Not sure if this is the right forum for this question but here goes: How can I get the same colors which are displayed on my monitor to appear on the printed page? I’m using Photoshop Elements 6/Painter/ArtRage, an iMac and an HP Photosmart C5180 printer and it seems no matter what settings I select, I can’t get the printed image to match what’s displayed on my monitor. Any assistance would be immensely appreciated. Thanks.
Image Differences on Monitor vs. Printed Page
scrimski
#2
You can’t. Monitors use RGB, print CMYK. With proper calibration of both mointor and printer you get very close though.
halen
#4
With proper calibration of both mointor and printer you get very close though.
That and a stable environment. With this subject is possible to go as far as one wants, but whatever you do we still go back to start: “you can’t”. Only the position of “good enought” changes when printing.
Since monitor emits light and papers (usually) don’t there is also quite a difference in luminosity. So to get the same luminosity, the light hitting your calibrated screen should be something like 60-120 lux (quite dark actually, like a small bulb at the other side of the room) when same time the light hitting your print should be something like 500-1500 lux (very bright working light).
Best would be to use d50 lights (ones with averagely 5000k color temperature, quite close to some afternoon daylight) with proper color reproduction index (>98) and smooth spectrum. Just Normlicht and Solux are quite popular manufacturers of these lights.
There are also actual proof stations that you can connect to your computer and calibrate with it to get exact luminosity. And even whole computer managed rooms which adjust their lights to get the prints right. However even then - there is no guarantee that those prints would work under some other light…
So my advice would be: do what you can to the environment, calibrate, accept the rest. :rolleyes:
BoBoZoBo
#5
To add to Scrim -
RGB additive color Vs CMYK Subtractive color. You are going to nee to change modes and adjust accordingly.
RGB has a larger gamut than the standard printable CMYK gamut so you have to be aware of that when trying to print art designed for screen. This has a particular crushing effect when it comes to green/blues and saturated red/orange.
Not sure if PS elements has this but in PS, under View > Proof setup. You can set your document to try to simulate what the CMYK breakdown will be while leaving your document RGB.
Therer are different flavors of CMYK just like you have for RGB, for CMYK “SWOP v2” is the most commonly used range for print.
There are plenty of calibration tools and doodads, but most of them are hot air and completely unecessary now a days. A simple Spyder or similar calibration tool will work, but you still need to make sure not only your monitor is calibrated, but so is your printstation, and the two need to agree with each other.
In the end, its all about the eye.
Jettatore
#6
A few things quickly.
#1. You don’t have that great of a monitor nor do you have that great of a printer, so there is no way to get perfect or even near perfect with your current hardware so don’t even try, it’s simply impossible.
But don’t confuse that to mean that you can’t improve what you already have, or that what you have won’t do the job, because your hardware is capable, it’s just not, nor will ever be, perfect 1:1.
#2. Calibrate the monitor with something like a spyder calibration kit. http://spyder.datacolor.com/
#3. Calibrate your printer, using it’s standard calibration and diagnostic tools (test prints). Refer to the manual.
RiKToR
#7
Just know though, even with calibration there will still be differences. The will be at least consistant differences that you experiment with to get the best settings. If your using photoshop and your printer has an ICC profile you can use load the ICC and soft proof in PS. On a calibrated monitor this will get you about as close as consumer products can.
Taraboom
#8
If you absolutely want a perfect match, you must go down calibration pathway, which includes purchasing a hardware tool for monitor calibration (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews.html#Monitor_profiling), and calibration of your printer. An overview of color management for PS could be found here http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps10_colour/ps10_1.htm
Basic monitor calibration could be done with online tools http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
cgbeige
#9
Just note - all this calibration isn’t going to matter much if you send your stuff to a press without a press-approved proof. Your plates might output nicely but if the prepress prints something for the pressman to see, you’re likely not going to see that and even then, if you don’t give them something yourself, it’s only a loose guide for them, not something you can use to say “I’m not paying because this output looks terrible.”
I’ve worked as a magazine art director for years and it’s hard enough getting some people to get things right even with Kodak approvals in front of their face and you yelling “MORE YELLOW.” I recently had to send an EP to France to print without a proof and the colour/contrast was awful and I had no recourse since we couldn’t give them anything to use as a guide (that was 100 hours of Maya work spoilt). But press approvals aren’t cheap and you can’t just send an Epson from home.
That said - I’ve got lucky with some very tricky imagery and no proofs (my friend’s label simply can’t afford the overhead of a $70 proof + shipping). NEC WUXi Spectraview/i1 calibrator + years of CMYK tweaking are a good combo when you have to rely on no proof. If you want a little info on CMYK and RGB, I wrote something here:
http://arstechnica.com/features/2009/01/gimp-2-6-review.ars/8
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