Digital BW, The Print

Can anyone either recommend a solution for calibrating my onscreen 
image with my printed output, or point me to online help or a manual 
workflow to get through it? 

I'm using a Sony 21" E540 monitor, Epson 2200, and Windows XP 
(Home).  The colors I'm getting from the Epson are beautiful, 
particularly on the glossy papers, but the color is way off what I'm 
seeing on the screen. I realize there will always be a discrepancy 
between the luminance of the screen and the color on printed paper, 
but I'd at least like to get it in the ball park.  Is this possible?

BTW, I know someone who purchased the Colorvision Spyder system, but 
was not very happy with the results.

Thanks

Hi;

There are two basic approaches to matching monitor to output; the 
old way , used by DTP people for years, is to print a test image, 
and then screw up your monitor to match. Then when you adjust the 
image to look right again, the printer image will match the screen. 
The method sort of works, but it got entrenched mostly because DTP 
programs like Quark and Pagemaker don't have real color management-
they are designed on the assumption that your final output will go 
to an offset press, not be printed finally on our 'toy'printers.

The better way is real color management, with an app like the 
Colorvision Spyder, or Monaco EZcolor which is what I use. EZcolor 
is the least painful (financialy) because it gives you monitor 
calibration, scanner calibration, and profile making ability to 
control your printer. It also has a profile editor that allows you 
to tweak a profile if it's not quite right at first. It also makes a 
big difference if you buy the monitor sensor rather than trying the 
software calibration. None of this is much good if you can't print 
out of a color-managemnt aware program like Photoshop or Picture 
Window Pro, however, because you won't have a way to apply the 
profile you generate. 

Best Luck, 

Steve K

  --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "tfinan1 
<tfinan@s...>" <tfinan@s...> wrote:
> Can anyone either recommend a solution for calibrating my onscreen 
> image with my printed output, or point me to online help or a 
manual 

> workflow to get through it? 
> 
>

on 2/27/03 2:33 PM, tfinan1 <tfinan@...> at tfinan@... wrote:
> 
> Can anyone either recommend a solution for calibrating my onscreen
> image with my printed output, or point me to online help or a manual
> workflow to get through it?

I'vd been using the Colorvision Spyder with Optical and it's worked great
for me. I'm on a Mac with a Viewsonic monitor and my print match to screen
is very accurate and consistent. It's very easy to install and use. No
complaints here and wasn't very expensive.

Sue

Sue Tallon Photography
suetallon@...





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

----- Original Message -----

From: <tfinan@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 2:33 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Calibrating monitor to printer output?


> Can anyone either recommend a solution for calibrating my onscreen
> image with my printed output, or point me to online help or a manual
> workflow to get through it?
>
> I'm using a Sony 21" E540 monitor, Epson 2200, and Windows XP
> (Home).  The colors I'm getting from the Epson are beautiful,
> particularly on the glossy papers, but the color is way off what I'm
> seeing on the screen. I realize there will always be a discrepancy
> between the luminance of the screen and the color on printed paper,
> but I'd at least like to get it in the ball park.  Is this possible?
>
> BTW, I know someone who purchased the Colorvision Spyder system, but
> was not very happy with the results.

This is a two part process and what you are trying to do ideally is
calibrate both the monitor and the printer to the color space you are
working in. The first step is to calibrate your monitor and I have been
using Optical with a Sypder and it is very accurate allowing you to even
adjust the color temperature of the monitor.

Once the monitor is calibrated you have to calibrate the printer output.
This is done by creating a profile for each ink, print and paper combination
you want to use. You can purchase custom made profiles from various places,
a RIP with profiles or purchase your own profiling software. The rub with
buying your own software is that you will also need a way to accurately
measure the color output of the printer. Some of the low end programs let
you use a flatbed scanner to do this but the results are mixed. Seems to
work for some but not all. To accurately measure the printer output you need
a spectrophotometer and they start at about $700 but a decent one will cost
over a $1,000. When you purchase a custom profile they should be using
instruments that cost several thousand dollars.

In the end these printer profiles will only be good for color printing and
not very accurate for B&W work. Fortunately there is a simple and free
method of getting a pretty good B&W preview on screen using a the Custom Dot
Gain Curve and Soft Proof tools in Photoshop.

See the file "Matching Your Monitor view to Your Prints" in folder " Image
process" in the Files section of group's homepage for Tyler Boley's
instructions. You could also use a scanner or densitometer and calculate
Dot% values to use.

Martin Wesley

I gather by the question you asked at the end of your letter that you're
using the Colorvision Spyder with their profiling software to calibrate your
monitor and printer.  I have been using this system for the last year or so,
and am relatively happy with it.  I have been able to generate profiles for
my system that let me get prints that are very close to what I see on the
calibrated monitor, in this case a LaCie 22".  But I've found that you have
to be very careful in following their instructions for printing and scanning
to the letter.  It is also important to let any printed charts that you
generate dry long enough so that your scans of them will reflect their final
color.  I found George at Colorvision to be responsive and helpful when I
had problems trying to arrive at good results.

Don't give up on this until you're sure that you're doing everything
correctly!