Hello all!
I'm embarrassingly new to photoediting, so please don't laugh.
I scanned in a picture, did some editing, but the resulting picture is lighter and 'redder' than what I see in my program. I am using Microsoft's Digital Image 9 Pro. What do I do to make the finished picture the same as what the program is showing me?? I mean, besides getting Photoshop?? [I do have Photoshop 5.5--but I don't know how to work it yet! :) ]
TIA!

tlwidmer

Hi tlwidmer,

Welcome to RP! :pleased:

Matching colours between monitor and printed images is still my 'dream' ... :o:

Personally I think that's a matter of trial and error, but there are some steps which could help you in getting closer to your aim.... ( ... once I started reading into that I felt like being lost in a labyrinth leading uphill!!!) ... anyway here they are:

Monitor Calibration
Colour Profiles
Colour Managment

There are thousands of sites which offer very good explanations and tips on this topics ... the one I prefer is this (http://www.computer-darkroom.com/articles.htm)... It's mainly about printing with Photoshop, but it's a start ....

Hope this helps a bit ...

You are not alone, and it is impossible to get it exactly. Flora's advice really is the most important stuff to do, calibrate your monitor and make sure you have a good color profile and an ICM for the color conversion.

The rest of it just takes a little getting used to. CMYK (which is what most printers use) have a VERY limited gamut. Any color that is florescent or particularly bright is hard to reproduce. The RGB scheme on your monitor is additive color (more light makes the colors brighter), while the CMYK is subtractive color (more ink makes the color darker.) It can never be any brighter than the inks used and any variation makes it less vibrant.

There are some printing schemes out there that use florescent inks as well as cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These schemes do a really good job of reproducing color, but the down side is that (so far as I know) there are no printers that really use them. They are only used for actual presswork. We can hope that they will eventually make an inkjet or laser printer that can handle them.

Printing with dull color until then,

Michael

Dear Flora & Michael--
I do so much appreciate your imput. I will proceed accordingly. It's a bit reassuring to know that those with much more experience than I even have this problem. I just bought an HP Photosmart 8450, so I assumed my vast lack of knowledge was causing the problem. Well, I'm sure that's part of the equation, but at least not ALL of it!!
Thanks for the welcome also! I know I'll learn alot here.

sincerely
Theresa

You might want to use the Gamma monitor calibrator that came with your Photoshop 5.5, even if you don't use Photoshop. It won't solve all your problems, but it will eliminate a couple of variables. There's a tutorial on its use over in the tutorials section.

If you calibrate your monitor (with Gamma or any other calibrator) and find the ICC profile for your printer (and read your printer helpfile to see how to install and use it) you should get pretty close to what you want.