Calibrate Your Monitor to Get the Best from Your Printer

Utilizing a custom ICC profile along with your printer is one of the smartest measures you can consider to strengthen your digital printing workflow, especially if you happen to be a photographer - or possibly just an avid hobbyist who realizes the value of obtaining the most precise color possible out of your printer. But being able to see accurately printed color depends on the ability to see accurate color on your display monitor, as well. Before it is possible to experience the full power of effectively using a profile for your printer, you ought to calibrate and profile your display monitor. You can print perfectly true color from your printer all day long, but it will not appear correct to you as long as you continue to use a display that has not been precisely calibrated and profiled.

A monitor profile enables ICC-aware programs - like Photoshop - to accurately present your image's color. To realize an equivalent appearance in print, the existing color data must be translated into the correct output values for your printer, and whatever combination of paper and ink you decide to use. The role of your printer profile is to accurately translate the appearance of ink that is laid down on the media. Canned or generic profiles from printer or paper manufacturers may provide mostly passable results, but they may not always accurately represent the behavior of your unique printer. I am a powerful proponent of ditching those canned profiles in favor of utilizing a custom printer profile, which is a much better alternative. In my opinion, the suitable insertion of a custom printer profile into your digital printing workflow is a key step in matching your display with your printed output.

Almost always, your display is able to reproduce a larger range of colors (wider gamut) than your printer. This is even more true today, aided by the rapid transition from older CRT monitors to more modern LCD displays. Consequently, it is just about impossible to adjust a printed image to look like your display; but rather, we strive to make your display resemble the print instead. Achieving this requires that you send the image through the printer profile, and back through the monitor profile, so you will see an emulation of your printed image on your computer's display. This is referred to as "soft proofing. This functionality is available in a number of favorite third-party applications, like Photoshop, Qimage, Aperture, and others. Pretty neat! Soft proofing enables you to simulate your printer's output and helps you to realize the best screen to printer color matching.

Calibrating your display screen is possibly the simplest and least costly step in the process of developing a valid color management system.  If you haven't done this step already, it is something you should try to do possibly before - or at the same time as - profiling your printer.  Using a printer profile is a waste of time if you lack the ability to match your monitor's output to your printer. You will find some excellent monitor calibration devices and software packages available online. Here are just a few:  Spyder3 by DataColor (different versions and price points), also various versions of Pantone Huey, and X-Rite’s i1 (Eye-One) Display software.  All of these products include a precision colorimeter device for accurate monitor calibrations, and software that will help you create a custom monitor profile.  The software packages listed here are major players in this niche, and all provide very good results at a reasonable price. But there certainly are others you may want to take a look at.  All of these systems provide thorough information about the display settings you will need to use so as to view images on your monitor with unyielding color accuracy.

Dissatisfied with your computer prints? Did you purchase a high-end printer, and it just will not deliver the great results you expect? Well... the problem is probably not your printer.

Rick Ashford is a photographer and also a skilled color management professional whose online printer profiling services will help you jumpstart the quality and color accuracy of your printer's output. Visit Rick's website for more info, and to let him help you improve your printing.

http://profilesbyrick.com