printing out photos?

[RonFrank]

All the information has been a little overwhelming, but fascinating, and has put me on quite a path of research into a area that until now I knew very little about. The printer I use is the hp photosmart 7700, and unfortunately the only editing software I have at the moment is what came with my camera so it is very limited in what I can do with that. So that seems like step one for me is to upgrade that software first. thanks for all the info so far, definitely learning a lot!

So you don't have advanced software. What happens if you jump up the brightness and try printing? Does the print reflect this? Have you tried lowering the brigtness on the monitor so that it better matches the prints?

I don't use calibration tools even if I have a lot of options in printing, and a damn good printer. However there are some things you can try.

 

[Charlie99]

At the $.20 a print a lot of the one hour places are charging, you have little to loose by trying this approach. However don't expect to get great results right away, and you many have to still do a fair amount of color adjustment before you get a good print. However once you do find a process that works, it should be repeatable.

I've run Gretag Macbeth color charts at several different 1 hour photo shops. All used the popular Fuji systems (350 and 370 series IIRC). They were quite different than my printer and monitor, but virtually indistinguishable from one another. Same results when running the Gretag Macbeth file and some other test photos as both the same shops and others a few months later -- so I assume that there is some sort of frequent calibration of the machines.

I chose to adjust my monitor and my printer to approximate the prints from the 1 hour shops. Not real scientific, but it works.

 

[jonahfab]

I've played around with your ideas and it has helped. I also found on my printer where I can change the color space it prints in. I'm definitely not there yet but I'm moving in the right direction. thanks for all the help.

 

[owen]

Well... If you haven't spent money on advanced software yet, I'd seriously
recommend you take a look at GIMP. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation
Program, and, is Open Source software. It runs on Windows, Mac, and just
about any POSIX operating system, and, binary distributions are available
so you don't have to compile it yourself. GIMP provides most of the features
of Adobe Photoshop and many features not available in PS. It has pretty
good documentation available, and, the UI is about as intuitive as PS
(which isn't particularly intuitive, but, once you learn it is actually pretty
efficient).

In terms of colorspace and such, I've had much better luck in getting faithful
reproduction using my Mac than any of the other platforms I've tried. Part
of this is because Apple built color correction and color space knowledge
into the OS from very early.

The best results in terms of photo printing come from dye sublimation printers.
Second best is a good photo-oriented Ink Jet, followed by conventional Ink Jet,
and then color laser printers. The worst results are from color impact matrix
printers, but, I haven't seen anyone actually using one of those in years.

Now for the more technical -- To expand a bit on differences between monitors
and printers.

There are two key differences between monitors and printers. First, monitors
use "additive" color, while printers produce "subtractive" color. Second, monitors are
almost always based on an RGB color system (meaning they make their colors
by producing various intensities of Red, Green, and Blue light which mix together
in your eyes). Printers are almost always based on a CMYK color system (meaning
that their colors are comprised of Cyan (kind of a sky-blue color), Magenta, Yellow,
and Black. A further factor is that most monitors can control the intensity of
each red, green, blue element in the picture. Printers usually can for a given
pixel only produce 16 possible combinations of "on" or "off" for each of CMYK.
This leads to 16 colors per pixel on a printer, and, about 16.7 million colors
per pixel on a monitor. There is some compensation for this in that a monitor
is usually about 72 pixles per inch, and, a printer is usually >=300 pixels per
inch.

As to additive vs. subtractive color: A monitor makes color by adding red, green,
and blue light to each other. A printer puts colored ink on paper such that
white light striking the paper is only partially reflected. A cyan ink dot will
remove all components of the white light except the cyan. A magenta ink dot
will remove everything execpt magenta, etc.

