Help? Photoshop is printing super saturated pics.

[Uglulyx Takes Photos Too]

So every time I print a picture it comes out super saturated, not sure if it's my computer my photoshop or my printer. I use a Kodak EasyShare 5300, and use Photoshop Elements 4. Is there any way to calibrate my monitor without buying anything expensive??

 

[mrodgers]

It's your colorspace. I don't know much about colorspace, but I had the same problem. It seems strange to me, but I have to work on my photos in sRGB and print in Adobe RGB. If I print in sRGB, the colors are way oversaturated. If I work in Adobe RGB, again, on the computer the colors are way oversaturated and print the same.

Colorspace is extremely confusing to me. It was just by chance that I got them looking on the computer and printing the same.

"Is there any way to calibrate my monitor without buying anything expensive??"
You have to define expensive. In my opinion, no, there is nothing to do that isn't expensive. But, $50 is expensive to me.

 

[Garbz]

Photoshop is a 100% colour managed application. Converting the colour space to sRGB for printing purposes is not the correct way to print with this application, especially if you wish to gain any of the advantages that working in AdobeRGB has in the first place.

http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/pscs2/download/PSCS2_colmanage.pdf This PDF gives you a quick few pages on how to print so the colour is right.

http://www.islandnet.com/~bigblue/news/colormgmt.pdf This one is a massive PDF on colour management, calibration, profiling, ICC profiles, colour spaces, colour conversion, printing, the works, and takes you from start to end. Obviously you need to ignore things you don't have the hardware for like a profiler for generating an ICC profile of your printer, but it can give you a great grounding in colour management if you have the time to read it.