When it comes to photography, one of the key elements that can change how the final image is viewed is the way it’s displayed or printed.

As a photographer, ensuring that the colours we see on our monitors match the final prints is crucial for consistency and accuracy.

Colour calibration and printer profiling are two vital steps in this process.

This process isn’t about creating perfect, replicable colour of a scene (although in certain industries this may be crucial), but producing a printed image that resembles what you see on screen.

This article discusses my workflow for the achieving these results.

What is Colour Calibration?

Colour calibration is the process of adjusting your monitor, camera, or scanner to ensure that it displays colours as accurately as possible. The goal is to have a colour-accurate display, meaning the colours you see on the screen are as close as possible to what the camera captures or the printer will output.

This is important because all devices, from monitors to printers, can display a range of colours (known as a colour gamut), but they all do it in slightly different ways. Without calibration, what you see on the screen may not match the final printed image.

Why Colour Calibration Matters

Frustration and Disappointment: Without proper calibration your prints may look completely different from what you saw on your screen. Often they appear darker or “muddy” compared to the image on the screen, or have a particular colour cast. Calibration helps reduce (or eliminate) this uncertainty.

Consistency Across Devices: Each device (camera, monitor, printer) can interpret and display colours differently. A colour that looks vibrant on one device might appear dull or oversaturated on another. By calibrating your devices, you ensure that the colours you capture, edit, and print are consistent across your devices.

Accurate Editing: When you’re editing images you need to trust what you’re seeing on the screen. An uncalibrated monitor can lead to under or over exposed/saturated images when viewed on another device or print media.

How to Calibrate your Monitor

Create and Use Profiles: After calibration your monitor will be assigned an International Colour Consortium (ICC) profile that ensures the correct colours are displayed. Ensure your system uses this profile for colour accuracy across your editing software. Some monitors also feature user hardware calibration, and many dedicated monitors come factory calibrated. These may prove to be accurate right out of the box, and more than satisfactory for most workflows. However this calibration may drift and become less accurate over time. Hence the need to recalibrate at regular intervals.

Use a Calibration Tool: The most accurate way to calibrate a monitor is with a hardware calibration tool. These devices, such as the Datacolor SpyderX Pro, measure the colours on your screen and create a custom profile to adjust the display’s colour settings. The BenQ SW range of monitors feature hardware calibration that actually adjusts the profile of the monitor internally when used with the manufactures software and compatible calibration tool.

Manual Calibration: If you don’t have a calibration tool you can manually adjust your monitor’s brightness, contrast, and colour temperature through your computer’s settings. This method is free and may be satisfactory for your needs. However, this method is less precise than using a hardware tool and can cause frustration from inconsistencies at the printing stage.

Software Solutions: Some software tools can guide you through the process using your computer’s settings, and while not as accurate as hardware calibration these tools can help improve colour accuracy. Some may even be available free, and therefore a good option to start your learning of calibration.

What is Printer Profiling?

Once your monitor is calibrated, the next step is to ensure that your printer reproduces colours as accurately as possible. Printer profiling is the process of creating a custom profile for your printer and paper combination. This profile tells your printer how to interpret and print the colours from your digital files.

Printers don’t produce colours in the same way as your monitor, even if you’ve calibrated it. The paper type, ink, and printer model all affect the final print, which is why individual printer profiles for each printer and paper type is essential for achieving colour accuracy.

Why Printer Profiling Matters

1. Accurate Prints: If your printer isn’t calibrated, it might produce prints with colours that are too dark, too light, or inaccurately saturated. A printer profile helps ensure that the print colours match what you see on your monitor.
2. Consistency: If you’re working with a professional printer or have your own high-end printer, printer profiling allows you to get consistent results. It ensures that, regardless of the printer or paper used, your prints will reflect the colours you expect.
3. Paper and Ink Specifics: Different types of paper and ink can shift colours in unexpected ways. Printer profiling accounts for these variables, ensuring the final print matches the colours you intended.

How to Profile Your Printer

Printer and Paper Combination: Always remember that different paper types can affect the way colours are printed. If you use multiple types of paper for your prints you will need separate profiles for each paper type to ensure consistent results.

Use a Supplied ICC Profile: Many photographic paper suppliers offer print profiles for their papers and a wide range of available printers. These profiles are, in my opinion, quite accurate and more than suitable for home users. Some suppliers are even happy to provide a custom profile for you and your printer, saving the expense of buying a calibration tool.

Use a Printer Calibration Tool: Similar to monitor calibration, you can use a hardware tool, Datacolor SpydrPrint, to profile your printer. These devices measure the colours of a target print from your printer and creates a custom ICC profile based on the data.

Print Test Charts: A common method for profiling is to print a colour chart that contains a wide range of colours and tones. Once the print is completed, you measure the printed colours with a spectrophotometer to build the printer profile. As mentioned above, some paper suppliers are also happy to supply a file for you to print and return to them to carry out the profiling.

Top Tips

1. Recalibrate Regularly: Both monitors and printers can drift over time. Regular calibration ensures your devices stay accurate. It is recommended to check monitors monthly and profile printers when you change ink or add a new paper type.
2. Ambient Light Control: The lighting in your workspace can affect how you perceive colours. Try to work in a controlled lighting environment, ideally with daylight-balanced lights, to prevent colour perception errors.
3. Profile for Each Paper Type: If you print on multiple types of paper, it’s important to have separate printer profiles for each. Different papers have different colour properties, which can impact the final output.

Colour calibration and printer profiling are valuable steps in ensuring that the colours in your images stay true to your vision, from the moment you capture the photo to the final print.

By investing time in calibrating your monitor and profiling your printer you’ll create a more reliable, consistent workflow that produces accurate and repeatable prints every time.

While it may seem like a complex process the time invested can save much of the frustration and waste associated with printing images that don’t match your screen (or intention).

Remember: Your monitor is back-lit and will display images differently to a printed image, which relies on reflected light. So don’t frustrate yourself further by striving for an exact match, just aim for as close and repeatable match as you are happy with. Viewing under a consistent (daylight) source and reducing monitor brightness can really help with more closely matching both medium!