Re: Newbie question on Canon S630 bubblejet printer
Re: Newbie question on Canon S630 bubblejet printer
- Subject: Re: Newbie question on Canon S630 bubblejet printer
- From: Jim Rich <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 17:20:04 -0400
On 7/31/02 4:03 PM, "Gerben Wierda" <email@hidden> wrote:
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Hello,
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I am experiencing a problem and I thought that maybe ColorSync would be
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a solution.
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The problem: prints form my Canon 630 are way too `greenish'. I first
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experienced this with images from a digital camera, but as I did not
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know who was to blame, I did not do anything about it. But now I have a
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scanner (Canon N1240U) as well, so I can do some comparison. I take an
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original, scan it (using Scangear or VueScan, this latter one I do not
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quite understand), and print it from Preview.app. Then I compare the
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original with the result and there are major color differences. Since
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this green-effect is comparable to what I see as difference between on
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screen display and printing of digital images, I suspect (but of course
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are uncertain) that this is a printer issue.
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So I was wondering: is ColorSync a solution? If so, how do I use ot such
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that printer, possibly screen, and scanner do not change the colors of a
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scan-print copy cycle? Because the differences are huge. Are there maybe
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some standard images that can be used for certain calibration
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techniques? And how do I calibrate?
G,
There are other ways to determine if your monitor and printer are behaving
but here is a basic testing methodology.
A realistic expectation is that your scanner, monitor or printer will not
give you good color right out of the box. If it does your lucky.
Before buying anything you might want to test your system to see where the
color variations are coming from. For example you might want to create an
exact neutral gray scale ramp in Photoshop and send it to your printer.
If the image (of the grayscale ramp) on your monitor is neutral then your
monitor is behaving (at least for the moment). Then print the neutral gray
scale out. If the print comes out looking neutral gray then your printer
might be behaving.
If the neutral gray scale did not look neutral gray on your monitor or on
the print then you have to decide how much money and time you want to spend.
As for the camera. I would suggest getting you printer and monitor under
control first then you have a better chance of using you monitor to give
you visual feedback as to what to expect when you see an image on the
screen and when it prints.
Hmm. Is ColorSync the solution?
Well the short answer yes, but ColorSync that is built into the Mac OS is
only part of a calibration solution. Using profiles, and knowing how to
color correct images is another part of the solution.
One option is to calibrate you monitor and printer on the cheap. Low cost
solutions start around $100 to $500. For those prices you could purchase a
monitor tool like a Color Vision Spyder and get a custom profile from an
online service such as Chromix or Profile City.
If you want to roll your sleeves up and have more options you could spend
between $1,500 to $3,000 for your own profiling tools. This would allow you
to create custom profiles for you scanner, monitor and printers. In this
scenario you would be able to update your custom profiles whenever you
scanner, monitor or printer changes. For example if you get your process
under control by profiling the printer you might want to use various types
of papers. You would need to create a profile for each paper. Having your
own profiling tools would facilitate that.
You would want to use profiles in conjunction with ColorSync to get
reasonably good results. They could be canned profiles that the vendor
supplies or custom ones that you buy or create yourself. The vendor
supplied profile are a 50/50 proposition for getting good results. In either
case would the results be perfect? Probably not, but it would a lot better
than what you have now and using profiles would put you in a position to
better control your monitor and printer.
There is more to this story but I am out of time today, so I am sure someone
else will add their .02 like I have.
Jim Rich
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