Color laser printer prints colors much darker than screen colors

I want to be able to print the standard basic colors**
exactly the same way that they appear on the screen. A
specific instance of this is that cyan*** is printed as a
much darker shade of blue than appears on the screen.

I have found this exact same problem exists across several
laser printer brands and models, and is likely an issue with
all laser printers. How can I correct this problem?

** (Defined by combinations of RGB values at their maximum
value of 255 and half of their maximum value of 128) .

*** cyan---Red(0), Green(255), Blue(255)

Peter Olcott wrote:
I want to be able to print the standard basic colors**
exactly the same way that they appear on the screen. A
specific instance of this is that cyan*** is printed as a
much darker shade of blue than appears on the screen.

I have found this exact same problem exists across several
laser printer brands and models, and is likely an issue with
all laser printers. How can I correct this problem?

** (Defined by combinations of RGB values at their maximum
value of 255 and half of their maximum value of 128) .

*** cyan---Red(0), Green(255), Blue(255)



What you describe is called "calibration" and is something everyone who
does publishing or photo work must learn. But don't get your hopes up -- it
is always going to be a hit-or-miss proposition -- screen and paper are
just too different for it to be otherwise. And get used to the requirements
that you never as much as adjust the brightness or contrast of your monitor
to make it look "better". And get used to touching up the settings
regularly. And be prepared to viewing your prints only under a single
well-controlled lighting condition and source.

There are many articles online that tell you what to do. This is a very
low-level introduction:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/11007...r_monitor.html

If you are serious about matching colors then you'll need hardware
assistance in the end:

http://spyder.datacolor.com/index_us.php

--
John McGaw
http://johnmcgaw.com

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:44:14 -0600, "Peter Olcott"
wrote:

I want to be able to print the standard basic colors**
exactly the same way that they appear on the screen. A
specific instance of this is that cyan*** is printed as a
much darker shade of blue than appears on the screen.



As John mentioned, it's called calibration, or a more crude
way to do it is pick whichever device is off from what you
perceive the right color, and correct that device first.
For example, if the screen is too dark, adjust that, or the
printer output too light, that instead.


I have found this exact same problem exists across several
laser printer brands and models, and is likely an issue with
all laser printers. How can I correct this problem?

Then it seems likely your monitor and/or video driver output
settings are set wrong.

"kony" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:44:14 -0600, "Peter Olcott"
wrote:

I want to be able to print the standard basic colors**
exactly the same way that they appear on the screen. A
specific instance of this is that cyan*** is printed as a
much darker shade of blue than appears on the screen.



As John mentioned, it's called calibration, or a more
crude
way to do it is pick whichever device is off from what you
perceive the right color, and correct that device first.
For example, if the screen is too dark, adjust that, or
the
printer output too light, that instead.


I have found this exact same problem exists across several
laser printer brands and models, and is likely an issue
with
all laser printers. How can I correct this problem?

Then it seems likely your monitor and/or video driver
output
settings are set wrong.

It looks like there is no possible combination of colors
that can produce the bright shade of blue represented by
RGB(0, 255, 255), and the same thing goes for the bright
shade of Green represented by RGB(0,255,0). My printer had
a series of test pages that provided 288 shades of blue and
288 shades of green, and none of these colors matched the
screen.

Peter Olcott wrote:
snip...
It looks like there is no possible combination of colors
that can produce the bright shade of blue represented by
RGB(0, 255, 255), and the same thing goes for the bright
shade of Green represented by RGB(0,255,0). My printer had
a series of test pages that provided 288 shades of blue and
288 shades of green, and none of these colors matched the
screen.



FWIW, RGB(0,255,255) is really not "bright blue" (or at least it shouldn't
be) -- it is really 100% saturated cyan. As you've experienced, there is a
limit to the color gamut of every device. Expecting a perfect overlap
between a light-emitting image such as a monitor and a light-reflecting
image such as a printed page is not realistic. About the best you can hope
for is a calibration between the two that will allow you to predict roughly
how the printed page will look. But be prepared for any match to change
every time you change paper or toner. This is the bane of every person who
does photos or graphics in print. And it is probably why there are multiple
hardware/software solutions on the market with some of these solutions
being insanely expensive.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com