Monitors, printers and colors

[Hans L]

Hello:

What a mess I go between monitors (I have 3) and the color differs, I print out, and the color is different again. What is a youngling to do?

I am sure you have all thought about this, and some of you may even have an idea what should and could be done about it. I must admit that I have tried to color-coordinate the monitors in the past, just to throw up my hands in despair, realizing that I did not know what I am doing.

I would be most appreciative of some sound advice.

Best regards,

Hans L

[Saracen]

The probkem is one of colour calibration, and is a major headache. There are, needless to say, several aporoaches, with varying degrees of sophistication, accuracy, ease of use .... and cost.

You can do a certain amount by eye, and with free or low cost software, like checking the color temp setting of your monitor(s), the brightness and contrast, and by careful setting of printer defaults. For many home users, that will be enough.

If you're more demanding than that, then you could use a calibration system. You will need hardware that can read the colour values of your monitor when it is commanded (by software) to produce a selection if known colour values, and it produces a 'profile' for that monitor.

You can then print a colour target, and use that hardware colorimeter to read the actual colours produced, again to build a profile. But note, this profile is for a specific printer, using a specific paper stock, and specific driver settings. Change any of those and you should produce a different profile. This end of the market is really for professionals, or people like enthusiastic photographers, for whom colour accuracy is important.

There are a number of such hardware devices available, with monitor calibrators being cheapest, and monitor/printer calibrators being more expensive .... often significantly so. I use the impressive if weirdly-named Color Munki Photo, which (unsurprisingly) is aimed at photographers. At about £300, it isn't cheap, but is at the cheaper end of the 'serious' tools. You can top £1000 or more, if you wish. You could also check out Color Spyder etc, but with all these devices, check to see that a particular version does all you want, as they often have several similarly named variants.

[Hans L]

Saracen, thank you for a short but information-packed response. Very impressive.

I do really not need to worry so much about the printer. Although I would like to know what you mean by "careful setting of printer defaults".

As for the monitors (I have, as I said, three, all different brands), what free and low-cost software should I look at?

Regards,

Hans L