Why don't colors print right?

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

I've just converted some Canon raw CR2s to tiffs with EOS Viewer Utility
and have them looking great on the monitor. In particular, I have a
flash shot of two people, and there is some fluorescent light showing
far in the background. Skin tones are perfect in the tiff. The
fluorescent shows up as slightly greenish. When I print the picture on
my HP 7660 set to sRGB, the skin tones are too pink, and the fluorescent
shows as a sort of sepia. If I were looking at the skin hues of this
print in an editor, I think I could correct the hues by moving the hue
slider about 15-20 degrees to the right. The monitor is a Sony SDM-HX73
with the color profile set to "sony_l93".

It occurs to me that the problem might be a mismatch in color space of
the monitor and printer, but I would be reluctant to change the monitor
profile since prints that I've scanned look just right on the monitor
and print just right. It's hard to see any difference between the
picture that was scanned and finished print.

Any thoughts on correcting this problem would be appreciated.

Paul

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

It sounds like you are using the canned monitor profile that came with your
unit. Monitor colors change as the unit ages and during the time it is on
and being used. That is why it is necessary to regularly profile your
specific monitor using a device like a Spyder to try to maintain a color
managed workflow.

A common reason why printed images have an overall pink cast is that color
management is being applied twice in the workflow. From your description it
sounds like you have both your photoprogram (?Adobe Photoshop/Elements?) as
well as your printer driver applying color management.

I do not know how the HP drivers are supposed to be set to allow Photoshop
to control color management. The process is somewhat straight forward with
Epson printers, non-intuitve and complex (and unfortunately unreliable) with
Canon printers. If you are not sure how the printer driver should be set up
for color managed printing, and it may not be in the instruction book,
contact HP. There are many sites on the internet, as well as instructions in
the program "help" file, on color management settings for Adobe products.
Color management does not guarantee the first print attempt is the best but
it should be in the ballpark.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"C Wright" <wright9_nojunk@nojunk_mac.com> wrote in message
news:BE34EDDE.19D77%wright9_nojunk@nojunk_mac.com...
> On 2/13/05 8:13 AM, in article NjJPd.14892$Lq3.8119@fe04.lga,
> "pjruiz(nospaam)" <"pjruiz(nospaam)"@charter.net> wrote:
>
>> I've just converted some Canon raw CR2s to tiffs with EOS Viewer Utility
>> and have them looking great on the monitor. In particular, I have a
>> flash shot of two people, and there is some fluorescent light showing
>> far in the background. Skin tones are perfect in the tiff. The
>> fluorescent shows up as slightly greenish. When I print the picture on
>> my HP 7660 set to sRGB, the skin tones are too pink, and the fluorescent
>> shows as a sort of sepia. If I were looking at the skin hues of this
>> print in an editor, I think I could correct the hues by moving the hue
>> slider about 15-20 degrees to the right. The monitor is a Sony SDM-HX73
>> with the color profile set to "sony_l93".
>>
>> It occurs to me that the problem might be a mismatch in color space of
>> the monitor and printer, but I would be reluctant to change the monitor
>> profile since prints that I've scanned look just right on the monitor
>> and print just right. It's hard to see any difference between the
>> picture that was scanned and finished print.
>>
>> Any thoughts on correcting this problem would be appreciated.
>>
>> Paul
> You are getting into an area about which whole books have been written!
> But, for starters, you need to profile the monitor yourself using what
> ever
> tools are available for your operating system (you didn't say what
> operating
> system you are using). Often monitors that look 'great' to the human eye
> are
> in reality way too blue and need to have the color temperature warmed.
> Once
> you have a well profiled monitor you will wonder how you ever liked what
> you
> had before. Next, if you are using a program like Photoshop you need to
> set
> up "soft proofing" so that what you see on your monitor matches a
> paper/printer profile for your printer. Monitors display in RGB and
> printers print in CMYK so it is hard to get it perfect, but you can get
> close.
> Chuck

Any tutorials on the "proof" process?