Calibrating monitor

Hi: I am sure this has been addressed many times, but I find that the photo
colour on my editing software is very different than what prints out. Any
suggestions? Sorry, I don't have Photoshop so I need hopefully some sort of
freeware or possibly shareware. thanks.

Richard Bornstein wrote:

Hi: I am sure this has been addressed many times, but I find that the photo
colour on my editing software is very different than what prints out. Any
suggestions? Sorry, I don't have Photoshop so I need hopefully some sort of
freeware or possibly shareware. thanks.

Google terms "color management" "ICC"
The workaround is to make some prints and twiddle your monitor settings
to look similar to the prints. A shortcut might be to check some gamma &
other settings & be sure to use name brand papers. Basicallly if you
don't follow every step in the long chain of color management, it's a
crap shoot whether things will look right.

--
Paul Furman
http://www.edgehill.net/1
san francisco native plants

Paul is right. The simplest way is to use the best possible paper for
your printer, tell the printer driver you are using that paper, best
quality settings, and then print. Then play with your monitor settings
(most graphics card drivers have quite good gamma adjustments) to get a
close match. You may also wish to turn ICM on in your printer driver..

If you can't get reasonably close like that, just be warned that color
management is hard to implement and will take some homework. It will
probably get worse before getting better!

I would suggest you start at Norman Koren's excellent site, and see how
far you wish to go..

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

While on this topic, could someone clarify the difference between
"calibrating" and "profiling"?

PC monitors have approximately gamma of 2.2. My video card allows me to
adjust the gamma. So, are digital photos straight out of a DSLR intended to
be viewed in gamma =2.2 or gamma=1.0 enviroment? If it is 2.2, then Mac
users are hosed? If it is 1.0, then why does adobe gamma ask for "desired
gamma" and not hard code the desired gamma to 1.0??

What does adobe gamma do exactly? It changes the gamma obviously, but change
it from what to what? Could be it, to change it from approximately 2.2 to
exactly 2.2? Why not change it to 1.0?

"Richard Bornstein" wrote in message
...
Hi: I am sure this has been addressed many times, but I find that the
photo
colour on my editing software is very different than what prints out. Any
suggestions? Sorry, I don't have Photoshop so I need hopefully some sort
of
freeware or possibly shareware. thanks.

While on this topic, could someone clarify the difference between
"calibrating" and "profiling"?

PC monitors have approximately gamma of 2.2. My video card allows me to
adjust the gamma. So, are digital photos straight out of a DSLR intended to
be viewed in gamma =2.2 or gamma=1.0 enviroment? If it is 2.2, then Mac
users are hosed? If it is 1.0, then why does adobe gamma ask for "desired
gamma" and not hard code the desired gamma to 1.0??

What does adobe gamma do exactly? It changes the gamma obviously, but change
it from what to what? Could be it, to change it from approximately 2.2 to
exactly 2.2? Why not change it to 1.0?

"Richard Bornstein" wrote in message
...
Hi: I am sure this has been addressed many times, but I find that the
photo
colour on my editing software is very different than what prints out. Any
suggestions? Sorry, I don't have Photoshop so I need hopefully some sort
of
freeware or possibly shareware. thanks.

In article ,
Richard Bornstein wrote:


Hi: I am sure this has been addressed many times, but I find that the photo
colour on my editing software is very different than what prints out. Any
suggestions? Sorry, I don't have Photoshop so I need hopefully some sort of
freeware or possibly shareware. thanks.



In a somewhat similar sense to the way that musical instruments can
never be "perfectly" in tune, there can never be a "perfect"
correspondence between the colors identified by mixing pigments based on
their absorptive and reflective qualities, vis a vis, the "same" colors
identified by proportions of incident light and transparency.

That said, it is possible to come very close, but that only applies if
you're mapping the colors you see on one display device to the colors you
see on one printing device with specific ink, paper, etc, and possibly
even with a specific range of colors in your product.

It may surprise you that some of the processes used to approach this
issue are governed by patents, and the implementation of the process is
a closely guarded piece of property in some cases.

This raises the barrier to entry in numerous areas, such as textile
dyeing, paint matching machinery, commercial printing apparatus, even
the language that a designer needs to use to communicate color to a
client, may be literally owned by someone in a position to demand
royalties.

Even if you're not converting from incident light to ink, there are
still a gajillion ways to represent a given color. If your web browser
supports Java applets, then play with this for a bit:
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~ncs/color/a_spaces.html

Notice how, even though you can represent the same color in several
colorspaces, the curves that connect one color to another can be very
different, so you can see that there's more to a color than it's
components; for example, the properties of the components of a color,
And their relation to their neighbors, is also very important.

