rob_visual's blog/

Do you use a printer at home that is capable of printing on photo-paper? If you use this printer for printing photos for your business or a gallery you should think about printer-calibration.

It´s not enough to calibrate your screen. This is only half the way to a good print. On your screen all colours will look fine. But the printer needs some extra information (a colour-profile) to know how to print it right. You can do this with a color-measurement-device (i.e. the PrintFix from Datacolor) and a special software that guides you through this easy process.

I am in the lucky position to have such a device at work. So I took it at home yesterday to test it with my inkjet-printer (a Canon IP5200).

At first you need to print out two calibration-sheets on photo-paper (size A4 or Letter). After the printer has finished you can measure all colours on this sheet and the software will calculate the difference between the paper and the reference-data. Now you´re nearly finished.

After this step you need to set the correct color-profile (the one you´ve just created) in your applications. If you use Photoshop, you must go into the printer-dialog and set the right profile that matches your printer. The colour-management of your printer should be turned off.

After you´ve done this you can enjoy printed photos with colours that look the same like on-screen.

PS: If you´re a black-and-white-freak you will be happy about the stunning results of an calibrated bw-print of your photos.