Hi all, I'm wondering if anybody can help me with a problem which i have found very frustrating for a long time now...and I know it's my own fault for not understanding the complexities of color management. I've tried finding answers online, but not understanding enough in the first place makes life difficult. Please bear with me if anything I say seems dumb to you. Here goes...
I really enjoy my photography with a new D80(upgrade from a D50), but for a long time, both with the new and old camera, I have not been able to reproduce what I see on my monitor with what is printed by my Canon Pixma MP800. I have calibrated the monitor with GretagMacBeth Display Calibrator, which seems to have made a good improvement to what I see on the screen. And I now use Capture NX on RAW files, again with very satisfactory results...
But I don't understand how to link my printer profiles to my ouput and the monitor calibration, indeed, I am confused as to what should match with what for the best results. In the printer properties, I made the printer profile the same as the monitor profile. In Capture, when printing, and on the Color Management tab,should I be using this same profile(which doesn't appear to be available on the list), or a profile for the type of paper I am using, or the default of Adobe RGB? I have never been able to find any profiles for this printer, by the way, so assumed that it was the quality of paper that mattered, e.g. PR1, PR2, SP2 etc. Whichever combination I try(and I can't afford to keep wasting quality paper), I get prints which are darker and/or more subdued, with less saturation. I have had to make copies of images that have been brightened for the purpose, which is not good and still doesn't duplicate what I intended. I had the same problem when printing through Photoshop Elements.
The nearest I have got so far, just this week, is to select 'Use source profile' instead of 'Use colour management', but it is still not the same - the reds, especially, are more muted and don't have the saturation or brightness I wanted.
I hope somebody has had the patience to read through and try and understand all this, I am just desperate for a clear, concise explanation of what profiles and other settings I should use to get the prints that I want. It seems a shame to spend so much time and money on my hobby when I can't produce good hard copies as well as view my efforts on the computer.
Thanks
Ray Walters
Cheltenham, UK