color space and resolution of commerical printer

[shingfan]

i went to Walmart over the weekend and spoke to the technican (who also is a photographer)....

he said the new digital printer they use at walmart (the one i went to at least)......they dont care about color space setting (it is embedded).....and there is no DPI setting as well.....the guy said it is a chemical printer.......only the old analog printers have color space and DPI setting

any thoughts?

 

[Digital Matt]

Sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about. It has to have a color management control, and it has to have a DPI setting. He may not be able to make changes to teh DPI or Color Space, but it is still utilizing it in the process. He just doesn't know what it is. I'm pretty sure they use a Noritsu machine, which is the same machine at the lab I use. It prints images at 300 dpi and uses sRGB as a color space. I would go to a good lab.

 

[shingfan]

i guess i should try printing at a different lab to see what the difference is like......but right now i'm using adobe 1998 for all my work......it seems to give me the color that i would want.....with sRGB....color seems too saturated

 

[Digital Matt]

Adobe RGB is a wider color space than sRGB, so you are confused. If you open a document that is in sRGB into photoshop with a workspace of Adobe RGB, in the conversion it will super saturate the colors. You have to be careful. You should never go from a narrow color space to a wide color space. You should read up on color spaces, profiles, and the rendering intents used to go between two profiles.

http://www.color.org/iccprofile.html

 

[shingfan]

i found that it doesnt matter what color space i save it as..the color come out looking the same as i see it on my computer?....so does it mean that the color space of my monitor and the printer are the same?.......the thing about matching the color space.....is so that you can see the printout on screen?.....but once you match the color space...it doesnt matter what color space you save the picture as....ti will look the same as it appears on the screen?

 

[Sw1tchFX]

I just assume use s(orry)rgb 100% of the time. It's the universal color space, and is compatible with everything. If I work on an image in srgb on my computer and print it in srgb on a printer, than it will look (relatively) the same.

 

[markc]

If an image is saved in one color space and it is opened as another color space, you will get strange things happening, like over saturation or a dull look. If you actually convert from one space to another, you may get a slight shift, but it should be real close.

The printer driver will handle converting whatever color the image has to the color space of the printer. The reason you want to work in the same color space is so that you can see what you will get. Some printers can print a lot of different greens; some can print only a few. If you work in the same color space, you will be able to more closely see that. If you have an ICC profile from the lab, you can even emulate how the ink will look on the paper used, so that white will actually be the color of the paper.

 

[EOS_JD]

i found that it doesnt matter what color space i save it as..the color come out looking the same as i see it on my computer?....so does it mean that the color space of my monitor and the printer are the same?.......the thing about matching the color space.....is so that you can see the printout on screen?.....but once you match the color space...it doesnt matter what color space you save the picture as....ti will look the same as it appears on the screen?

Monitor colour spaces and image colour spaces are different. sRGB and aRGB are standard colour spaces for images. If your monitor is calibrated correctly and you use the correct monitor profile and also the correct printer/paper profile then what you see on screen should be a true reflection of the print and the printer should be able to reprodece what you have printed.

You may be lucky that all works together but I've had to calibrate my monitor to get an accurate representation of colour on my monitor.

Printer seems to print well so long as I use the right profile for printer/paper.