Colour Print Problems

[johnM20]

Has anyone any suggestions as to how to correct colour problems when printing photos? On my PC I use Photoshop to edit photos and the results that I see on the screen look OK and similar in colour to what I see on my camera. However, when I print the photos using an Epson Photo Stylus printer and the computer running on Windows 7 the colour is nothing like the original. Wondering whether it was the computer or the printer at fault I transferred the photo onto my Toshiba laptop running Windows Vista and connected to the same printer. Again, the on-screen image looks pretty accurate but the printed photo is nothing like the original and nothing like the print from my PC.

Are there some settings that I need to alter on both computers or are there any other solutions, (that doesn't involve buying a new PC, laptop and printer)? Thanks in advance for any help.

[Bob225]

Its your monitor/screen make sure your running the correct drivers and colour correction - do you also wear glasses ?

Genuine or aftermarket ink - the latter always causes a issue, paper quality is another problem

[kellys_eye]

Monitors that are 'colour perfect' don't come cheap but I do recall seeing software that allowed you to adjust screen and printer out put to match.

[Bob225]

You can do colour correction in most graphics drivers, I've used monitors what have been upwards of £10k (used in print houses) and they even come with there own colour correction meters so you can calibrate the monitor

[Dave54]

Colour matching is complicated, printing companies, as Bob says, go to a great deal of trouble to match what's seen on the screen, to what comes out of the printer.
I'm only guessing, but does your output look slightly purple?
Try re-installing the printer driver.
If not uninstall the driver and let Windows find a new one.
Epson "colour profiles" that "tell" the printer how to print are available from their site here. You'll need the one for your printer.
https://www.epson.eu/en/viewcon/corpora ... WT.ac=1227

Unless you're using some weird colour profile embedded in the images themselves, I can't see it making that much difference. Standard monitors won't display much other than a sRGB profile properly anyway. You might check that you have the right driver installed for your monitor, and that you're using sRGB in Photoshop. Not sure about the settings in Photoshop, it'll be under "Colour management" or "colour profiles" check that it hasn't got changed to something apart from "sRGB" or possibly "ARGB" (also called AdobeRGB)

[Bob225]

the colour setup and the method you edit in photoshop has a big factor if you just dump a photo into the program it will default to RGB idealy you need to use a CMYK profile for any printed media, RGB is fine for the web and digital media

[Dave54]

As Bob says CMYK profiles are for printing. Apparently though most home printers can print RGB these days. As long as you have the right driver for your printer it should have the correct profile with it.

For what it's worth, I use Adobe RGB from the camera for editing my images. This monitor will display ARGB correctly. I don't print much, but a recent problem after a clean reinstall, was giving me the "purple skies" thing in print.
I uninstalled the driver and let windows install it's own preferred one. That cured it.

Unless you're using the image to go to professional print you wouldn't normally convert to CMYK, or at least that's my understanding.

[wine~o]

Could also be summat as simple as partially blocked jet/s on the printer. I've had that in the past. cleared by removing the ink cartridges and using a pipette and meths to dissolve the blockage followed by a blast or 3 of canned air. (the print heads also then needed re-aligning via the epson troubleshooter program)

[Someone-Else]

Type of paper helps, I had an epsom, and there was a setting to tell it not only colour, but type of paper, get that wrong and it was