Printing Help Needed

I now have a decent printer in an Epson Photo R3000. I have just started learning about the details of printing and I have the printer settings down, I think.

Now what is the trick to matching screen to print ? I know the two will never be exact but so far I find myself printing an image and then another at +10 brightness, +20 brightness, etc until I find the setting I like best.

Surely there has to be a better way than trial and error.

Any tips, insights, etc. would be welcomed.


Andrew

Andrew,

This is a huge topic, gobs of books, internet sites, tutorials abound.... I'm pretty sure a common thread in all that is profiling your printer. In other words, you need to assign a profile to your print files specfic to your printer in order to reproduce accurate color. Of course you know that a reflective print can't look the same as on a monitor, but you must start with a calibrated process, which includes a printer profile AND calibrating your monitor.

I personally recommend getting a customer printer profile for your printer from Michael Gordon.

I'm not a prolific printer myself so I'll leave the rest of it up to others. Have fun!

Lon

To add to Lon's fine recommendations, consider turning the brightness of your monitor down to match your print brightness. Then adjust your images with your image editor to taste. I know this sound somewhat simplistic, but the bottom line is that it works. Most monitors come from the factory set to appeal to gamers and the general public at large, but too bright for photographer's needs. If your calibration software allows you to set 'intensity' or 'brightness', try 115 cd/m2 for a relatively good monitor.print match.

Yep. I turned my Asus down to the lowest brightness setting. Works perfectly with my 3000.

I bought a $5000 printer and still had to buy a $1500 RIP from Image Print. They have one of the best RIPs around but not cheap. A friend of mine who has been a fine art printer for 30 years uses them. And still you will do some test and adjustments. I crop a representative slice and print it across the page, make changes then move the strip to the next page position and print again, saves on print paper.
And yes you do still need to profile your monitor so that the RIP has an idea of what to convert to what.
It's a huge topic, you can spend years studying the theory, but actually what you're doing is the easiest. Every image will have it's own best setting too, one does not work for all, nor are all papers the same.
Hence, Costco and if you don't like it you don't pay for it, and do it again. Their web site also has links to tutorials on color management because you can download their printer profiles too.

I'm going to step back from what Lon and John said, although it's all valid.... the basic steps to getting good prints and print matching are :

1) Calibrate your monitor, with proper brightness
2) Prepare your file properly with a good sharpening workflow
3) Print with proper color management in the software
4) Use the correct ICC profile - specific to your printer and paper combination

This getting started with digital printing guide is pretty extensive, although somewhat out of date.

This is a guide from Chromix on getting your prints to match your screen.

And this is good info on color management and printing from Cambridge in Colour

All of that said, that in information should get you making the best most accurate prints possible. For some people, that's not always necessary, and shortcuts like John's suggestion can work.

David's steps 1-4 are critical for a good print. One item not mentioned is the contrast ratio of the monitor. Most new monitors are set to very high contrast ratios; sometimes as much as 1000:1. Such ratios will never reproduce in a print, so a print will look very flat with poor blacks and muddy mid tones.

Using high-quality monitor calibration software and colorimeter will allow you set the monitor white point, luminance (brightness) and contrast ratio. This will go a long way toward achieving good results

Andrew, you will need to experiment a bit in order to get the best monitor/print match. It is not, unforntunately, a 'one size fits all' situation. The articles David points to are good places to start.

--P

It drove me crazy trying to make acceptable prints at home. Once I was crazy, I found most of my prints acceptable. But, now, seriously, there are some things that increase the probability of making a print you like at home. David's completely straight-faced response is a succinct description of the measures you may take.

Pete D. probably didn't help much here.