Monitor-Print Matching: Please Verify This Solution

[Ken Lee]

Could someone please verify or correct this "solution" for monitor-to-print matching ? I am basing this on the excellent series of articles from CHROMiX Color Wiki, such as My Printer Is Too Dark.

Even if our monitor has been recently calibrated, and we are printing with a custom profile for our printer/paper/ink, we can still end up struggling to match our prints to what we see on the monitor. Why ? Because monitors are much brighter than paper, and manufacturers are making monitors brighter all the time. Unless we work at it, our printer will be... "too dark".

We need to be able to turn the monitor down to paper-brightness, then calibrate it, and then work on our images under those settings.

Using a computer with a built-in monitor - like a laptop or an iMac - there can be a problem: The calibration software will turn the brightness all the way up, even if we have it turned down to match the level of paper. We can turn it down again after we calibrate it, but what's the point ? The monitor is no longer calibrated. And the newer monitors are getting bright, you can't turn it down far enough, even if you try.

One solution is to use an external monitor that has its own brightness controls. We can turn down the brightness to match the paper, and then calibrate the monitor. We save that profile, and use it when making images that we plan to print.

Apple computers come with built-in support for 2 monitors, and allow you to calibrate each monitor independently. You can create and save as many profiles as you like. So with a laptop or iMac, there is a viable solution.

[jim kitchen]

Dear Ken,

Are you making a comment about their web site information, or are you quoting these folks? Just curious, because I read their brief information, where a few of the comments make sense, but other comments do not. I would like to ask you whether you are using a stand alone Mac with a separate monitor, a newer iMac and, or an IBM'ish computer with a stand alone monitor to calibrate your images prior to printing?

This article could be better if they explained what they meant by comments such as this: "ColorEyes Display Pro is available as software-only, which is handy for those who already have a colorimeter device - although still a bit of a shock for someone who thought they had this color stuff all figured out until they bought their latest new LCD display." That statement is misleading, because there are no issues.

I use a RIP to eliminate any and all of these paper differences, and the best RIP that I use happens to be called "Imageprint," where my printed images match my ColorEyes Displays Pro calibrated screen, to the pixel. My images are never darker than my monitor, and if the images are darker, the difference is probably less than one fifth of an f-stop, and that could be because the paper batch might have changed.

Get a RIP...

jim k

[Ken Lee]

Thanks so much for your excellent suggestion, which I had completely overlooked !

I'm not quoting them, merely looking to verify their concepts.

May I ask: You just use your calibrated monitor at its normal level of brightness ? Is it a laptop ?

[erie patsellis]

Ken, one thing that I do that has gotten me 99% of the way to a perfect match is to calibrate to a specific luminance, and with specific surrounding room illumination. If I'm not mistaken, I found that 90 cd/m^2 worked for my environment to give me a nearly identical match to my prints.

[jim kitchen]

Dear Ken,

I do not own a laptop, just a Cinema HD Display, and a boring video card. I do have two other iMacs kicking around to handle the programming stuff when I progam, where their monitors are calibrated with ColorEyes Software too. These monitors react identically after calibration once you set the luminance values within the software.

If you have a moment, I would like to suggest that you could review another forum site, such as this one: http://www.integrated-color.com/cedi...profiling.html because that forum contains many resolved calibration issues for IBM'ish users, Mac users, EZIO monitor users, and the forum's information may direct you to another solution or process validation. Unfortunately, the answers you seek are buried within the technical forum, which requires that you become a forum member to review any of the questions and answers, and I believe you can join that forum without cost. I also remember, since I visit that forum periodically, that their password life span is measured in days, possibly hours...

That said, I tried several years ago to manually match my calibrated screen to my favourite paper, where the results varied significantly, and the paper testing process became a black hole money pit. Logic dictated that I should abandon that fruitless process quickly, find a trusted master printer that exercised his or her printing equipment daily to minimize any imperfections, where they owned a RIP with profiles that performed flawlessly with my paper choice, and find a master printer that continuously represented their quality workmanship.

