Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hello to all.  I have used Qimage for a number of years, and want to improve my printing.  I'm not very knowledgeable about the process of profiling but have read much about it.  I have an elderly flat bed cannon scanner that has served me well for many years.  My printer is an HP Deskjet 9800 which has also served very well for several years.  But I want better prints.  My printed pictures are often off from what I see on my screen.  I also use CS3.  Question:  Is my printer and flat bed scanner capable of being used in the profiling process with hopefully better results than what I'm seeing now?

 I also saw a very old post about the down load book available for free and have ordered that tonight.

Thanks for any advice/answers/help.
Betty

Hi Betty,

Profile prism, if your scanner is up to it, will give quite good printer profiles, for any printer. If you are careful in following the correct sequence, you will be able to prepare profiles for any paper within about ten minutes or so. I expect even if your scanner is not too brilliant, it will give better results compared to not using an ICC profile. However, you probably need to understand about colour management in general, assuming you are following that workflow.

http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/pscs4/downloads/PSCS4-colormanage.pdf although referring to cs4, the same principles will apply to cs3 wrt colour management. Most printer manufacturers give profiles for their printers and papers, and many paper suppliers will have a free profiling service for your printer, if you buy their paper. None of that will be much use if you monitor is out of calibration, or you apply the profiles incorrectly. There are other profiling services available, but not necessarily free of charge. If you buy profile prism, you'll probably save money compared to buying three or more specific profiles.

Welcome to the can of worms :D

Best wishes,

Ray

Wow, Ray.  I can't thank you enough.  This PDF looks seems to contain exactly the info I'm struggling to understand.
 
I'm a bit scared of these "worms" but after years of pretty good to ok prints, I am ready to seriously try to improve my understanding and my output.

I'm a hugger, so consider yourself hugged!

Thanks again,
Betty

There's some information in Qimage Help on how CM relates to Qimage - if I remember correctly, you a are a Q user  :)
Online, it's here, http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/icc.htm
Terry.

Terry, thank you so much.  Yes I've found that and a couple more related articles/information under QImage.  Read several times, and will certainly be reading several more times.

Thanks again,
Betty

When I started out in this sort of stuff, about six years ago, there were a number of 'experts' talking about a subject that they really did not understand. I expect, today, there are many more. The only sensible route I found through the fud at that time was in the information that came with Profile Prism and was on the website at that time (not sure if the same information is there today).

Best wishes,

Ray