HP Color LaserJet MFP M477fnw print tweaking

ironsniper1

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Hey everyone! I am hoping you will be able to help me, I am trying to print custom art for some cases for some of my old video games, however, I only currently have a color laserjet and have gotten some settings set to where some of the colors are better but some are not
here is a screenshot of my current print density settings
https://imgur.com/gZC1RkM

here is what I am currently trying to print, the blacks reds greens, etc all look good but the background is way to light
https://imgur.com/oUHLziV

here is how it looks in natural sunlight
https://imgur.com/A6Zf0oy

if anyone has any advice about which way I should set my settings to get the best colors and prints please let me know!
 

stratman

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More information would be helpful:

  • What ink are you using?
  • What paper are you using?
  • Have you tried other papers? If so, what?
  • What software are you using to print?
The following link may be of help if you want to try to dial in the settings of your printer manually. Set the printer back to "default" settings first.

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/compatible-cartridges-and-colour-cast.10956/

Color management is a vast topic that can be difficult to master depending upon how "perfect" you want your prints to look. Color management involves the interplay of the specific printer, specific ink, and a specific paper. Change any one and different results may occur, sometimes with significant effect. A printer has been designed to use a specific ink and paper, typically the printer manufacturer's own branded OEM inks and paper.

The printer manufacturer creates a printer driver called an ICC Printing Profile that is constructed on the specific printer, ink and paper the manufacturer uses. Then, when you print something, you select the appropriate Paper Type you are using (eg Plain Paper, Glossy Paper, etc) and print. IF you use a third party ink OR a brand of paper that is not the one the manufacture suggest, ie their own brand of paper, THEN your printed images may then appear inaccurate.

If you want to use a different ink than the OEM retail ink, or, you want to use an aftermarket 3rd party ink, then you will need to either correct the printer setting for the colors (as in your first image) or you will need an ICC Printer Profile created using that specific combination of printer, ink and paper in order to have a more pleasing print.

An ICC printer profile is created with a device, typically a spectrophotometer using standardized printouts from your printer. These devices can cost from several hundreds to well over a thousand dollars. You may find a rental to DIY or a person/business that will do it for you after you mail in your standardized print outs. Some of the better photo paper manufacturers offer ICC printer profiles for free for inkjet printers, but I am unaware if any do this for laserjets.

Even with all of this, you may still not get an EXACT match between original image and print due to limitations of any of the three components integral to an ICC profile.

The easiest thing to do is to use only OEM inks and papers, set the printer setting in your image #1 back to default and see what happens.

If the image seen on your monitor does not look like the print then maybe you need to calibrate your monitor so you are closer to "what you see is what you get". An uncalibrated monitor is a frequent contributor to mismatch. A device to calibrate you monitor can run less or more than $100, depends on quality and if used.

Last, the lighting used when viewing can affect your perception of the printed image as well. The type of lighting can be accounted for when making an ICC printer profile.

For more on ICC printer profiles see

https://www.colourmanagement.net/advice/about-icc-colour-profiles
 

Ink stained Fingers

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Most of the above comments about color mgmt, icc profiles etc apply equally to laser and inkjet printers, just replace 'ink' by 'toner' since you are using a Laserjet printer.
Which program are you using to print the images you want to get printed with the correct colors, this program would need to be aware of color mgmt, allowing the use of icc-profiles. If the program does not do that you can activate a color profile via the Windows driver/color mgmt settings. This mode is not very flexible but aailable if other software options won't work.
 
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ironsniper1

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Most of the above comments about color mgmt, icc profiles etc applies equally to laser and inkjet printers, just replace 'ink' by 'toner' since you are using a Laserjet printer.
Which program are you using to print the images you want to get printed with the correct colors, this program would need to be aware of color mgmt, allowing the use of icc-profiles. If the program does not do that you can activate a color profile via the Windows driver/color mgmt settings. This mode is not very flexible but aailable if other software options won't work.
Irfanview and I have also tried the default windows picture viewer, I have tried to print from gimp but for whatever reason it will not print to my printer and I cannot figure out why as for paper its matte legal and I have the toner is what came with it
 

Ink stained Fingers

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IrfanView does not support icc-profiles for print output, only for the display; do you have any color related options in the driver - e.g. an extended menu to adjust colors, contrast, brightness since this is quite typical for laser printer drivers and a good starting point to make adjustments
 

PeterBJ

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@ironsniper1 Is the first uploaded image from the printers driver settings? What is the range of these settings +/- 10, +/- 100, +/- 255 or?. I wonder why only negative correction values for densities are entered as making the density lower will make the image lighter. You could try the test print linked by @stratman and report the result. I found the user manual for your printer, but it looks like there is not much help for colour settings, see page 141.

Another possibility is to use Irfan View to change a copy of the image to something that will print correctly. Sadly Irfan View only works with RGB values for colour correction so you get no CMYK values to use for correction, but first try to correct the printed colours to match the original:

Irfan View 250820.jpg


Then apply the same corrections to a copy of the original image:

Irfan View 250820-2.jpg


You now have an oversaturated and overcorrected image that hopefully will print as the original. I admit this is not the proper way of doing things but a possible work-around.
 
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ironsniper1

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@ironsniper1 Is the first uploaded image from the printers driver settings? What is the range of these settings +/- 10, +/- 100, +/- 255 or?. I wonder why only negative correction values for densities are entered as making the density lower will make the image lighter. You could try the test print linked by @stratman and report the result. I found the user manual for your printer, but it looks like there is not much help for colour settings, see page 141.

Another possibility is to use Irfan View to change a copy of the image to something that will print correctly. Sadly Irfan View only works with RGB values for colour correction so you get no CMYK values to use for correction, but first try to correct the printed colours to match the original:

View attachment 10666

Then apply the same corrections to a copy of the original image:

View attachment 10667

You now have an oversaturated and overcorrected image that hopefully will print as the original. I admit this is not the proper way of doing things but a possible work-around.
the settings are from the web UI for the printer and they go up to +5 and down to -5, i set them that way after doing some googling as original all my prints came out to dark but I couldn't get it set just right and I figured I messed something up so I posted here, also Irfanview is my last choice for printing, I would much rather use something like gimp but as I said I cannot get it to print to my printer
 

ironsniper1

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IrfanView does not support icc-profiles for print output, only for the display; do you have any color related options in the driver - e.g. an extended menu to adjust colors, contrast, brightness since this is quite typical for laser printer drivers and a good starting point to make adjustments
no not that I can find
 

PeterBJ

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the settings are from the web UI for the printer and they go up to +5 and down to -5, i set them that way after doing some googling as original all my prints came out to dark but I couldn't get it set just right and I figured I messed something up so I posted here, also Irfanview is my last choice for printing, I would much rather use something like gimp but as I said I cannot get it to print to my printer
The resulting image has a greenish cast, so I think magenta has been reduced too much. I think that changing the magenta values in the web UI from -3 to -2 and leaving the other values unchanged will result in a much better image. I think a little experimenting would be worth the effort.
 
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