Color settings – is there a straightforward guide?

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Posted By
Nige
Dec 5, 2005
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347
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3
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I consider myself to be an experienced Photoshop user, going all the way back to v3, but I still find myself using trial and error (and wasting an awful lot of paper and ink) because I don’t understand the basic process of getting printed colors to match what I see on screen.

I have a shelf full of books on Photoshop – all of which acknowledge that this is a complex area, but then go on to make it even more complicated by their use of impenetrable language and trying to cover every possible scenario.

I’m not interested in web design – or color matching for commercial printing – I simply want my monitor and my inkjet printer to produce broadly similar colors with the mimimum of tweaking. Can anyone point me to a simple step-by-step guide through which this might be possible? I’m not looking for absolute color accuracy – just consistent, reliable results.

Surely this is not asking too much?

Any help would be gratefully received…

Nige
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color guide settings

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neon
Dec 6, 2005
Nige wrote:
I consider myself to be an experienced Photoshop user, going all the way back to v3, but I still find myself using trial and error (and wasting an awful lot of paper and ink) because I don’t understand the basic process of getting printed colors to match what I see on screen.
I have a shelf full of books on Photoshop – all of which acknowledge that this is a complex area, but then go on to make it even more complicated by their use of impenetrable language and trying to cover every possible scenario.

I’m not interested in web design – or color matching for commercial printing – I simply want my monitor and my inkjet printer to produce broadly similar colors with the mimimum of tweaking. Can anyone point me to a simple step-by-step guide through which this might be possible? I’m not looking for absolute color accuracy – just consistent, reliable results.

Surely this is not asking too much?

Any help would be gratefully received…

Nige
you didn’t mention which os you’re running so i’ll assume tiger (10.4). would also be helpful to know what printer(s) your using and what version of photoshop you’re using.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/colorsync/

regardless of which os you’re running, google "color management" photoshop tutorials. there are many understandable (at least for me) tutorials online.

make sure your monitor is correctly calibrated. make sure you have and use icc profiles for your particular printer/paper combinations for both soft-proofing and printing.

make sure when you print you don’t "double profile" your images. in other words, make sure you send only 1 profile to your printer. personally i prefer to have photoshop control the printing. use the appropriate printer/paper profile and disable color management by the printer. and if you’re using an epson printer be aware that many, if not all, epson drivers don’t support icc profiles in the "preview" feature. use the "preview" feature only for placement and scaling. don’t trust the color of the previews.

and don’t forget that inkjet printers have a very limited color gamut compared to your monitor. some colors just can’t be printed.

hope this helps.
S
scfree
Dec 7, 2005
here’s my 2¢:

get the best monitor you can afford, which shouldn’t be too expensive these days. At work we have NECs – AccuSync LCD 200VX. I don’t know monitors in and out, but this one looks great. I think they were under $700.?

Go through the System Preferences, Displays, Color > Calibrate steps, and that’s it.

I turn all color management, profiles, and such off, and try to rely on getting the best source image possible, performing very little adjustments to it, and sampling and reading the CMYK builds of key areas and colors. If you have a build reference book or even a Pantone build swatch book, you can see what a build really should look like. ISBN 1-56496-134-6

I think we are still in a period where have to get proofs. I there is money, I would always, always get a good proof for them to match on press. The ink jet output wouldn’t be something I’d rely on.

best of luck.
steve
A
akiersky
Dec 14, 2005
I reciently read a great toutorial on how to correct color in images. It is much easier than you would think. It works pretty well assuming your printer is working properly, plus it dosn’t matter what your monitor shows, it could be black and white for all it matters. Find a part of your photo that should be a mid-range grey. for best results, take a picture of a grey card. Now use the eyedropper to find out what rgb values that grey in the picture comes out as. Now, as you should know, when the rgb values all read the same, the color will be grey or a shade of black. if these values don’t match, find the average of the three. Now go into curves, I will use red as the example, but you must calibrate all three, Let’s say the red value from the eyedropper came out at 170, and the average of all three is 173, change the input to 170 and the output to 173. Adjust each of the rgb channels in curves to each be 173 and your grey should be accurate. Color corrected.

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