Digital Light & Color

I've just gotten a new HP Officejet Pro 8600 printer and one of the hardest things is getting the colors to be anything like they are on monitor display. Regardless of what printer profile (I've tried several) I use, nothing is right, and further, there are differences in color between prints on regular paper vs. those on Premium HP Photo Papers. I make sure that all of the settings in the printer driver are set correctly for each type/brand of photo paper I use. Not only are the colors inconsistent, but the prints are generally darker, to the point that details in a carpet that show up on screen are totally absent in the print!

I’ve read others’ posts on this topic, but can’t seem to follow the level of instruction. Generally, what is an optimum printer profile for my printer? TIA

Picture Window also has a feature called Printer Curves. It provides an alternate way to match your printer output with what you see on the display. For more information, see the Color Management White Paper which is available here: http://ftp2.bmtmicro.com/dlc/Color_Management.pdf

The paper is very comprehensive and discusses many techniques. Printer curves are discussed toward the end of the paper, starting on page 31. (Note the paper uses the old term 'Monitor Curves'. This term was later changed to Printer Curves.)

Kiril

Darius, the optimum profile is one that is made just for your printer / paper / ink combination.
There are companies that offer that as a service, they send one or more pictures you need to print out on your paper, the pictures contain a number of fields in the various colors and when you send back your papers they measure each of these color fields and compute a profile based on just that printer / paper / ink combination you used to print the pattern.
You can also buy a measurement device for home use, they are not as accurate as a professional device for 1000+ dollars, but still useful. The procedure is the same, printing a pattern of colored fields and measuring them, and based on the measurement computing a profile then.
Of course you need a seperate profile for every paper you want use, or, to be exact, for every printer / paper / ink combination you use (printer and ink are often the same, so the simplification to every paper).
What is also essential when you use printer profiles is to have your monitor calibrated and to have a monitor profile. There are also tools on the market to acomplish that task.
You see, a fully color managed system is a fine thing to get as accurate colors as possible, but also needs time to learn all that stuff and also needs some investion in time and money to get all set.
The white paper Kiril posted above is a good starting point to learn about that thematic, im my opinion.

If you do not want to go the stony path to a fully color management system, I would suggest you get at least your monitor set up correctly, most monitors are set up too bright and too cold (in respect to color temperature) by default.
This is one of many sites that offer a grey scale to set up the monitor: http://www.monitorsetup.com/
Adjust your brightness and contrast to get a correct greascale, so you can be quiet sure your monitor is not too far way off.
Then you can play with PWPs printer curves that Kiril mention for fine tuning.

Anther thing I think its important to know, what way you either chose to take: Printer profiles are desined for prints to be watches under bright light, like a spotlight put directly on the photo.
This makes sure the maximum possible range between lights and dark can be seen. If you watch the picture under a let me call it "romantic dining room light" you will lose lots of detail in the dark areas, simply because there is not enough light to make it visible.
The printer curves are a way to bring the dark areas up a bit to make them visible under poor lightning conditions. too

Hope I did not confuse you too much, but you asked for the optimum ;)

Darius,

As Dieter has so aptly indicated, there are many potential issues associated to optimal colour/tone print results. Each step in the chain is as important as the others, from properly calibrated monitors to proper workflow settings to best profiles for printer/ink/paper to best viewing conditions. I know your frustration as "been there, done that" and have spent countless hours educating myself on the subject (and have yet to come even close to expert). Usually, if your monitor is calibrated (most are way too bright straight from the factory) and you use the proper workflow (i.e. ensuring you are not double profiling) and you use the canned profile available from a good printer and paper manufacturer, you should get pretty good stuff. However, that's just the beginning and the best results only come after a full understanding of all steps/components.

Personally, I would suggest (and I hope I am not out of line suggesting another sites product) getting a video package "Camera to Print and Screen" . This is available from the Luminous Landscape website, was done by Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichman, two well-renowned pros, and describes the whole process and methods to get the best print (and screen) image, including optimal colour management settings. The package is broken up into a series of downloadable videos, each concentrating on a different aspect of the process. Excellent product for a very reasonable price.

Marv

Darius,

you got good advice in all the previous posts.

Your complaint about too dark prints points to a too bright monitor. A too bright monitor will bring detail in the shadows even when you process the images too dark. Try setting up your monitor in a dimly lit environment. Change, if necessary, the color temperature of the monitor to something like 6500K and check the rendering of a grey scale.

Printer profiles that are delivered with your printer guarantee usually pretty correct colors, if you use the original inks and the recommended papers. It is normal that prints on different type of papers look different. Glossy photo papers have a larger color gamut and higher max. density than matt coated papers and both have a much larger gamut than plain papers. There is no need to spend a lot of money for a custom profile. This is only for the last few percent (job printers sometimes use them e.g. for company logos that need to be reproduced in the exact color), and you would need to get a new profile with a new batch of paper/ink etc. If you want to spend money, better buy a device to calibrate your monitor.
Inks from 3rd party suppliers will, in general, be different from the original inks so the printer profile is not valid anymore.

Take care, that profiles are not applied twice, e.g. in the image processing application and in the printer driver.

Good luck.