Printer/screen calibration

[noel]

Hi, I am having difficulty with my printer colour quality. I bought a new Epsom the other day and find that the pic viewed on screen is quite different from the one printed. I am told I should get my screen calibrated using one of the various calibration devices, which is no problem but can I be sure that once the LCD screen is calibrated the printere will print exactly what I see on screen. It is a new top of the range epsom so I guess that can be deemed to be not the problem. Any advice appreciated.

[genevh]

Color management is a tricky beast, to be sure, and you have completed one of the most important steps, because if you don't have accurate color on your monitor when you are processing your pictures, it will be really difficult to get accurate colors when you are printing.

You didn't say which model Epson that you purchased. I use an Epson Stylus Photo 1400. Part of getting your printer to print accurately is using customized ICC profiles tailored to your printer and the paper you are using. However, profiling your printer can be expensive. Fortunately, Epson provides some standardized ICC profiles for its printers. Go to Epson's website and do a search on ICC profiles. You should be able to find some compatible ones for your particular printer.

Then take a look at Pixels by Woody (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/colin_w/) (aka Codebreaker) site. He has instructions on how to set up for a color managed workflow from start to finish. This will give you the best chance at getting the most accurate color printing your printer can give you.

Getting 100% color accuracy is not easy, but with a bit of effort and without spending a lot of money, you can get pretty close.

If you're willing to spend some money on custom profiles for your printer, check out Cathy's Profiles (http://kathysprofiles.com/). She comes highly recommended by a pro photographer on another forum I belong to.