COLOUR MANAGEMENT

[rochellemc]

Hi,

so i am using Affinity designer for most of my work and the printer im using is the Epson EcoTank - 7750

when using colours on my screen, they look perfect but they print completely different and darker to how they look on my screen and its really frustrating.

so how do i get my printer to print the exact colour that im using in Affinity please and to match my screen.

i have looked at icc profiles but unsure of what to do and if there is a setting in Affinity itself.

any help would be much appreciated.

 

thank you 

[Callum]

Hi Rochellemc,

I'm sorry to hear your file is printing with different colours to the ones you see in the app. If you print the file to PDF how do the colours appear?

Thanks

C

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, rochellemc said:

when using colours on my screen, they look perfect but they print completely different and darker to how they look on my screen and its really frustrating.

so how do i get my printer to print the exact colour that im using in Affinity please and to match my screen.

First, colors will probably never be exactly the same because of the technology differences between displays and printers.

If you have a properly calibrated monitor, with the proper ICC profile specified for the monitor, and you use a Soft Proof Adjustment to fine-tune the image, you should be able to get it to look better when printed. Still not perfect, given the technology differences, but better

 

[smadell]

Let me give this a shot, although I'll be the first to admit that "color management" is perhaps the most complicated part of computer graphics that I've had to deal with. Getting everything to match up is a tough one, but you can come close if you do the following.

First of all, understand  that the color you see on the screen may not be the color that is saved to your file. Your monitor introduces a "bias" which must be corrected. Much of the time, your computer screen will be (i) too blue; and (ii) too bright. If you use your monitor defaults, your "perfect" colors will be too yellow and too dark, since you will have tried to compensate for that bias introduced by your monitor. This is why calibrating your monitor is important.

Your monitor should aim at a White Point of about 5500K, which is much more "yellow" than its most likely original setting. You should also keep the brightness of your monitor at about 80-120 cd. This is MUCH less bright than the default value your computer shipped with.

So, the first step is to calibrate your monitor. Calibrating your monitor, in simplest terms, means that a file that contains a certain RGB triplet (like "255,0,0" for pure red) is actually displayed as pure red on your screen. You cannot do this by the "eyeball" method. Get yourself a colorimeter, like a Spyder from DataColor, or any of a dozen different other devices. These things, basically, hang in front of your screen and measure the color being shown by software that knows just what color it should be. Calibration software will ultimately create an ICC Profile for your monitor, based on the measurements it makes.

Set your "Display Profile" to use that ICC Profile. On a Mac, you can set this in the "Displays" part of the "System Preferences" application. On Windows, I believe it's found in the "Color Management" app (although someone who is more Windows-fluent can correct me any time).

In Affinity Photo, Designer, or Publisher, you should set the Color Space to be used by your documents. Do NOT set this to your Monitor Profile. This is a common mistake, and it will not get you the results you are after. Your files should almost always be done in RGB (not in CMYK, even though you will eventually print them) and you should use a color space like "sRGB" or "Adobe RGB (1998)". I've included a screen shot from the Preferences part of Affinity Designer below.

Now, the tricky part. If you've calibrated your monitor, then your computer file contains the correct colors. But, when you send that file to your printer you have to be sure that you compensate for any bias that your printer may have (and also compensate for any weirdness introduced by the coloration of the paper you use). This is where Printer Profiles come in.

I have not found any printer profiles for your Epson EcoTank printer online, but I only looked for about 5 minutes. It's possible that you can find them. If not, getting them custom created is the other choice. You would need to print a test sheet that contains some known colors, and compare that sheet with the colors it should contain. Once again, an ICC Profile is created that is specific for your Printer and your Paper, and which corrects any color bias that your printer introduces. When you print, you need to specify that your printer should use THAT particular printer profile when it interprets the colors your computer sends over. Usually, that is done in the dialog box that opens after you choose "Print..."

And, even after you do EVERYTHING right, your printed image will never match your computer screen perfectly. If nothing else, your monitor uses light and your printer uses ink. Light is additive, and ink is subtractive. They will never be exact matches, and your printed image will almost always tend to be a bit darker that your computer image. The goal of color management is to come as close as you can.

Best of luck! It is, admittedly, a struggle…

[Old Bruce]

This subject is something which is very difficult to get across to people but you have done a good job.

2 hours ago, smadell said:

even after you do EVERYTHING right, your printed image will never match your computer screen perfectly. If nothing else, your monitor uses light and your printer uses ink. Light is additive, and ink is subtractive.

And everyone has differing colour vision.

[smadell]

Thank you, @Old Bruce. Being completely honest, I have to admit that it's taken (many) years  to come to even the most basic understanding of Color Management and why my prints always looked different from what I was looking at on screen.

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

everyone has differing colour vision. 

As a complete aside, I used to wonder (still do, I guess) what would happen if your eyes could magically be hooked up to my brain - would I see the same color that you see? Or, in different terms, if my brain got the signal from your eyes, would I label the color I/we were looking at the same way you would?