Yesterday’s session with my HP 8850 printer left me frustrated – First I struggled for 3 hours to get the printer’s special media tray load the newly purchased Hahnemühle Photo Rag 10×15 cm photo cards. The fact that they are a little smaller than 10×15 and have rounded corners seems to throw the paper detection off. Then the print came out with a slight green tint I didn’t understand. Profiling? Lighting? Lighting during profiling?
By chance I met Chris Marquardt of Tips from the Top Floor and HappyShooting podcasts on Twitter, and he kindly provided me with a mini-workshop on fine art printing in 5 tweets. For your enjoyment, here is my translation to English:
- Image Processing: Only do it using a properly color-profiled monitor.
- Sharpening: Keep your hands off! [The printer driver will take care of it, usually]
- Color casts: Profile the monitor, look at the prints at daylight, best in the shade
- If your images have a red cast after import [and your prints have a green cast!], your profile is wrong
- While profiling, avoid any extranous light [for example by covering the sensor with a blanket]
I love this guy. Honestly, #2 got me thinking, I think this is the best tip I heard for a while!
And I need to go back and try to check my monitor profile now.
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