And then you have to deal with the real world, where not every curve of
every ink, dye, or phosphor, is a nice smooth mathematically precise,
complete, consistent range of values.

How does this help you print what you see on your screen, onto your
printer? It doesn't. But it might help you understand why some
software does not quite manage to do it. It's not only a complex
problem, but also, some of the solutions are not available for everyone
to use. I have some ethical and political views on this situation, but
I find it much easier to just use Photoshop (Elements is fine), than to
get upset about it.


Now, on the other hand, you should be able to get *close* without a
whole lot of work. "Close" in this case, means you should be able to
print your photos, and hold them to the standards of, say, drugstore
snapshot prints, and this is certainly possible with a Canon or HP
printer and the color profiles that come with the driver. You
shouldn't even really need 6-color ink to get passable results.

But once you need to get beyond "passable", and get into areas where
let's say a contract depends on getting the colors right (a designer
gave you a Pantone swatch, and all your copy has to match that swatch,
no matter if it's on the cover of a magazine, or on a tear-out card
inside the magazine, or on TV, or on a lighted sign, or painted on the
building... do you see where I'm going?) So you get into the realm of
buying custom profiles and color standardization tools, and it never
stops. On the other hand, it's perfectly reasonable to invest in a
custom profile for your printer.

What you're using for hardware and software? Maybe someone here knows a
way to get more out of it without spending money. There seems to be two
kinds of photographers here, one with the sort of budget that allows for
high-end cameras and lenses, and keeps models and makeup artists and
grips on a payroll, and the rest of us, who would like to pursue the
hobby on a budget that reaches as close to Zero Dollars as possible. So
every problem has a different solution depending on which end of the
budget scale you fall on, and color printing is certainly no exception.

I discovered that it's not only more cost effective, but sometimes even
faster, to simply upload my photos to a local lab. Turn around time is
not that much slower than my printer, and I really like the 8x10's I've
gotten from them. I like having my printer, because it's convenient,
but I've come to realize that it's folly to try to make my own serious
prints.

"Richard Bornstein" wrote in message
...
Hi: I am sure this has been addressed many times, but I find that the
photo
colour on my editing software is very different than what prints out. Any
suggestions? Sorry, I don't have Photoshop so I need hopefully some sort
of
freeware or possibly shareware. thanks.



It all depends upon your Editing Software.

Is it capable of Colour Managing? Look up Colour Manage in its help files.
Look up Monitor Calibration in its help files.

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are capable of this, and install a utility
called Adobe Gamma, which can make a reasonable job of calibrating CRT
monitors. Other programs can do similar, but I have no knowledge of them.

A calibrated monitor will show your images with accurate colours and
brightness.

A Profiled Printer will print your image with accurate colours and density.

Someone else was asking about Gammas. Should it be at 1.0 or 1.8 or 2..2 ?
Nowadays most systems use 2.2, older Macs used to use 1.8.

It is a fairly complicated subject, but not Rocket Science, and most people
find it becomes simple enough once they have absorbed the basic principles.

Roy G

Calibrating and profiling are used as separate terms by Monaco. They use
calibrating to refer to things that can be done by eye and by changing
settings on the monitor; they use profiling for the work done by the
calorimeter on the monitor and for the work done by scanning and printing
targets. to develop icc profiles for the scanner and printer.
Without a color managed program the best option for consistency, although
not necessarily correct/desirable colors, is to use the PIM system that
relates camera and printer color data directly, if you have a printer and
its program that supports this.
If you want to take your photography to the next level then invest in a
color managed program, like Elements, and a monitor calibrating device and
learn to use both. I have been an "advanced amateur" for decades, in and out
of darkrooms, but it was not until the availability of color management,
Photoshop and photoquality inkjet printers that I finally feel the printed
images are something near what I envisioned when I pressed the shutter
release.When the prints start reliably looking something like what you want
it can become addicting.

Calibrating and profiling are used as separate terms by Monaco. They use
calibrating to refer to things that can be done by eye and by changing
settings on the monitor; they use profiling for the work done by the
calorimeter on the monitor and for the work done by scanning and printing
targets. to develop icc profiles for the scanner and printer.
Without a color managed program the best option for consistency, although
not necessarily correct/desirable colors, is to use the PIM system that
relates camera and printer color data directly, if you have a printer and
its program that supports this.
If you want to take your photography to the next level then invest in a
color managed program, like Elements, and a monitor calibrating device and
learn to use both. I have been an "advanced amateur" for decades, in and out
of darkrooms, but it was not until the availability of color management,
Photoshop and photoquality inkjet printers that I finally feel the printed
images are something near what I envisioned when I pressed the shutter
release.When the prints start reliably looking something like what you want
it can become addicting.