Monitor & Printer settings.

Messages
204
Name
Steven
Edit My Images
Yes
I process my pictures (raw to jpeg) on my laptop but print them from another PC. They look good on the laptop, but much too dark and a different colour on the main pc, and when I go to print them, they are darker still no matter how much I fiddle with the printer settings. I've tried printing them from the laptop, and they still look the same.

It makes me wonder if the pics I post up on the internet look horrid on other people's screens as well.

Could someone please tell me if there's an optimum setting for pc monitors to make sure that everything looks the same?

Also is there a way to ensure that the finished print looks the same as it does on my monitor. I'm sure I remember that a program can calibrate the monitor to do this??

I'd be grateful for any help as I've just wasted a load of photo paper and ink in experimenting.

Cheers.
Steve.
 
Your right that picture can look different on other pc screens, This is one of the pitfalls of having an uncalibrated PC monitor and printer for when you print them. Sure you can try adjusting it yourself (windows 7) Start,Control Panel,Apearance and Personalization,Display, Calibrate Color.

Idealy though you need a monitor calibration device like Xrite colormunki or Spyder4Pro, I myself use i1 Display which can calibrate monitors and there even an option to calibrate printers. I got fed up with adjusting my photos in lightroom and photoshop then sending them off to the be printed and they came back much darker and oversaturated too.

Which makes you wonder if when your trying enchancing your photos your getting it all wrong which is evident at the printing stage :/
 
Thanks for your help Gordon, I'll have a look at those names you mention. They sound expensive. :eek:
 
Laptops don't tend to have the best screens in the world for image editing. You also get used to having a nice bright screen, which is probably too bright. Maybe try turning the brightness of the screen down when editing before spending lots of money on a screen calibration device. This said I have a Spyder3 and they do make a whole world of a difference, it can be quite a shock when you see how your screen 'should' look. But prints that look like the screen is what we are after :-)
 
I've calibrated the colour settings of my laptop and it has made a noticeable difference. For now, I think I'll have to use a poor man's spyder 4 and just use my judgement and mk1 eyeball to brighten the images to compensate whenever I want to print them. :)

Thanks again guys. :)
 
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