Hi,

I have just started printing from Photoshop, and it is immediately apparent that using different makes of photographic paper produces markedly different results. Some give a result looking like the original on screen, others just do not! I know that using colour is complicated with different "colour spaces" which might be underlying the variation. But my question is the following: when the printed photograph is noticeably different from what Photoshop shows, is there any way to systematically determine how to "pretreat" the original picture so that the resulting printed version looks like the untreated original? I have tried adjusting the original (hue, saturation, colour temperature and the like) so it looks like the printed one, hoping to then somehow "invert" this process, but with no success.

Thanks

Rick

Rick, Welcome to the forums. I am sure you will find a wealth of information here. You will also notice we have a great gang that is generally more than happy to share their experiences.

I will offer two quick pointers to your question. The first, you already touched on. Make sure you are working in the same color space your printer will use to print.... Second, be sure your monitor is calibrated.



Alan

The first thing you need to do in calibrate your monitor and your printer. You have a calibration with Adobe and that is all done by eye. Unless you can afford a special piece of kit that will do it for you. LCD screens are far more difficult to calibrate than the old CRT. I do mine by eye, but that does mean wasting a bit of paper and adjusting it until I have a good enough print for me. Here is a link that will help

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

http://www.aquiladigital.us/darkadapted/index.html

There is a lot of info out there that can help, just punch it into your search engine, but these are great sources of information

Thanks Tony and Alan for your pointers to calibration of screen and printer. However the problem seems to be a little more subtle - I have a Canon printer, and using Canon paper the print colors are not right at all, using HP paper (all settings the same) the print colours are very good. Is it a color space problem with the paper? And how does one determine underlying the colour spaces?

Rick

I am beginning to see a possible (trial and error) solution with the information at http://www.normankoren.com/printer_calibration.html

Rick