printing problems photoshop

[andrez58517406]

hi,

When i going to print a photo and the print dialog is on the screen the color of the foto is not so vivid as in the regular photoshop screen. the skin tones are a lot more blue. I tried different colorspaces (Adobe RGB, SRGB) and different printing profiles. when i print the photo the colors are exactly the same as in the print dialog. But these colors are wrong.

im sorry for my english. I'm from holland so its not my language.

anyone a solution?

Hallo iedereen,

ik heb een probleem met het printen vanuit photoshop. De afdrukken verschillen te veel van het scherm. De foto's zijn ietwat te blauw waardoor gezichten een grauwe kleur krijgen. Ik heb verschillende kleurruimtes gebruikt (Adobe RGB, SRGB) en ook verschillende profielen.

Als ik in photoshop de opdracht print geef zie ik de foto van kleur veranderen (de kleur in de printomgeving (voorbeeldfoto) is ook te blauw dus die matcht wel met de afdruk maar die verschilt van de foto die ik in photoshop heb aangepast.

mijn scherm is gekalibreerd. het probleem zit volgens mij ergens in de transfer van photoshop naar de printmodule.

Iemand een oplossing

met vriendelijke groet,  Andre

[davescm]

There are three elements in getting a print close to the colours seen on screen. It is not a matter of trial and error with different profiles, but instead making sure that the correct profile is being used at each stage. Then the colour management system used by Photoshop will convert the colours correctly for viewing on screen and for printing.

The first is ensuring your document is tagged with the correct colour space. This might be for example sRGB, Adobe RGB , ProPhoto etc. Only one of these is correct and whilst you can convert to another and the colours will still be correct, if you assign another then the colours will be displayed incorrectly.

The second is your monitor profile. Ideally you should have monitor calibrated and profiled with a hardware device. This will ensure the colours are displaying as accurately as your monitor is capable. If you do not have such a device then, look for a manufacturer profile for your monitor (although it is not unusual for these to be broken).

Third is the print profile. This should be the correct profile for your printer/ink and paper combination. Creation of these requires a spectrophotometer - but the paper / printer manufacturers usually do a pretty good job with these (particularly for the printer manufacturers own papers)  - so you can download a suitable profile. When using this profile set Photoshop manages colours and turn any other colour management in the printer driver to off. You must only convert once.

Dave

[andrez58517406]

Dear Dave,

thank you for you're explanation.

i did it exactly how u told me but the print was / stayd to blue and not so vivid (color was a bit cold). I printed a lot off photographs with a new layer witch i made more vivid and orange (to much for the screen, just about right on the print) the color became a bit more vivid. later on i turned off the layer and the colour was a bit better. maybe a color dryed out in my printer?

it started when i bought a new screen with adobe colorspace so i thought that was the problem. Maybe my printer was the problem.

its very difficult to make a very good print.....

many thanx anyway

Andre

[davescm]

it started when i bought a new screen with adobe colorspace

This may be the issue. You are using a wide gamut monitor - it is essential that Photoshop knows the characteristics of that monitor so that it can display the image correctly on screen. That is the purpose of the monitor profile. So the sequence with a screen calibrator is to calibrate (i.e. bring the monitor close to a standard) then profile which tells Photoshop how to adjust colours sent to your display so that they display correctly. If your monitor is off (say too yellow) then you can compensate by adjusting the colours in another direction (say too blue) which makes them look right on your screen but bites you when you view them elsewhere or come to print them.

Once that monitor is correct and you have the correct printer profile for your paper and printer combination then you can soft proof (View Proof Set up and View Proof Colours). This displays a simulation on screen of the way your print is expected to look avoiding nasty surprises.

The first stage though is getting that monitor set up correctly.

Dave

[andrez58517406]

HI Dave

thats what i did when i installed my monitor i profiled my monitor with a calibrater. my screen has a LUT (BenQ SW2700PT) and the profile is build in the LUT (ik think). So the profile is somewhere in my computer but i didnt "tell" photoshop myself witch profile it has te use. I just calibrated the screen, saved the profile in the LUT and started up photoshop.

ik think the profile is somewhere in the LUT from the monitor. And the colours are very nice. Dous the Mac pic up that profile automaticly or not?

Andre

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Hi

You are almost right. The calibration is loaded into the LUT and the profile should be installed in your PC. Your calibration software should do that for you. You don't need to tell Photoshop which monitor profile to use (unlike the color space or printer profile). Photoshop should use the correct profile installed for your monitor.

So if you are confident that your screen is correct, does the print match the view that you see if you set the printer profile in View Proof Set up - Custom Proof Condition (see below)  and then set View - Proof Colours?  With a good monitor calibration & profile and the correct printer profile, the simulation should be pretty good. The colours will look subdued on screen as a print can never produce the full range of tones and the brightness that  you can see on your monitor

Dave