Help printing with Adobe CS

[RtS]

I am trying to make a print in Adobe CS with an HP deskjet printer. First off, I know the quality will be lacking with this printer, but for what i need for this project it is fine. Ok, so When I go to "print with preview" there are all kinds of color management options. Before I waste anymore paper or ink, how do I get it to print the same as it apears on my NEC monitor?? This is frustrating!

Thanks,
RtS

 

[Meysha]

You'll need to calibrate everything. I did a google search for it but there's so much stuff out there and so many instructions.

I do backwards calibration sometimes if I'm lazy. I find it's the easiest - but probably not the best. Just make up a PS document with a bunch of different colours, red, green, blue, black, white, grey.
Print it.
And then change your monitor settings so that it matches what you just printed. Problem is that you sort of need to do this before you start editing photos otherwise all your colours will be different when you print. So that way is probably no good for you.

 

[Rob]

Meysha's advice is good and will probably work as you're comparing the original with the end product. This is especially the best way to correct brightness and contrast issues.

However, having recently rescued a friend from nervous breakdown trying to print photos in the same kind of situation, I have another theory for you to try.

With PS, make sure that the image is using the same colour profile/space as the program. I set all my images to the European RGB (has lots of numbers on the end) profile and make sure that PS is working in that mode. If there is a discrepancy, some colours - notably asian skin tones, come out in lairy orange with strange mis-density which the printer makes a hash of. This often looks like it's lost the ability to render more than 70dpi and makes you wonder if you've bought a dud printer.

Also, I thoroughly recommend turning off the colour management "enhancement" options as I have never found them to improve matters with photographs. Sharpness, Contrast etc. on the printer just seem to make things worse and introduce digital noise on the fine lines.

This anecdotal evidence is based on using PS 8 CS with an HP Photosmart 7100, but will apply to most of the HP ColorSmart range and probably most versions of PS.

Good luck, let me know if I make any kind of sense!

Rob

 

[Rob]

Oh, and also avoid the glossy papers with most of the HP printer range - they leave horrible scrapes all down the paper or smudge their own ink.

I found I could get seriously close to lab quality with HP Professional Semi-Matte paper, as long as the image hasn't been fiddled with too much - blurring, dodging etc seem to be more noticable on the prints. However, the resultant mess on ordinary paper was disgraceful and not even worth printing. It's an expensive business, but when you've got it right, the results are worth it.