Best printer for renders?
michellecelebrielle
Posts: 264
I have an old canon printer and all my colours look wrong when I try to print any kind of render or artwork. Does anyone have a suggestion the won't break the bank?
I've already tried re-callibrating my screen and tried various printer and photoshop settings, to no avail.
Thanks for the replies :)
Post edited by michellecelebrielle on
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Comments
do you set your render up in CMYK, or rather change it to CMYK in PS
recalibrating your screen is not going to help if the printer is incapable of producing decent color output due to h/w limitations and ink quality.
What is the model of the printer?
What I do is, I'm taking the image to the local discounter and have them instaprinted (or let them print them for pick-up). This is using the regular photoprinters.
This is way cheaper and has a better quality than buying&maintaining a local color printer (ink, paper, printheads).
when i'm printing proofs for bookcovers, i use a 4x6 kodak printer, prints with film, not ink. it's a combo printer/camera docking station, but can print from pc. needs special kodak paper, printer shuffles it back and forth a few times, film works in layers.
Hi, I change it in Photoshop to CYMK. My printer is old though.
Hi, it's a Canon MP250, so old.
Thanks for the reply. I may have to find a local printer. I tried getting some trial photo prints from snapfish and they were fairly close in colour. My digital paintings weren't, though.
Thanks, that sounds interesting. Something for me to look up
I've been using Canon printers for as long as I can remember :)
It took me months of messing about with drivers, profiles for both monitor and printer and printing out test after test. I finally ended up with the images on screen, in PS and on paper matching...........right up until my first printer broke and I had to start over with a new one...............then that one went and I had to start all over again. It was easier though as I had an idea of what I had to do and the last twice only took a few days.
First make sure the monitor is calibrated and what you are seeing is how you want the images to look.
I use PS so I set it to work in Adobe 1998 colour space.
Take them into PS and make any changes you want; colour, sharpness, contrast etc.
Print from PS making sure that it is handling the Colour Management and not the printer, turn it off in the printer if you can too.
In the PS print window you can choose the printer driver and in the preview image choose the one that will give the best image; use Relative Colormetric and with Black Point Compensation ticked.
Try a couple of small test prints to see if you get the results you are looking for.
It works for me with my Canon ix6500.
Remember too that what you see on screen will always be different than a print as one is transmitted light, the monitor, and the other is reflected light, the print, so the monitor image will always look more vibrant than the printed image.
I use only Canon Printers... by now I use a ix6550.
When I print pictures I always use photo-paper and print as photo. In my opinion this gives the best results.
Do you still have the printer manual? Older models were frequently built with the assumption they would never be fed anything except an RGB file, so when you tried to print a CMYK image, the first thing that happens to the file is it gets automagically converted to RGB. Needless to say, this did not improve final print quality if you'd already converted it from RGB.
Do not change to CMYK. Leave it as RGB.
The drivers for consumer inkjet printers are made to accept RGB data. An internal rasterizer converts the image to whatever ink technology is used in the printer. Many less expensive inkjet printers use 4-color CMYK inks, but others may use 6, 8, 10, even 12 colors, including red, blue and green! Just because an inkjet (or laser) printer uses CMYK inks does not mean you convert the file to CMYK.
(Matters can be different with professional-grade printers, and especially anything that creates separation film for traditional offset printing. But that's not what we're talking about here.)
The advice Fishtails provides is spot-on. It's the color management you need to concern yourself with, not the color model. D|S outputs "untagged" RGB files, meaning it doesn't provide any information to a graphics program of how the colors are represented. When outputting in Iray, as an example, the images are RGB (that's a given), with an overall gamma of 2.2. This corresponds neatly with the sRGB color space. When you open the file in Photoshop, change the Document Profile to sRGB or Adobe 1998, either will work. (sRGB and Adobe 1998 present gamma 2.2 a bit differently, but it likely won't affect what you are doing). This will help when printing, and the explicit tagging is especially important if you send your images out for printing elsewhere.
As for why the colors are off from what you see, it could be many things, including expired ink, wrong printer driver, mismatched color management settings in the program you're using for printing, and of course, your monitor. You were correct in wanting to calibrate the monitor -- while that alone won't solve a printing problem, it at least will help in establishing a baseline for maintaining color fidelity.
