Color question

[skullbonz]

First I must apologize if this question has an answer somewhere in the forum and my old feeble mind has overlooked it in my searches.

My question is this; When I make a picture with pdn and print it out the colors change on me. The printed version looks much different from the saved version. Is there a way in pdn to correct this? Or would it be in my printer options? I usually save my pictures as a png file type if that helps.

[jim100361]

How is your ink supply holding up? The output quality could be because your low on a certain color and it could also be because you have a cheap printer (you never mentioned the make & model).

[midora]

My question is this; When I make a picture with pdn and print it out the colors change on me. The printed version looks much different from the saved version. Is there a way in pdn to correct this? Or would it be in my printer options? I usually save my pictures as a png file type if that helps.

Paint.NET does not use a CMS (Color management system). So what you see is not what you get.

To get best results all components in the chain (monitor, editing software, file format, and printer) have to support color profiles and the devices have to be calibrated.

You may get better results by saving as pdf (using the ImPDF plugin). There you are able to select a color profile matching your monitor. Printing this PDF increases the chance to get a good result.

[skullbonz]

@ jim-- It's an HP Photosmart 8150,with HP glossy photo paper and strictly HP ink,#97 and #99 to be exact. Another problem is the picture comes out a bit darker than the original also but I think the color problem fix would fix this also. Would this printer be inferior and I need an upgrade? Or maybe I should be using a different combo of ink?

@ midora--Thanks I'll try that.

Being that I have no college education on art,I am learning as I go. Am I correct in assuming then that this has nothing to do with the colors I am using to make the pictures?

Oh and the pc is an HP 6616(with a new motherboard,lol),quad core processor(also new),a GeForce 8400GS vid card,8gb Ram,a HP 2010i monitor and 2.25 tb of space on 3 hd's,2 internal and 1 external,windows7 home os. This thing never wimpers or lets out a peep,except when I accidentally hit the thermal heat map on a big file,lol. Previously I had pdn on xp and anything took forever,then on Vista which was much better but now I am in heaven with this one,lol. Seconds and minutes replace hours and days,lol.

Edited August 29, 2012 by skullbonz

[midora]

Being that I have no college education on art,I am learning as I go. Am I correct in assuming then that this has nothing to do with the colors I am using to make the pictures?

No idea if they would teach you something about color representation used in computers. Typically you should assume that you are working in sRGB color space (see Wikipdia)

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Paint.NET works in RGBA color space. As color is added the black (screen) become more white/brighter.

Printers work the opposite way, using a CYMK color space. The background is white (paper) and as you add ink the colors become blacker/darker.

The colors you're using are probably not the issue, it's probably the conversion from RGB to CYMK (as there is no 1:1 conversion between the two). If the printed colors are not a result of your printer settings/age/drivers then you should probably be working in the CYMK color space.

I''ve never had much of an issue with the recolorization from my humble printer. I suspect that there is something else going on. Try someone else's printer?

[barbieq25]

Depending on your monitor settings the image you look at could be a vastly different colour or depth of colour. My earlier images done on my laptop were ok to me but seeing them on my hubby's monitor, they were very bright. Printing on a Canon printer produced very pleasing results as the colours were much more vibrant.

My thoughts would be to see if you can calibrate the monitor's colours to be more like your print out. I don't know how to do this or if it even possible given what EER & Miora have rightly said about the colour management of computers.