Printing from Photoshop CS2 has become a real headache.
All of the prints are too dark.
The same file, imported into a Word document, prints much better, and an image from the internet, sent to the printer also prints very well, so I can't blame the printer. When I take the same file to another computer running Photoshop 7 and a different printer, it also looks much better.
I bought a Spyder calibration meter and tried to run that but I'm afraid that I don't really know what to do with the results.
I would appreciate any advice on how to set up the color profiles to get my images to look like they do on the monitor.
My monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 913n and my printer is an Epson Photo 700, and I run Win XP SP2 and use Epson glossy photo paper
Thanks.
you can get printer settings files from epson site for particular paper and your printer.
must admit i never print from photoshop.
i work on image , and when finished save as a jpeg ( best quality ) , a bmp or a tif .....
i then use xp's own printing system to print that picture outwith photoshop.
you calibrate the monitor with the spyder to display onscreen the colours correctly.
that should mean that with correct printer settings the same red dot from the screen , should print in same shade of red on the paper
try right clicking on the file in xp , select preview and print from there , selecting printer and paper type in printer properties.
Hi Luis.
I had the same thing happen to along time ago using a R200, when you print in the options part of the print window make sure that "Colour Handling" is set to "Let Photoshop Determine Colours" That should cure the problem.
I ran the Spyder calibration tool on my monitor and created a printer profile as well and it has improved the situation. I really need to study up on colour management in Photoshop CS2.
Thanks to everyone for their advice.
Just another followup, I did a monitor calibration with my Spyder hardware and then a printer profile and some tests.
The differences between using PSCS2 and letting the printer do colour
management did show some differences. Letting the
printer do colour management produced somewhat stronger results. When PSCS2
does colour management (with the correct printer profile entered) the prints
are just slightly lighter and softer. With the printer handling colour
management on automatic the prints are a tiny bit richer in colour and
slightly darker in the shadow tones. I assume that going to windows and
telling it to install the latest profile created makes it use my profile
instead of the generic epson photo 700 profile that came with windoes, but
I'm not sure.
I realized that unless I have a good exposure on the original photo,
things are much harder to get looking nice, even if we can tweak the photo
in PSCS2.
The differences between letting PSCS2 and the printer do colour management
are very slight with a good photo.
This surprised me as I thought that PSCS2 would be better at printing than my
older epson photo 700.
Does anyone think that getting one of the newer printers, say the epson
photo 340, will improve the ability to colour manage as opposed to finer
resolution images or not.
Thanks for all the advice offered.
You have a Mac as well don't you? (you asked for FCP tutorials recently), try printing from the Mac.
Spent 2 hours trying to get a print from CS2/Windows on an Epson, the prints came out with green blacks, changed a full set of carts, cleaned printheads 5 times - still green blacks.
Installed printer software on a Mac, used Epson software to print and the print came out sparkling with correct colour first time.
You have a Mac as well don't you? (you asked for FCP tutorials recently), try printing from the Mac.Spent 2 hours trying to get a print from CS2/Windows on an Epson, the prints came out with green blacks, changed a full set of carts, cleaned printheads 5 times - still green blacks.
Installed printer software on a Mac, used Epson software to print and the print came out sparkling with correct colour first time.
Actually, no.
I am a teacher and I have a PC lab at school which now includes 8 win xp PCs running Premiere Pro and Photoshop 7 that I have built myself. Our school network is so unreliable and slow that I preferred to go the PC route and keep them as standalone workstations, otherwise my classes would grind to a halt periodically as they screwed up something else on the network.
This year I had 12 students in my animation class and I had to borrow a few macs from the IT department which run Final Cut Pro, which is why I was looking for FCP tutorials. Luckily, it is very similar to Premiere Pro, so I was able to figure it out OK.
I don't seem to have much trouble printing at school with the PCs running Photoshop 7 to a variety of Epson printers, but my home system with PSCS2 always seems to have problems printing good glossy prints, although calibrating the monitor with the Spyderand creating a printer profile has made things much much better.
The IT department loaned me a beautiful Mac Book Pro to practice FCP over our term break and I think that if I had the money I would get myself one as my main computer. Mind you, I am a PC person, and I hate the lack of right mouse button functionality on macs, and I am not particularly fond of the Apple OS way of doing things, but it is a lovely machine to look at. But I simply can't afford the Apple hardware, let alone the software to replace all of my PC software.
Why the hell can't all computers just run all the same software?
Is it true that you can now run win xp OS and win software on a Mac? Is it as quick and responsive as running it on a well built PC system? I recall the attempts at emulation years ago and that was a pure disaster. The macs I saw ran like dead hogs.
So I haven't tried printing from a Mac, but it seems that PSCS2 is not especially well designed to produce good colour management for the home user on PCs and Win xp. But does anyone think that getting one of the newer printers, say the epson photo 340, will improve the ability to colour manage in my home system as opposed to just giving finer resolution images or not?
Thanks.