Monitor calibration for printing

[Photonurse62]

My question is about printing. I use Photoshop cc for editing on my MacBook pro laptop. I have done what I thought was calibrating my monitor based on Apple guidelines, however, my pictures still come out either to dark or just completely off. (I send them to a lab) I just don't think I have a good understanding of how to get what I see on my monitor to look the same as my prints. 1. Do I need to buy some other equipment/software to calibrate my monitor differently than what I have done through Apple guidance. 2. Even if I do calibrate in another way, how do I know if the lab will be using the same type calibration. 3. Do I need to buy my own printer? I don't even know if I'm asking this the right way. I have been a photographer for years but just started printing and this is the most confusing topic I have ever tried to understand. I have researched and read as much as I can and no-one has the same advise. All I want is to have my prints look like my photos after editing in photoshop. I need some very serious help and advise because I'm becoming really discouraged.

 

[TCampbell]

The guidelines that let you do this by eyeballing it aren't very good. You have a couple of choices.

I picked up an X-Rite "Colormunki Photo" which is a hardware devices that accurately calibrates my monitors, printers (really printer/ink/paper combinations because different papers absorb different inks uniquely) and it even calibrates projectors (although I don't use projectors). It's about a $350 device.

But since you're not doing your own printing, you don't necessarily need a device that can do printer calibration.

The X-Rite Colormunki Display only calibrates displays (not printers... the Colormunki Photo calibrates displays and printers).
The DataColor Spyder is a competing product and comes in a few versions ... and there are versions that only calibrate displays.

The monitor-only calibration tools will cost a bit less.

An X-Rite ColorMunki Display or a DataColor Spyder5 Pro are both roughly $130-135 range. (vs. the $350-500 range for a more full-featured calibration tool... and some of the tools can cost thousands so these really are the low-price options.)

There is more....

Ambient light in the room can throw your human eye perception of accurate color and since the monitor is illuminated from the back ... and paper is not illuminated from the back, things can still look a bit different.

There are color checker tools which go beyond simple white balance and check to see if your camera is saturating or de-saturating certain colors more than others.

And of course when you send the print off to the lab... they'll have to tweak the image you send to compensate for their own printer/ink/paper combination. But some labs will supply you with the color profile of their specific printers so your can use Photoshop to create an output that will look a bit wrong on your display... but it's been tweaked so that when it's run through that specific printer (the one for which it used the profile), it should produce a reasonably accurate print.

One last thing...

Printers (and even displays) cannot display just *any* color hue, saturation, brightness... everything has a range of what it can produce and that range is called a "gamut". So it's possible that the camera photographed a color that the printer simply cannot accurately reproduce. But the calibration process will at least get you as close as possible.

 

[KmH]

Tutorials on Color Management & Printing
In particular:
Monitor Calibration for Photography
Soft Proofing: Matching On-Screen Photos with Prints

 

[gckless]

In addition to the monitor calibration and everything said here, before you print a full size print for customers or even an expensive one for yourself, get a couple samples from the lab you plan on printing with. If they don't do samples then just a couple small/cheap ones. You may find that your monitor should be adjusted to match their printers to get the results you were expecting.

 

[table1349]

Laptops are not good in and of themselves for editing. The screen is often not at the same height, angle or in the same light. If you are serious about editing you should add a good external monitor that you edit on. That way it will be at the same height, angle and most importantly in the same light. You calibrate to that monitor and always edit on that monitor.

 

[paigew]

You need to calibrate with your prints. In other words, adjust your screen brightness to match your prints. I edited on a laptop for years just fine.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Photonurse62]

You need to calibrate with your prints. In other words, adjust your screen brightness to match your prints. I edited on a laptop for years just fine.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You need to calibrate with your prints. In other words, adjust your screen brightness to match your prints. I edited on a laptop for years just fine.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thank you everyone!!

 

[rosh4u]

When it comes to printing, adjust the angle, height and the light as you want them into your images. Calibrate monitor and always edit so that your results will be as you expect them to be.

 

[Don Kondra]

This helps a lot with getting consistent results > Acratech Viewing Angle Gauge (Silver) 6005S B&H Photo Video

Cheers, Don

 

[KmH]

Print making, particularly from digital image files, is an artistic and quite technical undertaking.
I highly recommend Jeff Schewe's books:
The Digital Print: Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing
Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)
The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop (2nd Edition)

Your computer display is back lit.
Your display might have a 500:1 contrast ratio but the actual print may only have a 200:1 contrast ratio
Prints are fore lit, and if the print has a lower contrast ratio the print will never look like your display.

Before a print is made you can soft-proof the print in your image editing application if your editing app can soft proof.
To soft proof you need the ICC profile of the paper/printer the print will be made on.

Once a print is made the best you can do to compare is to use a print viewing station.