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Marcel
06-09-2004, 05:51 AM
At work (A small company; i do product packaging design for stuff like shower curtains, table cloths, towels and various home products), we've recieved a nice laser printer; the Xerox Phaser 7750.

Only problem is, i've been spending quite some time attempting to color adjust and calibrate the printer. And i've just about tried whatever i could on my own.

I was wondering if you have any kind of tips, techniques, guides - anything to provide consistent, accurate colors that atleast come close to WYSIWYG. I often spend a great deal of time, and i get, say, the blues just right - but then the purples come out too bright. Or warm colors look great, but blues look too purple-ish. Or Purples are fine, but reds come out completely different. Thats not EXACTLY what happens, but you know what i mean - inaccurate colors.

The first thing i knew before starting is to always disable printer's color adjustments in the printing preferences/driver.

After that, i fiddle and tweak photoshop forever and a half. I would be decently satisfied if i get something even close, but changing the color settings, playing with the print space, or changing the proof setup yields little.

I do have my monitor with proper drivers and a corresponding ICM. But even using that doesnt make it much better. I've trie making my monitor look like my prints, and my prints look like my monitor, and a mix of the two.....still, little....bah

any advice?

EDIT -> i've also noticed that Window XP's standard printing (like tell it to print a file from where it is in theMy Documents or something)tend to be a bit more accurate than most of the settings i've tried with photoshop (sad....i know)

Post Edited (Marcel) : 6/9/2004 12:57:50 AM GMT

Mickey
06-09-2004, 07:24 AM
The only way your going to get anything near accurate is to have your printer calibrated and profiled by a professional color specialist (or take classes in color management). You will also need to calibrate your monitor with a monitor spyder and software. and even then you need to worry about things like temp and humidty (for your printer) and light source for your workspace (monitor). It is a very complicated process to set up custom profiles and it involves expensive programs and equiptment (Color spectrometer).

What I would do if I were you is

A. See if you have the budget to have someone come in and calibrate and profile your workflow.
B. Take some classes in color management, and try to do it on your own
C. First calibrate your monitor, then get a bunch of different ICC profiles for the Xerox Phaser 7750 and try them until you get the one that works best for your work.

I have taken a bunch of courses in color management and still only know the basics. Look up the name John Nate in google. that is the guy that I learned from, he is from the Milwaukee area but travels all over the world setting up color corrected workflows for the best in the printing industry.

Good luck...

http://home.wi.rr.com/mygraphics/konceptcreative.jpg

06-09-2004, 06:52 PM
Great Advice Mickey. I don't know half of what you just mentioned about color calibrating.