new printer

[Mitch1640]

i just got an epson r1900. my dad printed some pictures of ours on it last night, the pictures he took came out fine, mine came out dark. today i installed the printer on my computer and they are still coming out dark. would calibrating my monitor take care of this or do i have to calibrate my printer also? if so will something like a spyder 3 take care of both or do i need seperate calibrators?

 

[Garbz]

Before you jump in calibrating things do a google search for soft-proofing. If the images are still just too dark then something as simple as adjusting the gamma visually by using a site such as Gamma calibration - Lagom LCD test may be sufficient. A full blown calibrator would be useful if you have a colour cast on the photos that's not visible on the screen.

Typically also printers don't have calibration issues like screens do. Ink stays ink, and providing the driver takes into account what paper you have loaded (all canon drivers do I assume the epsons are the same), or you are softproofing then not much can be wrong on the printer side. Also if you have a cheap screen the viewing angle can make a big difference in brightness / contrast of images.

So
1. Check your viewing position, view the screen straight on.
2. Check your drivers are at defaults and you haven't clicked any of those "photo enhance" buttons you see. Basically enhance is a kind way of saying "let me do this you don't know squat about making a photo".
3. Check your monitor gamma.
4. Now consider a calibrator.

 

[kinosoo]

make sure your using the right driver, had a similar problem when i went to a mac with my 2400, turned out i was using the "gutenprint" driver rather then the Epson driver. that or something else is funny in your settings. you should be abole to clear this up with out a calibrator.

 

[feRRari4756]

to get accurate prints:

you should first calibrate your monitor with either a huey or spyder (i reccomend spyder. i used a huey and had a lot of problems).

then, in whateever program you are using, turn on soft proofing and set it to the printer profile that was installed with ur printer driver for whatever paper you are using.

then, print.

 

[EOS_JD]

to get accurate prints:

you should first calibrate your monitor with either a huey or spyder (i reccomend spyder. i used a huey and had a lot of problems).

then, in whateever program you are using, turn on soft proofing and set it to the printer profile that was installed with ur printer driver for whatever paper you are using.

then, print.

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