There are a few extraordinary digital master printers within this forum that could answer your questions too, regarding the process this author discusses within ColorWiki. Hopefully they will add a comment or two, shortly.

jim k

[Stephen Best]

Could someone please verify or correct this "solution" for monitor-to-print matching ? I am basing this on the excellent series of articles from CHROMiX Color Wiki, such as My Printer Is Too Dark.

There's some good advice in the colorwiki article. If I can add my own:

1. Notebook and iMac screens aren't satisfactory for colour critical work.

2. Most common recommendations for monitor luminance are too high. They're intended to maximize the monitor's gamut, rather than getting a print (contrast) match.

3. A hardware calibrated monitor (namely modifying the monitor's internal LUT) is more useful than a wide gamut one. Wide gamut monitors aren't as essential as a lot of people make out.

4. Not all monitors perform the same at optimal (lower) luminance levels. Which is why Eizo monitors cost more (I don't own one but would buy a CG211 over any other current model if I could afford it).

5. You need to match the whitepoint of the monitor to your typical paper white. So if you're printing on warmer (rag) papers this will dictate your choice of monitor.

[Tyler Boley]

No one on the planet knows more about color management, it's strengths, weaknesses, and how make it work than Steve Upton and his people at Chromix. I would take anything they say very seriously. I'm not sure about the particular quote, out of context.
A monitor to print match is not particularly enhanced by the use of a RIP. I would suspect that things are working well for Jim because of adherence to good color management practices, a good monitor, and the well made profiles that preview successfully for him supplied by ColorByte for use with the RIP. I'd bet money that the same setup, sans RIP, but with output profiles for the OEM driver of equal quality injected into the same environment would also be successful for him.
LCD monitors, and the popularity of laptops in particular, have complicated this entire issue...
Tyler
http://www.custom-digital.com/

[Henry Ambrose]

As mentioned in the article, I can verify that from actual experience that ColorEyes Display Pro works on my iMac. It adjusts the brightness as needed to get good calibration.

I don't bother with calibration on my MacBookPro because without a controlled viewing environment you're not going to get what you want no matter how much you calibrate. Add in that the MacBookPro screen is not full 8 bit per channel color and you're just fine not depending on it for critical color correction.

And keep in mind that there will always be some "human translation" from a light emitting screen to a reflective piece of paper. Always some.

So, precisely what solution is it that you want verified? What particular hardware and software do you plan to use?

[Ken Lee]

I use a RIP to eliminate any and all of these paper differences, and the best RIP that I use happens to be called "Imageprint," where my printed images match my ColorEyes Displays Pro calibrated screen, to the pixel. My images are never darker than my monitor, and if the images are darker, the difference is probably less than one fifth of an f-stop, and that could be because the paper batch might have changed.

Get a RIP...

I tried a demo version of ImagePrint on my Mac PowerBook laptop (4 years old) and Epson 2400. After some gnashing of teeth and help from their support forum, I got it working.

Jim, I get the same results as you: what I see on my monitor, is what I get in the print. My monitor is also profiled with ColorEyes Display Pro, but I never had to turn down the brightness at all.

Here is the test image I use for profiles.

The profiles made available by ImagePrint are remarkable, in that for my printer/paper combination, they provide one for each kind of black ink, and for each of those options, there is a unique profile for different kinds of lighting: tungsten, incandescent, daylight, etc. So there are at least 6 profiles for each paper/ink combination.

[Sheldon N]

I agree with erie about calibrating to a specific luminance value. In my case it is 120 cd/m2 which has the brightness setting on my monitor at almost zero with the RGB channels backed off somewhat as well. Lower is fine too, if your working environment is dark enough to allow it.

The other thing I'd suggest is to use the softproofing feature in Photoshop with the proper profile, and with the black point compensation and simulate paper color options checked. It does a decent job of simulating the dynamic range of paper vs. an LCD monitor, especially if you go to a fullscreen view and get rid of the toolbars (F key, Tab Key).