color correcting for print 2

[Thoe99]

The problem I have is that I test printed a magazine at home with my HP Deskjet inkjet printer and my project turned out perfect. However, when I sent it to the printing company for proofs, it was all off color, yellow being pretty dominant.

Do you guys have any tips to color correct all of this mess, besides trial and error? What's the best way? Is it thru the CMYK channels and balancing out each curve, eliminating the flat areas on the left and right side of the curves? I tried adjusting my gamma to 1.8 (I have a PC) and setting the color temperature to 9300, but that doesn't seem to nearly match all of it (it helped on the black channel). Any help would be greatly appreciated, as my deadline is very near!

 

[Eggles]

Trial and error is probably the only way, as every photo is different in terms of the colour correcting it may need. Although with experience, the errors get fewer.

But your question also highlights the difference in printing to an desktop inkjet and a commercial imagesetter. What turns out fine on one may mean nothing on the other system. Which in turn may look entirely different on screen.

Why not try going to Image>Adjust>Color Balance and moving the sliders around a little? Since you already know your proofs are a little yellow (so you are one step ahead already), try moving the yellow/blue slider more towards the blue end (make sure Preview is on so you can see the effect). It might look odd onscreen and almost certainly on your desktop printer, but the proofs will let you know how well you have done it.

 

[detroitpickles]

I would ask the printing company what "color profile" they use to print. They should know.

If your using "Adobe RBG" and they are using one called "Fuji Frontier" or something, then the colors will be way off.

If you can try this by setting your PS to print to a different "Profile" and see how ugly (or better) it gets on your HP.

 

[Eggles]

Just to add my experience - we got a Xerox Phaser 7700 (colour laser) at work, and found that when printing from Pagemaker (and Illustrator and Photoshop) the colours were all off until we chose the Colour Correction 'Euroscale Press'. But this was trial and error, trying all the possible Coloir Corrections available (and there were a lot!) until we got the best match between our monitors and the printer.

 

[askIllustrator]

I have gotten to the point where I dont ever really 'look' at the image on the screen anymore since monitors are just big lightbulbs. I do all my color correction now with a combonation of Curves, Levels and my info pallete. Just the same, here's my two step color correction for dummies. To setup, check the art your going to scan for a perfectly white and perfectly black area. If not, put a clean sheet of paper and something solid black next the picture on the scanner and make sure a little bit of these are included in the scan.

Step 1. Open the Curves pallete (ctrl+m)
Step 2. Click on the white eyedropper at the bottom and then click on the sample white sheet of paper, repeat with black eyedropper on black sample. Done. BEHOLD! As Steve Jobs introduces us the latest in desk-lamp technology!

http://www.apple.com

 

[Eggles]

Hi jAQUAN,

I purchased a year or so ago from Agfa what I believe is called a 'tonal wedge'. It is a strip of photo paper about 1" wide and 8" long on which there are 20 shades of 'grey' ranging from pure white at one end to pure black at the other. I place the strip on the glass next to the photo I am scanning (including the wedge - or at least a portion - in the scanned area) and thus have a consistent source of pure black and pure white to use with the eyedropper tools in the Curves palette. Very useful and nifty.

 

[Thoe99]

Juquan & Eggles, that's a brilliant idea! I'll do that from now on.

It turns out we just did a trial and error, but I corrected all my images based on the CMYK curves. We got them to test print several different variations and I was able to nail one of them. With this project, someone else did the scanning for me and there were hundreds of images, so I was not able to rescan them. Thanks for your inputs, I guess there isn't a really sureshot, mathematical/systematic way to do this.

 

[askIllustrator]

I'll have to get me one of those again Eggles. I have an older one but it has faded. BEHOLD! As Steve Jobs introduces us the latest in desk-lamp technology!

http://www.apple.com

 

[Eggles]

I have always kept mine in its original 'sheath' and it seems to still be OK. (and I have realised it's more like 3 years ago I purchased it, as I was definitely using it in 2000).

 

[Thoe99]

By the way, where do you get this 'tonal wedge'?

 

[Eggles]

I bought mine from a printing company.