There is a correlation between the RGB and CMY portions of the color space
in that R=M+Y, G=C+Y, B=C+M and C=G+B, M=R+B, Y=R+G. This is an
oversimplification, but, it generally works OK for a basic understanding.
So, where does K come from in the CMYK model. In an ideal world, CMY
would not require K (black), but, in the real world, C isn't exactly C, and
M isn't exactly M and Y isn't exactly Y. As a result, C+M+Y doesn't make
black in the real world (it would in the ideal world), but, more of a greenish
dark grey with some brown undertones. Also, with the addition of K,
we get 16 possible colors per pixel instead of 8, since we can make a
bright version of any of the basic 8 colors, or, a dark version by adding
some black ink to the pixel.

It is important to note that in printing and on the screen, the colors do
not mix on the display (paper or CRT/LCD). They mix in your eye.
Bad things actually happen when ink colors mix, and, one of the more
challenging aspects in early color inkjets was developing inks that
did not have a tendency to mix together when sparyed on the paper.

Anyway, good luck with it and happy printing. Let me know if I can
be of further help.

Owen

 

[Jim Ernst]

Unfortunately this is a rather advanced topic.

Every device operates in a different color space. The color space used by a camera will be different from the color space that is used by the monitor, and that will be different from the color space used by a printer. To add to the confusion, each paper type may represent colors in a different manner. Ink is also a factor, and if you are using an aftermarket ink, that may lead to more issues.

Software applications may or maynot be color aware. Many software applications do not recognize different color spaces. An example of a color space is sRBG, or Adobe RBG. With my D1x I can shoot in Adobe RBG, and then can process the image using that color space in PS. While the two spaces may not be 100% matching, they are close.

To get these things all in alignment requires calibration tools, and color aware software to process the images. Spyder makes a lot of these types of products, but they are not all that inexpensive especially if one wants to be able to profile various papers for a given printer.

Most printers come with a standard set of profiles for given paper types. My Epson 2200 provides profiles for each type of paper they sell, for example Epson Premium Luster.

If one does not want to purchase calibration tools, Adobe offers the Gamma option which will do a reasonable job of helping get the monitor setup so that it represents colors as shot. Adobe CS provides a lot of options for adjusting color when printing in the advanced options. If you are using non color aware software to adjust your images, and print, you may have a very difficult time making the adjustments necessary to get a close color match between the monitor, and the print.

Manufactures have been attempting to address this issue, which impacts one hour labs, professional labs, and consumers alike. Color profiling is likely the biggest challange in labs today. Where there were a very finite number of film choices in the past, there are as many color spaces in digital as there are digital models available to the consumer. This has posed a BIG challange for professional, and one hour labs alike. PictBridge and DPOF are two examples of how manufactures are attempting to align color space. However even using a Pictbridge camera with a pictbridge printer may not make the image viewed on the monitor acurate against what will be produced by a printer.

I'd suggest getting a MacBeth ColorChecker image from somewhere, and work with this. View it on the monitor, print it out, and then adjust your print settings as needed until the colors are similar between the monitor, and the printer. Adobe CS provides adjustment of brightness, saturation, Contrast, Yellow, Magenta, and Cyan to help accomplish this. If you have no control of adjusting your print settings, you can try adjusting the monitor.

As others suggested, make sure you are using the right paper based on the printer profiles provided by your manufacture. In addition, many high end papers provide a profile with the paper either in the box, or that can be downloaded. Keep in mind that the more specific the profile to the printer and paper the better. Downloading a Canon profile for Epson Premium Luster paper to an HP printer would be a bad idea. To give you some idea of how specific a profile can be, there are services that allow the photographer to profile THEIR printer. Not just the model, but the exact printer in use, and these custom profiles will vary between printers of the same make and model. For most of us, that type of custom profile is not required, but this illistrates that printing really is an art, and to do a great job in a lab environment takes equipment, and skill.

I wish this was an easier topic, and I've tried to keep this less technical than it is as there is actually a LOT more involved like when to use perceptual vs. absolute colorimetic, and what is black point compensation.

