Aug 18 2010
It didn’t look like that on the computer!
Okay I have to write my own post about this. I love Paperclipping.com and really love the Roundtable Podcasts they put on weekly. Since I am new to their membership I am catching up on older shows. On May 11th PRT 019 had Tim Holtz on and it was a really super discussion. However, a question of why a printer and a photo come out looking differently from when you edited it on your computer screen. Some have a funny over all tone. We had some come back from printing one time with 100 pictures having a weird blue tint. Usually though they seem to have an orangey or reddish predominant.
I wrote a reply for the Roundtable discussion on their blog. However, after I wrote it hubby had more for me to add. I thought I’d share it with ya’ll here if you wanted to lern more. This is what my comment was.
“LOVED this episode. I’m savoring my way through all the PRT as well as the membership tutorials. i don’t want to zoom through. lol I love researching all the subjects you bring up and looking at all the products as you talk about them.
I wanted to add a little techy tidbit Izzy might not be aware of coming from the video end of things. My hubby is an avid photographer and has been all his life. He’s my walking encyclopedia. Most of that stuff is over my head but he listens to PRT w/ me sometimes and he explained to me that…. (my layman’s terms…)
When a printer prints a picture that we make “pretty” on Photoshop etc. it speaks in a different number of colors. For instance our eyes and our Macs have millions of colors.(RGB) Our cameras can take pictures of millions of colors(RGB & Raw). However, the printers print in thousands of colors (RGBs). Thousands sounds great until you compare it to millions so we end up seeing certain colors replaced with the best one available. This is what gives a persons printed photo a different hue than they expected. Ok understanding that…
1) Most point and shoot cameras are already programmed to shoot in RBGs. It’s the more advanced cameras that have to be told what to shoot in. If you want the better quality Master picture then tell the camera to shoot in Raw at the same time. You will have 2 copies of everything but one is ready for a simple printing .jpg
2) You can convert your pictures in Photoshop from RGB to RGBs before exporting them to print. (Batch process is easiest.)
3) If you want to get really serious… There are gizmos that go up against your computer screen to “calibrate’. It gives the info to your computer to set up a “profile” for the printer and monitor together. You need to re-calibrate often as simple things like times of day can even effect how things are seen. These gizmos are called spectrophotometers.
Hubby gave me this link for a deeper explanation.
http://www.profilesbyrick.com/colormgmt101.htm
Phew! and that’s the layman’s version. You can imagine how my head was spinning after he talked. lol I hope this helps everyone understand why their pictures print up just a little off in colors and how to improve things.
hugs! Claudia aka PomMommy ”
This is what hubby wanted me to add…
http://spyder.datacolor.com/product-mc.php For Monitor Calibration..
http://spyder.datacolor.com/product-pp-s3studiosr.php For Both Printer and Monitor
There are other brands.. but this is the most popular and affordable.
He also has a link for you to go into the RGB vs RBGs better..
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm
I hope that helps you print better pictures! I know it’s great when I have trouble I just yell… “HUNNYYYYYY!!”
