) and only use this standard color temperature light source to view prints for the best evaluation of prints. 3) Keep in mind that print colors will look different under different light sources!!! Just because the prints look stunning under that 5000k light source doesn't mean they'll look as good under tungsten lighting!!! That said, you have to make a choice here - do I make prints that look great under a standard color light temperature (just about all of the books, magazines, prints published today are done so) but not perfect under other lights? Or, let's say I only view and hang my prints to view indoors under tungsten lighting, do I make them look great under the tungsten lighting, but terrible under a standard color light temperature or even outdoors in daylight? This is a ====huge==== point that people fail to realize! Just because you can print something that's 'correct and accurate' according to 'standard practices and lighting temperatures' doesn't mean you can't throw that out the door and print something that looks great =under your specific display lighting conditions=! Almost always, people will try and try and try to print an image so that it looks perfect under 5000k lamps, then stick it on their hallway walls that are only lit indoors by tungsten. Well, then, if you know a bit about colors, you know that those pictures will have a strong yellow cast over them due to the tungsten lights (you'll see this in 35mm photographs at night indoors w/o flash; your eyes automatically adjust after a few minutes to correct for the excessive yellow and make it seem white). Does this make for a perfect print?!? No! Even after your eyes have adjusted for the tungsten yellow cast, the prints still won't look as good vs. under 5000k lamps because the print colors aren't optimized for that lighting. Here, you'll have to hand-tweak prints to get the very best colors as nobody's done any real work on making prints that look great under these conditions. 4) A locked down sRGB workflow is one easy step to perfection, and a good one to try first. If you have a CRT monitor, you may just have to use Adobe Gamma (if you're using Photoshop, etc.) or a color calibration tool just to get the monitor to look right - CRTs are terrible at giving you accurate colors right out of the box. Let's assume you have a LCD monitor - you'll likely be able to get 90%+ match to sRGB easily. Why? Most LCD gamuts practically sit on top of the sRGB gamut - if you get an Apple with their Apple LCD Displays, the color match is almost perfect. Most of these monitors can be set to sRGB mode. If that's not present, usually you can set it to factory default, then press an AUTO button to get it mostly there matching wise. Look for color temperature and sRGB mode...it helps to buy a LCD panel that already has these. (That said, my Winbook 15" was that easy - press factory default, press auto, and I'm 95% matched to sRGB right away according to my ColorVision Spyder.) * Next, you'll want to set your color workspace (if you're using a program that handles this - most windows programs simply assume sRGB; Adobe products should be set for sRGB), and your printer mode to sRGB (eg. most Epson printers have this option; other printers, well, suck because they often don't have this option), and your scanner as well (eg. Epson, you can set in advanced mode the scanning target color space to sRGB). There, now that everything's locked to sRGB, what you see on screen will generally match what you scan in, and what you print. PLEASE!!! Keep in mind still that what you see =will never perfectly match= what you print (point #1 above). So even now that everything's working just peachy, prints still won't look just 100% like the screen. Sorry! 5) So what to do? Take a test target image like the Photodisc Test Target (free, search for it), open it up on screen, print a copy in your locked down sRGB workflow, and compare the print to monitor -- this is, for the most part w/o tweaking, about as good as you'll get even after some heavy duty color calibration/management tools. Now, what you want on print will have to be adjusted for on screen based on what you see, experience, and what you've seen printed. But, because you have this standard test target on screen and on paper, you will know that when your own picture looks good vs. the test target, it'll look good in print - you will use the test target as a standard reference point for rapid image adjustments and tweaks ot make it look right. That's right! If you adjust =your= images while viewing a =standard= test target image that prints great, you can make great prints faster because you have something to adjust your own images to! If you only tweak an image by itself, you'll soon find yourself wondering is that blue really this blue or so so blue? It's because when your eyes look at certain colors too long, they lose any objectivity and reference as to what's neutral, good, and correct -- and it's very difficult to adjust correctly without some reference image (like driving at night without any points of reference - just pure darkness). 6) You'll quickly find that with the above, you can easily reduce the process down to one or at least two tweak then print steps before achieveing a perfect print by using an onscreen reference image and a locked down sRGB workflow with a little practice and experience. What you'll do is simply adjust your image to look perfect next to that test target, print and move on to the next image. ================================== That said, what about the color management/calibration/correction tools that cost a bundle ala ColorVision Spyder, MonacoEZ, etc? They do have their place -- usually, the reason is for consistency -- ie. no matter which monitor you drop in, or printer, or scanner, they'll all give you as close of a representation of color to what can be expected of them. It =does not= mean they won't look different after being managed/calibrated/corrected!!!! Only that they'll produce as true of a representation of color as possible. Why is this useful? If you're matching your red to CocaCola's special red, you'd naturally want the most exact match possible. But when printing images, that's totally different - you usually don' t care if that color or this is perfectly matched, but rather, only that they look stunning in combination with the rest of the picture. Here, you're an artist, and you can choose to make the colors a bit more dramatic to achieve the effect you want in a final print. Yes, if you're doing catalogs for clothing, you'd want the colors of that dress to match as close as possible to the real thing - good for the $$$ tools, but most of the time, you can do without these tools in a sRGB workflow. --- Q: But isn't color m/c/c supposed to give you stunning prints?!? A: NO!!!! Color m/c/c/ only gives you the most accurate production of colors possible, not the best image possible -- this is why we still have humans running all of the print machines, to double check what's coming out and to make 'subjective' adjustments to make a nice print into a stunning print. What does this mean?!? =No matter how much you spend= on a color m/c/c/ setup, your 'average' images will still print 'dull and flat', your 'poor' images will print 