Agree that good quality photo paper & ink make a big difference. Ink and paper should be "official" ink & paper from the manufacturer of the printer despite the expense. I tried a variety of off-brand papers and inks and it hurt so I won't do that again.
That being said, I used HP printers, paper and ink for many years and had good luck with many of them although I did cheap out on one or two and regretted it. Now, however, I use EPSON paper & ink in an EPSON WF-7520 which has separate C,Y,M, Bk ink cartridges, and dual-tray, large papersize (13"x19") capability. It's not exclusively for images but is more of a high quality office printer, however I am extremely happy with the image quality improvement over any of the HP's that I've ever had. But short of getting a new printer, I think the suggestion immediately above by SpottedKitty is worth a check.
I was going to suggest the Epsons. A cheaper non all-in-one version of the 7520 is the 7110, about $110 refurbished direct from Epson. Due to its construction, this printer is also good for higher volume printing using a contunuous ink supply system, like those sold by Cobra Inks in the US. You buy bottles of pigment ink and even those huge 13x19 prints are pennies each.
I used to have several 7010s, the precursor to the 7110, and did thousands of prints with them. They are essentially "disposable" printers, but for the price, they are good buys.
Yes; I only use original Ink from Canon (because I see what horrible results you can get with refill or noname).
I use Epson Paper; 11.7" x 16.5" 360dpi ink jet paper or Photo Quality Glossy Paper for big size images. For small size I use Epson 4" x 6" Photo Paper or Lexmark 4" x 6" Snapshot Photo Paper (made by AGFA). For standard A4 size I use Canon HR-101 or Kodak Inkjet Photo Paper.
At one time I had four printers in operation, which I used for various purposes, each more or less based on a brands inks strong points... It's been about three years since this sort of thing has mattered and that's centuries in tech... My personal observation was at the time- Epson had the best inks, in durability/longevity and vividness, but Epsons waste ink and break easy.... Canon came in next, not as durable and a little darker, but the machine last longer and are more reliable... Other brands I didn't really bother with as I didn't like their inks or color fidelity (example: HP's blues lean to black when dark, and reds are often duller and the inks tend to not do well when handled and seem to only print well on HP papers, which I'm not fond of).
What I did was not something others might have the luxury of doing... I had a test sheet professionally printed and then I used that to compare against printouts I made on units owned by people I know... And in a few cases against units in stores that were set up to print examples (but of stock example sheets).. But that sort of thing in stores is virtually nonexistent now.
I never really bothered with aftermarket inks past 2003 when a specialty ink maker I was buying from disappeared, they made special inks for outdoor use and decals. I tried a couple of aftermarket brands in my nonessential printers and they sucked... I actually think one gummed up an HP printer head, after that I didn't feel any savings were worth the hassle.
Finding the perfect printer can be very subjective too... But it really comes down to Machine, Ink and Paper... Paper is also an often overlooked component of a good print and good quality paper make a world of difference... I can print the same image on three different brands and get three different results consistently, so also factor paper in as well... Perhaps try a couple of different quality brands on your machine before moving on... For example I used to use a Canon paper in my Epson for photos, but that same paper in my in-laws Lexmark was terrible, and a cheap Kodak paper actually work better in theirs... (The machine itself was pretty terrible and the ink expensive for the quality).
Sorry I couldn't give an exact model, but I hope this was of some use. And keep in mind all of this may have changed over the last two years.
Expanding on the paper & ink theme, be sure that you select the right settings in your printer to match the type of paper you are using! "Standard" and "photo" and "glossy" and "matte" all absorb ink differently and reflect/refract colors differently. A decent printer has lots of settings to let you match the inking tech to the paper characteristics. Of course each printer manufacturer has the most and more accurate settings for their own paper types.
Exactly and a very good point.
Color is such an interesting science & technology. And it's all based on illusion because in reality there is no such thing as color!
("You didn't see anything" -- insert image of cartoon penguin waving hands and backing away slowly) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7pXxaXFvQs at time 1:12
Thank you for all of the suggestions everyone. I'll try out some tests with the Photoshop settings mentioned and see how I get on. I've been using a cheap glossy photo paper too, so I should probably look around for some Canon own brand paper. I do always use the Canon inks.
Thanks again and I'll try to remember to update in a couple of days.