Re: filmscanners: Printing: Settings, calibration & whatever

[Raphael Bustin <rafeb@channel1.com>]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Norman Unsworth wrote:

> I'd appreciate any suggestions / recommendations for getting print results
> that more closely resemble what I see on the monitor.


Here's my $ 0.02

Forget the color management stuff and learn to 
look at the RGB numbers a bit while in Photoshop.
I still use Photoshop 4 which predates all this 
"color management" nonsense.

Read "Professional Photoshop" by Dan Margulis to 
learn how this is done.

Make sure each image has a reasonable black point 
and white point.  If you're missing either of these, 
your printed images will look flat.

It's asking a lot of your calibration hardware 
(not to mention your eyes) to set white point and 
black point "by eye." OTOH, it's very easy to do 
this using the Curves tool and the "Info" tool 
in Photoshop.

This technique will also help with overall color 
balance, particularly if there are recognizble 
gray (neutral) tones in the image.

And by all means, learn to use the Curves tool.
It's the key to getting good-looking images.


rafe b.