Printers and Paper

Trying to get a good print can be a nightmare, or it like trying to give a cat a bath. It’s possible. It really is, but it can be difficult, frustrating and expensive. The first thing to consider when printing is the printer itself. While low end printers are getting much better at producing great results they still don’t match a higher end printer. Also, low end printers tend to not have color profiles available online. I’ll talk more about those later. So, buying a more expensive and higher quality printer can save some hassle.

The paper matters a great deal as well, especially if an expensive colorimeter isn’t an option. Again, cheaper papers are getting better but the more expensive papers are going to net a better result. Expensive papers also have the added benefit of generally have color profiles available online for free.

Color Profiles

Color management is really important and that’s where those color profiles, or ICC profiles, come in. A color profile tells a device how to display it’s colors. So, by generating profiles for a monitor and a printer its possible to match what appears on the screen with what comes out of the printer. The problem is, a full color management system can upwards of a thousand dollars, if not more. That’s not to say that color management is out reach. There are calibration tools just for a monitor available for a decent price.

So, for those trying to achieve a better the ideal way to get the best results is to buy the previously mentioned monitor calibrator to keep their monitor in sync. I personally use E-Rite’s i1Display2 ($259). It calibrates quickly and has many different options I can tweak to get exactly the results I want. What this in essence does is make the color of the monitor consistent. This allows the color of prints to be adjust accordingly to match the monitor. It’s not required to have a calibrated monitor it just makes things easier.

Next, go download the color profiles for the printer and paper desired. For higher quality printers and papers, manufacturers generally provide decent color profiles online. This is a great free alternative to a thousand dollar system to generate color profiles manually. Did I mention they were free? At the very least, go check and see if color profiles are available.

The Photoshop Print Dialog

Now that I’ve laid the basics out, let’s get to actually printing. This information applies to Photoshop CS3, however it’s pretty much the same. They just moved things around for better access in CS3. I’m going to leave the basic settings mostly unsaid as I’m going to assume selecting a printer and paper size is pretty self explanatory.

The drop down box on the right has two options. The Output option is for advanced printing and has various options for more complex projects. Chances are most people are never going to have to touch those options as well. Color Management however, is important. This is where those profiles come in. Again, there’s another option here that most people can ignore. We want to selection the Document box and not the Proof box. Proofing allows the printer to simulate printing on a specific printer and paper.

With Document selected, select Photoshop Manages Colors from the Color Handling drop down box. Then select the correct color profile in the Printer Profile drop down box. Not all is lost if a profile is not available, but I’ll get to that in a moment. For the rendering intent, concerning photography, there’s only two options that matter. Rendering Intent basically tells the printer how to handle colors that are out of it’s range.

The first option is Perceptual. Perceptual proportionally shifts the most out of gamut colors until they are printable. The problem that can occur here is when certain colors are really far out of gamut it shifts all of the colors proportionally. This can lead to colors that are perfectly fine being distorted.

The other option is Relative Colorimetric. This method leaves the colors inside the printers gamut and just shifts the colors outside of the gamut in.  This can clip certain colors.

I’ll talk more about how to proof a print and view how it’s going to print in another article. The best option varies with the image but either one should give a decent result.

If a profile is not available, the next option is to let the printer handle the colors. Go back to the Color Handling drop down box and select Printer Manages Colors. Now the printer is going to guess how to print the colors the best. Printers are getting better and better every day but the printer is still guessing. It’s better to be able to tell it exactly how to print with a color profile.

The Printer Dialog Dox

The settings on the next screen vary from printer to printer. However, there’s a couple things to keep in mind. Don’t try to color manage twice. More is not better in this case and will often result in a magenta cast in the print. So, turn off color management here. Next, make sure the correct type of paper or media is selected. It’s important to note that generally the more ink the better the print. The more ink used probably means darker blacks and more rich colors. There is a point though that increased ink doesn’t make much of a difference. This is where experimenting really comes into play. Not everyone needs ink drenched prints at ultra high resolutions. So, take a moment to decide what is really needed.

Summary

Again, while it’s expensive, the best way to get a good print to experiment. The reality is that I’ve just laid out the basics and I may have forgotten something. Colors shift over time, different ink batches print differently. There’s many different variables that come into play. So, my best advice is to take what I’ve said and use it as a starting point. Start making test prints. Once you’ve figured out what settings get the best results, write them down and keep using them.