It is not easy to produce prints that match well with what we see on the monitor. The purpose of this tutorial is to provide some guidelines for achieving a good match, based on recommendations of Tim Grey of the Lepp Institute in his DDQ Email newsletter, along with my own experience and testing. This is best considered a first draft in an evolving exercise that we can all contribute to and hopefully benefit from.

An important prerequisite is to ensure that your monitor is properly calibrated. A popular and relatively affordable system, one recommended by Tim Grey, is Colorvision's "PhotoCAL". This employs a small colorimeter that rests on the screen, along with related software. Once you get used to it, it's fairly easy. Remember, it must be repeated every 2-4 weeks.

The next step is coordinating the print functions of Photoshop and the Epson printer - the so-called print workflow. (Although this discussion deals with Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and the Epson 2200 printer, I suspect that recent versions of both Photoshop and the Epson series (1270 and 1280) are similar.)

(Photoshop CS & CS2 have a different window, in which one should select "Let Printer Determine Colors)

Assuming you've completed your image editing in Photoshop (PS) and are ready to print, you will then go to File -> Print with Preview (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-Alt-P, or Cmd-Opt-P for MAC) .

Here is what my PS (v 7.0) Print window looks like:



Note the following in the above window:

• Clicking in the box 'Show more options' enables you to select Color Management from the popup list, and with this the windows entitled 'Source Space' and 'Print Space'
• The Source Space should be set for Adobe RGB (1998), as displayed above
• Under Print Space, click on the inverted triangle at the right of the line entitled Profile. This will open up a long list of color profile names for papers, monitors and printers. Near the bottom of this list is one entitled 'Stylus Photo 2100/2200'. This is the so-called Generic Printer profile, and the one you should select. For 'Intent' I select 'Relative Colorimetric', but 'Perceptual' is an option that some prefer.
• Click 'Page Setup' near the upper riight corner. In Setup (not shown here), choose your printer, Paper Size, and Orientation (Landscape or Portrait), and then press OK. This will bring you back to the Photoshop 'Print' page (above).
• Now click in the box in the upper right corner entitled 'Print'
• This will bring up the Epson Stylus Photo 2200 Properties window below:

Note the following in the above window:

• On the page with the tab labelled 'Main', I've selected for 'Media Type' the paper I plan to use - in this case 'Enhanced Matte Paper.
• Ink should always be 'Color', even for black and white prints. This ensures the best rendition of gradations between black and white
• For Mode select 'Custom'. This brings out a popup list showing various custom print profiles that I've developed in the Advanced section (coming soon). The particular profile shown here is 'Laurie Matte" - one that includes all of my parameters at the bottom of the box on the left, above the word 'EPSON': 1440 dpi, Color Controls , Microweave and High Speed (all ON).
• Now, click inthe box entitled 'Advanced', which will bring up the next window.
  
  

The parameters on the left are self-explanatory. We will limit our discussion to those on the right.

Note the following on the right side of the above window:

• Under Color Management, select Color Controls
• Gamma should be 1.8
• Under Mode, select Photo-realistic
• The values for each of the other color control parameters under Mode are based on tests I carried out aimed at producing a black and white print with no color cast. (Similar tests need to be done for color prints, and for each paper used.) For this I used a standard PDI target file (PhotoDisc Test Image) that shows real life photos of various objects and people, along with a continuous tone BW scale.

The parameters I've developed for Epson Premium Luster Paper are a little different, as shown below.

Note that I had to increase Yellow to +3 to achieve the desired color balance.

After I found settings that I was satisfied with, I clicked 'Save Settings' (second box from the left at the bottom of the screen), and gave the profile a name ('Laurie Luster').. This is the name that shows up in the popup list when you click Custom in the Properties screen above.

Once you get the idea of the workflow, the main challenge is doing the tests to determine which values for Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Cyan/Yellow/Magenta give the desired results. This Excel chart shows how I did it.

One thing to keep in mind - wait about 15 minutes after the print comes out of the printer (so various colors can 'set') before evaluating it, and do so under light that approximates 5000 Kelvin. I use an Ott fluorescent desk lamp or overcast daylight,

Many thanks to Tim Grey of the Lepp Institute for all his great advice and tips on this and other aspects of digital photography in his DDQ Email newsletter.

Good luck!

Laurie Naiman
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