lauragarabedian | This is why I can't have nice things

Welp its not the printers fault (which isn't something you hear people say very often)

No I'm not spontaneously turning into a pirate... though I am considering throwing myself off the plank. (no, not really, bad joke, whatever). After much troubleshooting and going through a crapton of ink and paper I think the problem isn't my printer its me. I changed my scanner settings about a month ago as they seemed to be producing a better digital image.

Yep. Digital image is GREAT best scans of watercolors I've ever gotten. But something about it has destroyed the print quality. No subtleties to shadows and highlights, oversaturated golds and blues and undersaturated and way to dark reds... holy cripes batman, I just want it to print whats on my screen... which has NEVER been a problem before. i.e. all of the things that I've printed before are printing just lovely. No problems whatsoever... anything SCANNED w/in the last month... crap...

Dammit. So I think everything I've done in the past month is gonna have crap for printability, I'm still trying to fix things in Photoshop but my hope is low at this point...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Do you have a calibrated monitor? Ironically after I got a calibrated monitor, all my images at home print super dark -__- but things I print at a pro printer with custom icc print profiles are almost dead on to what I see on screen! You can also try fiddling with photoshop handling the color management in the ps print options dialogue. I must be frank color management has been the bane of my life since I discovered it's multi-dimensional complexities..ie pains-in-the-proverbial-bum.

But if you don't have a color calibrated monitor..you may try calibrating (there are free software based programs if you google C: ) and see if in your case the prints match closer to what you see on screen. I wish I could be more forthcoming with advice but color management is one amorphous crapshoot :/.

Welp, the problem isn't the monitor/computer I don't think? I mean everything printed previously, everything scanned prior to this month is stil printing beatuifully... the only things wrong are things scanned this month :/

I appreciate your suggestions though Thanks!

Oh well I am sorry I could not offer help but I hope you figure out what's doing it. Maybe try downgrading drivers to older ones or write down your settings and reset everything to factory default? Hope you get it sorted!

You mention you changed scanner settings - did you by chance change the color profile? For example, if your color profile for the image doesn't match with the color profile for the printer, you may be getting problems. The image may look great on your monitor, but your printer is trying to print, say, Adobe 1998 and your scanner is producing an image with the sRGB color profile, it may not print right.

Hmmm I don't think so but I will go back and check! Thanks!

Out of curiosity, what type of scanner do you have? If it's an Epson, there's a good chance we both have the same scanning software, and I might be able to help you troubleshoot.

It is an epson, I'll have to check it out when I get home tomorrow, thanks so much!!!

I've always had that problem with watercolors. When they look bad on the screen they print nicely, and like you said, when they look good on the screen they print like crap.

I don't know if it's the case here but it's usually all in the leveling, or the 'colour correct' option in the scanner settings (which auto-levels things a bit during the scanning process, and can be turned on or off in the scanner setting screen that pops up when you scan). I feel your pain! All of my art from college is unprintable due to over leveled scans. Hopefully you still have some of the originals around and can re-scan them with whatever the previous settings were!

Yep yep. I was so stoked to finally get it set to look nicely. And yes I think it was the levelling, which I had always done via photoshop and figured I would play with on the scanner and liked the results, silly silly me thinking I could fix things.

Unfortunately the two pieces I was MOST proud of and most looking forward to having prints of shipped off at the beginning of the week. So much for having those at the portfolio review this weekend *dammit*

This is why I can't have nice things - AKA ARRRRRRRrrrrr

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