Profilation printer through photoshop's curves

[Antony]

Hello everyone,

I bought a few days ago an entry level printer canon, the canon mg7550 six-color printing and fairly pleasant. However there is a slight difference in color between what I see on the screen and what comes out in the press.

Whereas I have studied the question of profiling the monitor and the printer, unless you buy expensive enough tools to profile different from the order of several hundreds of Euros can not do it, I read around that it would be possible (or at less approach) to a kind of printer profiling, acting on the curves photoshop (emulating a kind of profiling, instead of using the color adjustment in the printer driver, which we know work in a linear color adjustment), and then save the Profile / setting for all subsequent prints.

Do you think this may make sense to improve the current situation and try to dab / reach a good level of press, or the only alternative is to profile using external tools?

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Hello everyone,

I bought a few days ago an entry level printer canon, the canon mg7550 six-color printing and fairly pleasant. However there is a slight difference in color between what I see on the screen and what comes out in the press.

Whereas I have studied the question of profiling the monitor and the printer, unless you buy expensive enough tools to profile different from the order of several hundreds of Euros can not do it, I read around that it would be possible (or at less approach) to a kind of printer profiling, acting on the curves photoshop (emulating a kind of profiling, instead of using the color adjustment in the printer driver, which we know work in a linear color adjustment), and then save the Profile / setting for all subsequent prints.

Do you think this may make sense to improve the current situation and try to dab / reach a good level of press, or the only alternative is to profile using external tools?

Hi Antony and welcome to Printer Knowledge.

You are going to get a wide range of opinions answering your question. I am not going to directly answer, but give a few facts to take into consideration because you first instinct will be to proceed with trial and error methods because, well, it seems to have no cost involved.

1: your refere to "a slight difference in color between what I see on the screen and what comes out in the press."

FACT: You will NEVER GET AN EXACT MATCH, so a slight difference may be as good as it gets, and if possible live with it for a while as you gain experience.

Consider, you are viewing on a back-lit monitor using additive colour values, and depending on your screen panel, at a contrast ratio of 800 or so to 1. The colours you can see are probably limited to the sRGB colour space or less, unless you have a wide gamut monitor. Your luminance controls can, and probably are, set to levels several time higher than is possible on a paper print.

The print, depending on the paper probably has a maximum contrast ration of 200:1. The brightest white possible is determined by the paper's whiteness and brightness and is probably well below your monitor settings. The colours you are viewing respond to the subtractive and not additive colour values which makes matching adjustments complex. With a six colour printer you can probably reproduce closer to the aRGB colour space. IE print colour values you cannot even see on your monitor. Furthermore the print reproduction will change depending on your paper characteristics.

And this is just for starters. I will stop now before it gets complicated.

rs

 

[Antony]

Thanks for you reply! I use compatible canon inktec(6€ every 100 ml), and a4 HP Q2510A Everyday Photo Paper Glossy(0.15 €/page).
So the price is every print is about very low(around 25 cents).

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

A monitor and a printer are both output devices which don't know of each other, the monitor is not the reference for the printer how to print colors - see above explanations. Color management is the method to acheive a consistent reproduction of colors across different devices, and that requires a calibration or profiling of these devices so that they can work best within their capabilities and constraints, and this typically includes the use of icm-color profiles for printers which are in essence correction tables to cover variances between different inks and papers. It is possible to make some corrections within Photoshop with layers, or more basic within the printer driver. If that yields prints you are happy with then this is o.k., but this approach solely relies on your judgement, without a reference to a standardized color reproduction. Third party inks influence the colors, and photopapers as well, as long as you stick to your selection you won't need to change anything. It may not fit into this discussion of color fidelity but please be aware that 3rd party inks typically give you much less stability of the ink against UV radiation and the impact of ozone in the air - they fade much faster than the original inks.

 

[Antony]

I know, obviously thirdy part ink not deliver same quality of originals, but also they cost 25 times less...so, my goal is to reach best compromise with triade printer-ink-paper.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I know, obviously thirdy part ink not deliver same quality of originals,

that's not necessarily true, see this video

http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/how-good-is-your-oem-profile.10425/#post-87349

3rd party inks vary from brand to brand, but they are not all better or worse than the original inks,
one criteria for such inks is the gamut which covers all colors from white to black to Cyan Magenta etc ,
from saturated to less saturated colors which a printer can print and what can be measured when creating a icm-color profile. 3rd party inks vary very much regarding their light fastness, they are typically far inferior to the the OEM inks, that may not bother lots of users, but is one reason why such inks can be sold cheaper than OEM inks, there are other reasons for Canon for their ink pricing, printers are very much underpriced, but inks create an ongoing stream of revenues, and some is used to finance the warranty expenses they occur with those printers, and maintaining a brand name requires advertising etc which are as well expenses which need to be paid for. 3rd party ink suppliers don't have such expenses, and they compete very much with their prices against each other.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

I know, obviously thirdy part ink not deliver same quality of originals, but also they cost 25 times less...so, my goal is to reach best compromise with triade printer-ink-paper.

A good investment for those savings would be at the very least a device to profile your monitor to give you a fixed frame of reference. The budget level cost (In the US) is about the same as a set of OEM carts. And believe me, without hardware calibration you are just guessing.

Using precision colour inks, and the profiles available from their website, you could probably get by without having to profile your printer for a while. Assuming you have access to the papers he has profiled. I also believe if you are willing to supply a few sheets of paper he will publish profiles of your paper.

Bottom line is that if you are one guy working on your files in isolation, you can probably produce whatever you like and call it successful.

The minute you start exchanging files or images with others, or post to other sites, or most significantly have anybody else print your files, any lack of consistent colour management will be instantly and brutally apparent.

Most importantly, have fun,<


rs