colour

[mags]

im having problems (surprise, surprise!), the colour on the screen aint nothing like what is coming out of the printer. (have done the windows - show printer colours)

has anybody any suggestions as to how i can rectify (realise i wont get it exactly matching but at the moment its crazy)

thanks

mags

[mags]

im having problems (surprise, surprise!), the colour on the screen aint nothing like what is coming out of the printer. (have done the windows - show printer colours)

has anybody any suggestions as to how i can rectify (realise i wont get it exactly matching but at the moment its crazy)

thanks

mags

[Egg Bramhill]

I suspect to get a good answer to this problem folks will need to know further information. ie What printer are you using, what are your printer settings are you using in the "print" dialogue window and what type of paper your using.
XaraX "show printer colours" gives a better idea of printer colours than the normal screen image, but what are your problems in more detail.
Egg

[mags]

hi egg
strange, think my eyesight was going!, have tried again and everything is printing out matching really, really well, dont know what happened last night!! but i know it was crazy colour matching at the time!

was importing a 3D image from xara3d, say importing but perhaps i was just opening the file instead of importing it, then adding a few things in xara x, would this have caused any colour differences?

(got an epson stylus photo 750, probably just printing at 360 dpi)

mags

[mags]

me again, well i dont know what happened the other morning (brain still asleep!) but am now absolutely positive that my origial query stands.

have printed off with 720dpi, on injet paper, am using an epson stylus photo 750 printer

to try and get this colour thing sorted out, i have printed off three rectangles each filled with a different shade of a burgandy colour, as it shows on screen "show printer colour" HOWEVER when i print it off they are purple, varying shades!!

can anyone help (i am a complete novice incase u hadnt guessed!!)?

(i know in ms publisher, u can print off the colour chart so see how the colours appear in print - is there any facility to do this in xara?)

this is driving my round the bend, couple of friends are wanting buz cards but cant do anything til this colour problem is sorted out.

any help VERY GRATEFULLY recieved!

[mags]

just been mucking about again, when i take the feathering off the rectangles that i filled the colour is much truer - is this what is causing the problems? (i thought feathering softened the edges not changed the colour, am i wrong?)

[Mick Robinson]

You cannot get an exact printed match for many screen colors. There are two reasons for this:
1. Some colors have no match between inks and the screen. For example magenta ink color has no match on screen.
2. Inks are not pure color and magenta dominates. For example, on-screen you can create blue shades by combining equal amounts of Cyan and Magenta (using the CMYK color model). When printed, your blue becomes purple.
People who do a lot of printing often use color swatches (particularly Pantone reference swatches, which are expensive). These are a sort of "cookbook" - mix 20% Cyan, 50% Magenta and 10% Black and you get this color. The Pantone swatches are designed for litho inks and may not match inkjet inks. One way is create your own swatches: create a rectangle with color combination A, another rectangle with color combination B, then blend between them. Print the result to see how the different color combinations look.
Feathering can affect colors if the color is defined in CMYK. Reason is that we use bitmaps to create the feathering effect. (Getting technical here - CMYK colors are always sent to the printer without modification unless we have to use a bitmap to create a feathering or transparent effect. Bitmaps are RGB color model and get converted to CMYK when printed - this process can give color shifts.)
Mick

[Sean Sedwards]

Mags

Desktop printers generally aim to print using normal screen colours, their drivers compensate for the fact that real Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK inks are not the same as ideal screen colours. "Show Printer Colours" is designed to help those who work in Pantone or other CMYK colours meant to be sent direct to a professional printing bureau without compensation. It's only a very rough approximation but gives some idea of the finished product.

AFAIK, feathering is not supposed to alter the colours, however some alteration may be inevitable if the control is set at maximum. Try printing two shapes with and without feathering on the same page to judge the difference. Try different colours.

Regards - Sean

P.S. I wrote this answer before I read Mick's. He seems to have a very plausible explanation for the discrepancy. Does the colour use CMYK values?

[This message was edited by Sean Sedwards on August 31, 2001 at 04:19.]

[Squeaky]

I have the same problem, easpecially when using cmyk preview. If you export a feathered gradient with cmyk preview on it comes out as stripes!
For the most part I find that exporting with cmyk preview turned on, opening in photoshop and changing to cmyk gives results most like my screen inmage. For the most accurate printed image I put a cmyk image into a freehand doccument and print that.
It's all a bit long winded but to be honest after years of illustrating on paper and computer the best advice I can give is to not get too precious about colour, it is always different when it prints.
Now I come to think of it I had colour problems improting a bitmap in png format with an alpha channel - it came out very muddy. I rectified the problem by changing the file to a tiff.
any help to you?
Huge regards
Dave

[mags]

thanks for the replies - makes things clearer, i now reliase that the perfectionist trait in me is going to have to be restrained!

have done the squares, fill with base colour, blend etc etc and printed it off so i know the colours i will get, great suggestion and great help - thanks very much.

now have another problem!! when i did the above and got the printout colours to what i wanted, anytime i opened a new drawing the colours/shades that i had made (and named) and wanted to use in a new 'document' are not showing on the colour palette - what am i doing wrong??