I wish there was an easy answer, but unfortunately there is not. The good news is that once you get your workflow setup, it is a repeatable process. I can generally get a good print in one shot.

hey ron, just wanted to also say thanks for such great info, i recently noticed this problem in only one certain picture , but it caught my attention, and i started to inquire info on it and didnt get far, the info you provided is a big step in the right direction for me as i address this further. i recently purchased a new hp photosmart 7850 printer, i have a dell computer, and i use my canon program, (got printer last week) so far i have had good results, i hope these are going to continue to be a good match, any comments or input would be great to hear!! thanks

 

[PapaBob]

Some more basic stuff <g>. I own an Epson 2200 and I am not familiar with the HP 7700 series printers. First, follow the previous advice and invest in a monitor calibration device such as the Colorvision Spyder or Monaco EZ Color. This will go a long way to improving your results. Next, get some good image software. I recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 which I can get at my local Costco for about $80. It does a lot and the skills are mostly transferable to full version Photoshop if you get addicted. You are now out about $170-$200.

The big jump would be upgrading to a better photoquality printer, but I am going to assume that is out of budget at the moment. According to HP the 7700 series has a menu button where you can choose “Enhance Image” and then “Photo Brightness.” This option may help cure the brightness problem you are having. In Photoshop Elements 3.0 the “Print” button brings up a print “Print Preview” dialogue box were you can choose Page Setup>Printer>Properties. Your printer driver properties box may let you adjust color and brightness and might be a way to correct some of your problems.

None of the 7700 literature indicates support for ICC Profiles. With the Epson 2200 and similar quality printers you can tell the printer driver to sit quietly in the back seat and let the computer control all of the output to the printer. The ICC profile for your printer, inks, and paper tell the printer to print (as faithfully as possible) what you see on the screen. The combination of a calibrated monitor and use of ICC profiles gets you about as close to matching screen and print as you can get.

My buddy at the professional camera shop I frequent has another suggestion. He opines that the sRGB color space (used by most digital cameras) is bunk. Shoot, process and print in Adobe RGB color space if your camera and software support it.

Then there is the cost factor. Costco is now cheaper than anything you can do with a home printer even considering only the cost of paper and ink (and not the cost of the printer). A while back Charlie posted a neat tip as to how to get your computer to line up with the Costco printer. He alluded to it in an earlier post. Hey, Charlie, can you find the old thread or repost the details? You had some really good ideas.

—Bob

 

[RonFrank]

My buddy at the professional camera shop I frequent has another suggestion. He opines that the sRGB color space (used by most digital cameras) is bunk. Shoot, process and print in Adobe RGB color space if your camera and software support it.
—Bob

Hmm, IMO this is BAD advice. Color space is exactly that. While some may provide more, SRBG IS the space most widely used. Adobe RGB is what I shoot, however when I post stuff to non-color aware apps, it's in sRGB.

This is not a Chevy vs. Ford debate.

 

[mfalco]

I used your advice and seemed to help alittle, but pictures still seem to be losing some of the crispness. I'm using a hp photo printer so I don't think it is the printer or could it be?

I also use a HP photo printer, and you will loose crispness. It is the limitations of an inkjet printer. To get photolab quality you need a dye sublimation printer. They are expen$ive. They are just starting to come down in price. The ones for 4x6 and smaller are starting to get affordable.

 

[RonFrank]

I also use a HP photo printer, and you will loose crispness. It is the limitations of an inkjet printer. To get photolab quality you need a dye sublimation printer. They are expen$ive. They are just starting to come down in price. The ones for 4x6 and smaller are starting to get affordable.

One does NOT need a dye sublimation printer to get good results.

MANY pros use the Epson line of pigment ink jet printers. These have archival quality of over 100 years, AND produce excellent results.

DyeSub printers are fine, but not necessary, nor do they offer a larger Dynamic Range vs. others.

 

[kdietz]

Good info here http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps9_print/ps9_print_1.htm

Karl