clarnibass wrote:What I found is that even on the calibrated screens in the printing lab, it's not always the same. It could be quite different on two different types of papers. Non-colourblind people there seem to agree with me (looking at their prints and mine).
that usually means the lab has bad printer profiles.
printed images will always look a bit different from screen, mostly the screen images have more glow due to the backlight.
also bright saturated colors can't be translated to prints since dye absorption can never be as pure bright as additive RGB colors.
but for normal images, lets say an indoor portrait, the colors should look very similar to the screen appearance, and using different papers with the right profiles should look very similar.
Also for something important I always do a test on the actual type of paper before and adjust based on that.
that's always good practise, even with a properly calibrated workflow since the feel of an image depends a lot on the medium.
but I can't see how calibrating my screen would help, unless maybe you adjust it for a specific paper/printer/etc. that you use?
without a properly calibrated monitor all bets are off and you're basically working blind. it does kinda work if you do a final tune up at the printer stage and are lucky that your monitor is in the reasonable ballpark.
theoretically if all devices are calibrated then we'd always have accurate color everywhere, the problem with this is (apart that even professional print shops often don't get it right or are too lazy to even try) is that the *appearance* of an image on even the same monitor depends heavily on the surround area/light.
make this test:
edit an image at night at your screens until you're happy. then open it again the next morning in bright daylight. it now will look darker, with lost shadow detail, and bit washed out color.
that's why in professional critical environments the surround is also calibrated in color temperature and brightness of the light.
the frustrating bit is then if you later on see your work on somebody elses cheap screen which is not calibrated ;)
it's still worth it though to get at least your side right.
