Printing

I've got a Nikon D70 & shoot in RAW (NEF) format.

The PC is fast (64 Bit) with Samsung 172 Wide screen & a Canon I550X
printer. I have fiddled about with various monitor profiles & printer
compares but still the prints don't bear much resemblance to the screen
image. Is it worth paying to have an ICC profile done?


Best Wishes
Bruce

Are you printing from Windows? In other words, do you select the file
from the "MY PICTURES folder? Do you get the Welcome to the Photo
Printing Wizard?

If you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, try printing from there.
I resolved my printing problems using Photoshop.

Hope this helps.
--
Chris
Please visit:
www.cjpphotos.com

"Bruce" writes:

I've got a Nikon D70 & shoot in RAW (NEF) format.

The PC is fast (64 Bit) with Samsung 172 Wide screen & a Canon I550X
printer. I have fiddled about with various monitor profiles & printer
compares but still the prints don't bear much resemblance to the screen
image. Is it worth paying to have an ICC profile done?

I haven't used that printer, and you don't say if you've calibrated
your monitor ("various monitor profiles" sounds like you're using
various pre-packaged profiles, rather than using a monitor calibration
system).

The profiles that have come with the printers I've used have been good
to excellent. My guess is that you need to profile your monitor, or
perhaps your workflow is simply badly broken; and you have to resolve
those before you can see whether the printer profile is adequate.

But I'm guessing a *whole* lot, from a long way away.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

Bruce wrote:

I've got a Nikon D70 & shoot in RAW (NEF) format.

The PC is fast (64 Bit) with Samsung 172 Wide screen & a Canon I550X
printer. I have fiddled about with various monitor profiles & printer
compares but still the prints don't bear much resemblance to the screen
image. Is it worth paying to have an ICC profile done?




First go buy color confidence by Tim Grey ($10 used at amazon) and educate
yourself on color management. it's easy to get lost and you'll waste way
more than $10 worth of ink/paper and still not be any closer to a solution.

Basically you'll need to hardware calibrate your monitor (I use the
original eye1), have a custom profile made for a specific paper/ink/sample
of printer (yes there is sample to sample of printer color shifts) from
some place like Cathey's profiles made from -your- printer using the
software you plan to print with and then use some good software like Qimage
to print with and life will be good. Canon's profiles are pretty bad and a
good profile is well worth the money. I really like ilfords classic pearl
paper with canon's inks. Now that I have a calibrated monitor, a custom
profile for my printer/paper and use Qimage, EVERY print looks perfect
first shot. This is how it's supposed to work!
--

Stacey

Bruce wrote:

I've got a Nikon D70 & shoot in RAW (NEF) format.

The PC is fast (64 Bit) with Samsung 172 Wide screen & a Canon I550X
printer. I have fiddled about with various monitor profiles & printer
compares but still the prints don't bear much resemblance to the screen
image. Is it worth paying to have an ICC profile done?

It's pretty easy to screw up the profiles if you break one step in the
line. Check everything again before bothering with profiles, you
probably can get reasonably close & a profile won't help if the chain is
broken.