Photoshop, Monitor brightness and prints...

[Jim Walczak]

Greetings All!
Ok quick and dumb question here...

I've taken my pictures with my Olympus C-4000. I've adjusted the brightness and contrast then framed and cropped them in Photoshop 7 to the correct size for getting them printed as photo's (like at a 1 hour photo place, not off my printer)...how do I calibrate my monitor so that the brightness is going to be the same as what the image actually prints as? Basically when I process my pictures in Photoshop, I want to make sure that what I have printed is going to be the same thing as what I'm seeing on my monitor .

I'm grateful for everyones collective experience and wisdom...thanks!

Bright Blessings & Gentle Breezes,
Jim

[gary_hendr]

Originally posted by Jim Walczak
Greetings All!
Ok quick and dumb question here...

I've taken my pictures with my Olympus C-4000. I've adjusted the brightness and contrast then framed and cropped them in Photoshop 7 to the correct size for getting them printed as photo's (like at a 1 hour photo place, not off my printer)...how do I calibrate my monitor so that the brightness is going to be the same as what the image actually prints as? Basically when I process my pictures in Photoshop, I want to make sure that what I have printed is going to be the same thing as what I'm seeing on my monitor .

I'm grateful for everyones collective experience and wisdom...thanks!

Bright Blessings & Gentle Breezes,
Jim

Frankly I think there's no way to calibrate the monitor to look exactly like what's the same thing that prints out.

[Jim Walczak]

Hey Gary,
Well, your a little slow on the draw there as I had originally posted that back at the end of August (LOL), but yes I actually did find a way, that while not perfect, certainly helped. I got my monitor calibrated to my Epson inkjet, then I printed out a nice color scale which I had made up. Since the color scale matches what I see on my monitor, I can take it with me into the printers and make the apropriate adjustments on their equipment as well...it's been pretty effective :-) I'm sure it's not "perfect"...there's bound to be some slight tonal variations etc., but my pics are coming out -a lot- better now that I'm doing it this way...much closer to what I see on my monitor when I'm "processing" them :-)

Thanks Anyways!
Bright Blessings,
Jim

One thing that I have done is when I had a print from the lab the way I want it, I compare my moniter with it and adjust my moniter.....I have found it works well until the lab changes things.......but most of the time they are pretty consistent and I don't have to adjust very often.

You can ask at some labs, and they will either give the settings or send you to a website where they will tell you how to set your moniter but if you do that, I found that it affects everything else that you see

Hope this helps

[Jim Walczak]

Hey parklawn,
What I ended up doing is I calibrated my Epson inkjet to my monitor and made up a color scale. I have a print out of the color scale from my equipment along with the color scale in jpg form that I can put on the CD-R that I take to the printers. I'll put the jpg of the color scale in the printers equipment and by using my print out and I can adjust their equipment until the jpg matches the print out. As I told Gary it has worked bery well for me :-) Having the print out also works as a sort of "base line" as well...occasionally I'll reset my monitor for other applications and such and this way I have a reference to bring it back for my graphics work!

Either way, thanks for the info,
Bright Blessings,
Jim

[dyrah]

Well, its "What you see is what you get". Maybe its on the printer, the ink itself. Or you need someone professional in graphic designs..

Your graphic design software is great!