Printing your art or photograph to how you want it and how it looks on the screen is very important.
Monitor calibration
Most screens are too bright, and have a default setting Some are great, others not so much. As the monitor gets older, these colours change too. It’s more of an issue with older bulb light monitors, and less so with LED, but still these colours change over time.
By calibrating your monitor, you know that the Image you see on your screen will closely match your final prints.
Initial monitor settings:
- Luminance 120 Candelas m2
- Gama 2.2
- Colour Temperature 6500k
- Black Level Minimum
For specific instructions, please see your device manual.
Environment & assistance
Also ideally your working environment should have fixed lighting, away from windows and daylight that can change throughout the day. A neutral wallpaper on your desktop, bright colours can alter your perception and influence your adjustment decisions. The single most effective process towards obtaining the best colours is to calibrate your monitor with a colourimeter or spectrophotometer, this will effectively ‘tune’ your system to our printers.
Bring your laptop or monitor into the studio and let us calibrate your monitor for free or feel free to hire out our retouching room where you can use an iMac, Eizo monitor and Wacom tablet to ensure you get the best colour results.
X-Rite i1Display Studio Is an ideal device for the beginner and is available for under £150 in the UK.
Soft proofing your images
Seeing how your prints will look on the screen before they are printed is the best way to avoid unwanted waste and downloading our colour profiles will enable you to do it even easier.
Please see the soft proofing guide video for more information.
Guides
From the resolution of your file to the correct DPI for the size, these are the main items to be aware of.
Printing your art or photograph to how you want it and how it looks on the screen is very important.