Graham 0 Report post Posted January 4, 2007 Today I finally calibrated my monitor and now I'm able to print pics that have identical colors and contrast as the pics on screen in Photoshop. For Christmas I got a Dell 24" high rez monitor and an Epson R1800 photo printer, and the prints seemed to always be lighter than what appeared on my screen. This morning I bought a Spyder2 monitor calibration tool, for about $150, and it works great!!! I just printed a 13" x 19" glossy of a steelhead, and it looks good enough to frame and hang on my wall. Before calibrating I wasted several sheets of printer paper and ink trying to get it too look right, the frustration is over. I also downloaded Epson ICC printer profiles and installed them into Photoshop, which also helped. Phew, I'm very happy to have this problem solved! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alex C. 0 Report post Posted January 14, 2007 What kind of photo paper are you suing Graham? Also, which printer? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kargen 0 Report post Posted January 14, 2007 I went through much the same mess with my monitor and printer. If I am home everything works great. Problem is I spend a lot of time in Colorado helping my Dad with his business and I take my printer with me but not the monitor. So every time I am in Colorado I have to do the whole thing again. It is important to always try and do your work in the same type and quality of light that you used when you callibrated things. I used to have a problem at home sometimes until it finally hit me that during the early morning if I don't close the curtains my monitor gets a lot more light and it made a difference in what I was seeing. http://www.redriverpaper.com/ you might want to check them out for paper. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Graham 0 Report post Posted January 14, 2007 Hey Alex, I'm using an Epson R1800 printer, and the paper I like the best so far is the Epson Ultra Premium Luster, in both 8.5" x 11" as well as 13"x19". I still can't get over the quality of the photos I'm able to print out at home. One thing I'm still trying to figure out, seems to me from visiting local frame shops, that standard pre-cut mat sizes are not the same as the ratio of length and width of photos. When i print an 8x10, I need to crop my pic, but I have pics that I don't want to crop anything. I really like printing full frame pics at 12"x18" with no cropping, but that means getting mats custom made, which costs more. I found online stores that sell mats and frames of suitable sizes, but my local frame stores don't have pre-cut mats that size. The pics from my camera are 13"x8.5" @300 dpi. I like to print at 288 dpi, which is an exact divisible of the 2880 print head resolution. 240 dpi and 340 are also exact divisibles, but even just printing at 300 dpi produces pro quality prints. Hey Kargen, I've read good things about the paper from Red River, and I plan on trying them out. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
