Printing

[docbill]

I have enjoyed using Affinity. have gotten some great results. However, when I try to print I get colors all over the place. Is this the printer, or is there some adjustment in the program?

[MEB]

Hello docbill,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Can you be more specific please? What do you mean by "get colors all over the place"?

[docbill]

I had been using IPhoto for years. I had similar troubles. Affinity allows much more adjustment for my images, but I still have problems with color. For example, if I try to print a flower with a magenta color that I see on the monitor, I get a picture with a different red or blue hue. I can adjust the monitor image through Affinity and try again but I never get the color that I reaIly saw. I have had particular problems with greens. I like to print my images and sometimes they come out and other times really the colors are "all over the place", meaning not at all what I made all the adjustments to get.

[peter]

Are you talking about wanting to use a Pantone colour swatch? So what you see on the swatch matches up with the Pantone colour number on the screen, assuming of course the screen and printer are correctly calibrated. This way you trust the numbers and not your eyes. I'm only saying this because I've got an out of date swatch and am following a hunch; that this is what you mean.

 

HTH

 

peter

[docbill]

Boy! I am out of touch. I don't know what  a Panatone swatch is. I seem to be at the mercy of what the printer.  A Canon MG 6120 or a Canon MG8200 is what I have used. I may take some images to a commercial outfit like Ritz and see what they get. I didn't get good results at Costco. So If there is adjustment at the program level I would like to know about it but I don't find it in the tutorials or documentation. Thanks for this clue, I'll keep looking. I love the images on the monitor, now how to get them printed.

[marsofearth]

Printing is still in the 'Dark Ages' generally speaking.  Although most descent Print Shops will be able to take an sRGB image and represent it well into print.  

 

When a print shop asks you to submit your work as CMYK they are really just wanting you to see how "messed" up your images look before printing.

They'll be tossing your colour profile and using their own 90% of the time.

 

Pantone swatches are for colour consistency in documents, logos, solid graphics.  Kind of like the "Paint" colour swatches you will find at a paint store.  

It does not guarantee exact colour output of what you see on your screen vs the print, but does give you consistency through out your graphics, document(s)

 

Every once in a while try to do a simple monitor calibration.  The Operating System provides this for you, it will help.

 

But here are some quick tips that I use for printing photos;

1. Only work on copies of original images. (so you can always go back)
2. Use proPhoto colour profile when adjusting images
3. Once happy with adjusted image, make a copy and then CONVERT to sRGB-2.1 to see apprx what it will look like for print
4. Make some tweaks on the sRGB-2.1 image
5. Run a test print
6. Make adjustments to sRGB-2.1 image
7. Repeat 5-6 till happy.

After a time of adjusting your images and printing you will come to "see/know" how your images will print on your printer.

Print enough and you may only need to do one test print, and if you get lucky or are not too fussy may only need one proof.

 

Try to stick with one colour profile for all your images that works with your Camera, then your Screen and your printer.

 

I use proPhoto because it works well with my camera, maintains a good amount of colour information, and converts well to sRGB-2.1

 

sRGB -2.1 is pretty standard and most monitors will be able to show the full gamut of this colour profile if not, pretty darn close.

Also sRGB will give you a pretty close idea of what the image will look like when printed on a decent inkjet printer.

( you may have to do some tweaking in the blues and oranges )

 

Don't forget paper, it makes a huge difference.  If you have a Canon printer and wish more easily reproduce on your screen, use Canon paper and the proper "paper" profile in the printer setup.

Using other paper is perfectly fine, but you will need to test print many times to find the proper screen/print/paper conversion.

 

I know this does not help at all, but don't feel bad, everyone has issues with prints if they are honest with themselves. :)