Printing photos the way I see them on my screen??

Leelawatie

Hello!
I just printed pics through SmugMug and had a problem...many of my pics printed too dark and the complexion of my children were super duper red. I hadn't noticed that the complexions were "red" until it was pointed out to me by a smugmug "hero". So, he linked me to this site...I have read and re-read the information on color management, but I am still so confused. I am using a MacBook Pro and do my editing in PS. Can someone spell out for me in easy, 1,2,3 steps on what I need to do to make sure that what I print is what I see on my screen? Should I be setting something in my camera to eliminate this red before it is even uploaded to my computer? I am so confused and simply want my prints to turn out the way I see them on my computer and I just don't know exactly what I need to do to have that happen...I appreciate any help...please.

jfriend

The question works the other way around. You need to calibrate and profile your screen so that it will match your prints, then make sure you're doing the right things in a color-managed workflow.

First off, you will need to make it so that your screen shows accurate color. The typical way of doing that is to buy a hardware calibrator that will read the colors that your monitor produces for a given input and calibrate/profile it so that Photoshop can produce accurate color.

Second, you need to make sure you're doing the right things with color-management. That means making sure that you always keep your images with the right color profile on them, that you always view them in color-managed software and that you supply the printer with a color-profile that it supports (which for Smugmug prints is sRGB).

Third, you need to now how to produce accurate color in PS when you are adjusting your images. You need to know what good skin color is, know how to look at known reference colors in the image (things that should be white or neutral, things that should not have blue in them, etc...).

Obviously, it's easier if you get the white balance of your images right in the camera, but you don't have to do that perfectly in order to be able to tweak things to be right in PS. If you get close in the camera, have a computer system that displays accurate color and know how to judge appropriate color in your images, you can make it all work. This isn't something you just learn in a day. It takes reading, asking questions, practicing and learning. But, until your system is calibrated to produce accurate color, none of the other steps can happen reliably.

Here are three of Smugmug's pages for adjusting skin tone (after you've calibrated your monitor).

http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone
http://www.smugmug.com/help/red-skin-tones
http://www.smugmug.com/help/photo-websites

Leelawatie

Thanks John for your reply.

First, what software do you recommend I get to calibrate my monitor?

Secondly, as far as color-profile-how exactly do I do that? In PS, I go to Edit>Color Settings>. What do I select after that? At the top, it says, "settings" with several options...then it has "working spaces" with several drop down menus and then "color management policies" with several drop down menus.

Is this all I need to do for make sure my color profile is accurate?

Thirdly, I think you are then telling me to read/learn about color management in the links you provided.

jfriend

Leelawatie wrote:

Thanks John for your reply.

First, what software do you recommend I get to calibrate my monitor?

You need a hardware calibrator that has a puck that attaches to your screen to actually read colors off your screen as part of the process. A software-only product just won't be comprehensive enough. I have an Eye-One Display2 which works well. I bought mine several years ago and I don't know what's changed since then. You won't want the very cheapest or the most expensive.

Leelawatie wrote:

Secondly, as far as color-profile-how exactly do I do that? In PS, I go to Edit>Color Settings>. What do I select after that? At the top, it says, "settings" with several options...then it has "working spaces" with several drop down menus and then "color management policies" with several drop down menus.

Is this all I need to do for make sure my color profile is accurate?

You don't need to mess with the default values for color settings. They should be set to preserve embedded profiles. The working spaces are just what new documents will be created in and determine whether you're prompted when a different colorspace document is loaded. They don't affect how a given color space document is displayed.

If you calibrate properly, Photoshop will automatically pick up the display profile and show you accurate color without doing anything in the color settings dialog.

Leelawatie wrote:

Thirdly, I think you are then telling me to read/learn about color management in the links you provided.

Those links are about how you adjust and judge skin color in your images. If you want to try the budget route, you can start by learning how to judge and adjust skin color by the numbers and see how that prints out. If your monitor happens to be pretty close and you can learn how to judge and adjust skin color well, you might get away without calibrating your monitor. I don't recommend that because it's a roll of the dice, but if you want to start somewhere right now, you have to learn this anyway so you can start here.

Leelawatie

Thank you very much John for the information. I am looking into a calibrator today...