Printing with an inkjet

[dpn]

For what it's worth, this $5.99 book is concise, well-written, and will definitely get you in the right direction.

Essential Colour Management: What every photographer needs to know (The Lightweight Photographer Books) by Robin Whalley.

My $0.02: See if the $5.99 book, which details color management, how to correct out-of-gamut stuff, and the basics of printing nice inkjet prints on nice printers, gets you where you need to go. If you need a more expensive resource, you're only out $5.99. If it works for you (and it worked well for me), you've saved a ton of money and don't need to buy a more expensive reference.

[jim10219]

Here's what I do. Buy a printer profiler. If you don't want to spend a ton of money on one, get a used Xrite i1. If it doesn't come with any software, you can download something like Argyll and DisplayCAL. They're a lot more difficult to use, and there's some DOS level command prompts, but there are step by step instructions online.

The first step is to profile your monitor, so that you can have a reasonable level of trust in what you're seeing is what you will get. Next, you profile your printer. Now, what you want to do, is print from a program like Photoshop. In PS, there's an option under view called something like "proof setup". What that does is it adjusts what you see on your monitor to look more like what you'll see in your print. There will likely be several options to choose from, and sometimes the profile you used to make the print (especially coming from a program like Argyll) won't be the most accurate. It might be a good idea to print off a test chart and go through a bunch of proofing profiles to see which one looks the most accurate. Then use that.

So what I do is edit my pictures in PS to how I like. Then I activate the proof setup view. Now I adjust the colors more if necessary.

That won't get you 100% there. Test prints are still a good idea. But if you set up your printer like that, it'll make the test and reprint go a lot quicker, and in many cases, allow you to avoid that step completely. I don't do test prints anymore for anything smaller than around 11x14. With that workflow, the colors come out right 90-95% of the time, and I'd actually be wasting ink and paper making test prints, since I'm only reprinting a job about 1 in 20 attempts. For large prints, however, You can waste a lot of ink and paper just reprinting something once, so small test prints still make sense.

One thing to be aware of is to always print from an RGB colorspace with a quality inkjet printer. If you're printing on a commercial press, convert the file to CMYK. Most inkjet photo printers of any quality will have a larger color gamut than CMYK, so they can take some advantage of the extended range of RGB (though usually not full). Most commercial presses run on CMYK, so if you send them an RGB file, you may not like the results, depending on what profiles they use to convert the RGB into a CMYK.

[macandal]

You can buy a Spyder 5 or similar, which calibrates your monitor, then gives you a profile which (with my epson p800 at least) will calibrate your printer to the same profile.

Here's what I do. Buy a printer profiler. If you don't want to spend a ton of money on one, get a used Xrite i1.

So, yesterday I went to Samy's here in San Francisco and one of the salesman said to get the i1 Studio. He didn't know much about the Spyder equivalent but he said to check that one out and see which one I liked best. Anyone knows what the Spyder equivalent would be? If you do, which one would you recommend? Thanks.

[bob carnie]

I would add to above that getting a good profile for your specific printer and for the paper you are using is critical, I use Hahnemuhle papers and they do provide excellent starting points.

For inkjet printing a good starting point is critical, making a test print and adjusting the colour , density , contrast overtime will become second nature. The goal is to get a decent print first time that represents what you are seeing on your monitor. Some people take this too far and get caught in techno babble that is not what I suggest.

Making a test is the best method and if you are really far off then something is wrong with your application and there are many techno nerds out there that can help you with this aspect, just remember if it looks like a good print, it probably is.

[faberryman]

You might want to start off just printing and see if you are happy with the results before you think about investing in the time, effort, and expense of jumping through the the calibration hoops. The biggest hurdle to overcome is becoming familiar with print down, where the image looks brighter on screen than in the print (hint: prints aren't backlit). I initially just adjusted brightness to match and thereafter got good results. Later, I then went through the calibration routine and honestly don't think it got me very much. I still had to dial down brightness manually. It's a real rabbit hole. Before you know it, you'll be thinking that you need a $5000 EIZO monitor to be a real photographer.

[bob carnie]

You might want to start off just printing and see if you are happy with the results before you think about investing in the time, effort, and expense of jumping through the the calibration hoops. The biggest hurdle to overcome is becoming familiar with print down, where the image looks brighter on screen than in the print (hint: prints aren't backlit). I initially just adjusted brightness to match and thereafter got good results. Later, I then went through the calibration routine and honestly don't think it got me very much. I still had to dial down brightness manually. It's a real rabbit hole. Before you know it, you'll be thinking that you need a $5000 EIZO monitor to be a real photographer.

plus one.. a good understanding of the info palette and how the numbers will relate to the final print . I use LAB numbers to make sure my shadows and highlights fall where they should on PAPER, and curves to apply the look of a print

[andrewch59]

There are no calibration hoops. I simply set up the spyder on my monitor, it saves a profile which it then uses to change the tones on my monitor. After that I just tell my printer to use the same profile. Once a month I get a reminder to re-calibrate my monitor.

[Chester McCheeserton]

You might want to start off just printing and see if you are happy with the results before you think about investing in the time, effort, and expense of jumping through the the calibration hoops. The biggest hurdle to overcome is becoming familiar with print down, where the image looks brighter on screen than in the print (hint: prints aren't backlit). I initially just adjusted brightness to match and thereafter got good results. Later, I then went through the calibration routine and honestly don't think it got me very much. I still had to dial down brightness manually. It's a real rabbit hole. Before you know it, you'll be thinking that you need a $5000 EIZO monitor to be a real photographer.

Plus 2.
and what Corran said.

I'd skip any books written on digital printing and spending any time messing with spyder calibration. Just leave your monitor at the factory settings. Spend the money on ink and paper and show your prints to someone who is a good print maker who can give you feedback.

[Peter De Smidt]

A monitor profile and printer profile are two different things. I wouldn't print to a monitor profile!

When starting, I'd pick a paper surface first. Red River has a bunch of well-priced papers, and they have good profiles. The profiles are made by a company that specializes in color, and so they likely have way better equipment than you can buy for home use. Plus, they're affordable...and they come in regular photo sizes like 11x14 and 16x20. Download their profile for your printer and your paper. Now place your test print in the same type of lighting that it'll be displayed in. How does it look? It just might be good enough, or fairly easy to make good enough with a simple curve. Now make some prints! Make sure to look at them a day later, as the images change as the ink dries. You can use a hair dryer to speed that up. After you get experience, evaluate. Where are you having difficulties? Perhaps a better monitor (NEC with Spectraview!) would help.....But know that a good printer can print with any monitor, if they learn the numbers.

[Chester McCheeserton]

[QUOTE=Peter De Smidt;1466454]A monitor profile and printer profile are two different things. I wouldn't print to a monitor profile!

Indeed they are. I print straight to srgb all the time, not always though. But I've made some very decent prints that way, at least to my eye. But I know that's not the "correct" way.

My point was that it's not always necessary to create a custom monitor profile.

I do agree about Red River, I use their matte paper for quick contact prints and book dummies, always happy with them.

Understanding the difference between assigning and converting to profiles and setting up a good viewing light (ideally one of those GTI units if you can afford it) are other tips I'd throw out there.