'poorly', and rarely will your 'great' images print 'stunningly' well. ( You can run right over to any press shop today and ask them, can you print my book of 'stunningly' perfect images I've taken w/o doing a test run, trial print, or tweak? They'll all laugh at you when they ship you some poor looking books! Every press on the planet has to adjust and tweak even though they're all color m/c/c to produce the best looking prints! ) --- Of course, you don't want the monitor to change colors from one day to the next -- makes it very difficult to know what colors look good, so that's why you'd want to lock it down to an sRGB 5000k/5500k state, and just don't touch it (here, a LCD panel will do this 100% better than a CRT). ====================== That said, is the Colorvision Spyder useful? I though so, bought one, used it on my PC, and took it right off after weeks of use and never looked back. Why? My LCD panel, like most sRGB gamut LCDs, was already 90%+ there matched to the sRGB gamut. What little difference I saw on screen was like the choice between cool white and warm white - something I can easily do with my head, and a good test target on screen. Otherwise, what I saw was basically just like I saw before, only a touch warmer overall. (Don't even need to use Adobe Gamma here - a very subjective and 'bad' tool IMO on a sRGB LCD monitor that's already accurate enough.) Did the colorvision make better prints? No! I still had to tweak each image for the best 'subjective' print - it didn't make better prints all by itself. I also have Epson everything - Epson 1200/925 printer in sRGB mode, Epson 1200S scanner in sRGB mode, and the whole input to output pipeline simply gave me pretty good base colors from one end to the other w/o having to touch anything. That said, I can firmly state today that these silly color m/c/c devices perhaps are of use to a CRT monitor user (where most CRTs vary greatly and aren't locked to sRGB gamuts), and to professionals wanting exacting color matching, but for the most part, most consumers today wanting a great print will 1) still have to hand-tweak 2) can use a sRGB workflow to produce generally accurate colors 3) not have to spend $$$ on these color m/c/c/ tools at all. You can also easily reduce the cycle of tweak & print down to one or two prints by simply having a standard test target visible on screen as a reference to adjust your image to in a locked down sRGB workflow. Whew! =) ps. that said, I've happily wasted 6+ months researching this whole silly color m/c/c/ thing, spent $$$ more than I should, and found that I'm back to where I began - hand-tweaking images for the best prints, but now, in only one or two tweak & print cycles - and thrown the Colorvision Spyder and Adobe Gamma out the door for a locked down, free sRGB workflow. honestly! Never once produced a better looking print with those color m/c/c/ tools vs. those made without. As good, yes. Better, never. |
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David Chien wrote in
: Cross-posting here FYI so nobody spends 6+ months trying to find a 'solution', only to realize what I found. ================================================== ===== Subject: Matching print colors to Monitor screen Ive acquired an Epson C82 which I plan to use primarily for printing of Duotone images and some color. When I print in color, the color of the print varies considerably from the monitor image. I've run Adobe Gamma, as well as being careful to match the paper choice in the driver with the paper I'm using, but not much help. After printing, I can match the print fairly close to the monitor by adjusting it with "Color Balance", cyan slider to -10, magenta and yellow each to - 50. The same problem and "correction" is evident with duotone printing. Using the uncorrected monitor image, I can get the print I want by adjusting those colors in the printer driver just prior to printing. I would suggest that if there are colour adjustments tools working in the printer driver you may not be using PS as your (sole) colour manager and have a conflict between PS and the printer manager. My Canon printer driver greys out all adjustments when I manage colours from PS only allowing me to identify the paper type which you have to do to control ink flow parameters. |
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David Chien wrote:
Cross-posting here FYI so nobody spends 6+ months trying to find a 'solution', only to realize what I found. ================================================== ===== Subject: Matching print colors to Monitor screen Great post. Reminds me of something from artist Georgia Okeefe on color reproduction. She drove the printers nuts on her first books because she was attempting to get an exact match between her original art work and the printed copy. After a few years, she dropped the silly crazy making stuff about trying to get an *exact* match with the original, and would instruct the printers to give the best looking prints instead. She and the buyers wanted the best looking prints anyway, and few would have the opportunity to place the original and the print side by side anyway. I think, in the end, that inkjet color printing users should learn to settle for getting the best looking prints that they can, and stop with the silliness of trying to get an exact match with the monitor (which could be kind of screwed up anyway). Great post. Jim |
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I think, in the end, that inkjet color printing users should learn to settle for getting the best looking prints that they can, and stop with the silliness of trying to get an exact match with the monitor (which could be kind of screwed up anyway). The best poor man's calibration is to settle for proper skin tones even if landscapes and nature are the intentions. This can be rather difficult in a group image but the sad fact is not everyone's skin tone in a group image is pleasing, but it's real due to the relative health of all those involved. Non-smokers may have a brilliant healthy pigmentation while smokers may have a slight magenta look to their profile. Others, due to their genetics, may have a slight greenish pigmentation, while the person standing next to them has a nice realistic tan. All in all, the printer's cymk inks being subtractive do pretty well with skin tone. One can narrow down the calibration by zooming in on blue eyes and make further adjustments. More times than not cheat by over exposing abit so each person's complexion differences aren't as noticeable. Now print a landscape or sunset at the settings obtained by complexion shots and leave it at that. Mark |
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I have switched to Adobe color space for both scanner and PhotoShop. I was
advised to do that from af person who work every day with PhotoShop and has done this in many years. The sRGB color space is for web work ect. and not for high quality color prints (I was told). I calibrated my monitor to adobe rgb color space instead of sRGB with gamma 2.2 and set grey to grey gamma 2.2. I then set print space to cmyk profile for my printer and intent to relative colorimetric. I get pretty accurate color match ----- muks |
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