What I see isn't what I get!! (1 Viewer)

[Richard_T]

Got a real problem here. I've got my computer and 2 Canon i9900 printers which I am using for a small business doing digital phtography with my Canon D20 digital camera. My problem is I take the pictures and load them into my computer and they look great but when I print them, they are not good at all. One printer tends to print a very "blueish" picture and the other prints a ver "redish" one. The ink seems to pool at the bottom of the printer head as well.

I've tried changing the type of paper I'm using as well as cleaning the head and replacing the ink but the problem still comes back after printing 5-10 photos. Can someone help with how to fix this or do i have to calibrate my screen and printer so what I see on the monitor is what I'm printing on paper? I'd really appreciate any help at all.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Have you considered replacing the print heads?

 

[Richard_T]

Yes. I actually did replace one of the printers heads just a little while ago. The second printer is brand new so I don't think (I would hope anyway) that the heads are bad. It almost seems as if it's a calibration problem. It's funny how one is red and the other prints blue. What about paper. Can which type of paper I use affect the picture that comes out? Just wondering.

 

[Paul Padilla]

My guess would be calibration, but if you're losing ink in one, it's got other issues. Check this out for calibration.

Spyder2 Plus

 

[DaveF]

That sounds like a hardware problem. Does it pool on the paper during printing? Are these older printers? Is there any smearing?

In my experience, color printers are not color balanced properly and can skew to a certain hue.

Consumer monitors are not calibrated either and will not match printer output.

As for the Spyder2, a friend a few cubicles down did much of the engineering for that device. We had a pretty good chat about color calibration a few weeks back. If you want your prints to agree with your monitor and to agree with reality, you will need to calibrate. And you'll need a graphics program like Photoshop that understands printer profiles and will alert you when you're trying to use colors outside your printers color gamut (which is likely smaller than your monitor's gaumt).

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Only real way to get your prints matching your monitor:

1. Calibrate the monitor.
2. Get your paper/ink comibnations profiled.
3. Use fully colour-managed workflow.

Even then, you wont get a 100% match all the time - if ever. You'll get a good subjective match but it depends very much on what light you view the prints in.