Between my monitor and my printer . . .

[Midland Red]

. . . what happens to me photos?
On my PC Monitor the photo looks fine
When I print out on my Canon Pixma 4200 the colours look quite different
Do I need to set / reset anything?
This may be basic to some but to me . . . . . !

Thanks

 

[SabrinaO]

You need your monitor calibrated.

 

[itf]

This happens to me also. lol. Are we supposed to pay to get our monitor calibrated or what?

 

[Overread]

What you need is a hardware based monitor calibration device. You have to use a hardware based one instead of a "free" online version because the free versions rely upon your eyes to make the choices and your eyes are subjective and will adapt to varying lighting and colour conditions. Hardware based options (such as a Spyder 3) are infinatly more reliable because they are not subjective.

In addition if you want a perfectly calibrated home printing setup you'll need a device to further calibrate your printer as well. Spyder make a kit of this whilst others make devices that can calibrate both printer and screen.

It can be costly, sadly, but owning the device is well worth it since monitors and printers will drift out of calibration over time - so they will need recalibration every so often to ensure continued performance

 

[itf]

wow it is costly. I think I'm fine with my macbook pro screen for now xD.

 

[Midland Red]

What you need is a hardware based monitor calibration device. You have to use a hardware based one instead of a "free" online version because the free versions rely upon your eyes to make the choices and your eyes are subjective and will adapt to varying lighting and colour conditions. Hardware based options (such as a Spyder 3) are infinatly more reliable because they are not subjective.

In addition if you want a perfectly calibrated home printing setup you'll need a device to further calibrate your printer as well. Spyder make a kit of this whilst others make devices that can calibrate both printer and screen.

It can be costly, sadly, but owning the device is well worth it since monitors and printers will drift out of calibration over time - so they will need recalibration every so often to ensure continued performance

Oh dear - how complex this all sounds

Q.1 - why do I need to calibrate the monitor when the colours appear fine
Q.2 - what's involved in recalibrating?

In simple terms, please!

 

[Overread]

You need to calibrate the monitor and the printer because whilst the colours on the screen might "look" correct they might not actually be "correct". This is also applicable to brightness as well, most often LCD (flatscreen) monitors are very bright; you don't notice this because your eyes adapt to the brightness, but a hardware screen calibrator can.


Recalibration is simply repeating the calibration process to ensure that printer and monitor have not difted away from being calilbrated.

Also you might want to check out Huey I think they make a slightly cheaper all in one screen and printer calibrator