Color profiles - monitors vs. printers vs. professional printing

[Zone99]

I've been doing a bit of study into color profiles and I'm still a bit confused with regards to how it works and what I need to make prints come out 'right'.

I have a Pantone Huey Pro for calibrating my monitors so it's a step in the right direction there.

I have also enabled the color management in Lightroom for my HP printer (which is an all-in-one so, as I understand it, I should really let the printer driver handle the color management).

My question then is: how best to handle color management with your own printer vs. a professional printer like Mpix or even Walmart or something.

If you spend all this time correcting or working with an image and you send it to a printer, how are you sure you are getting what you want?

Are there profiles available that you can apply to Lightroom so you are sure you are getting what you are adjusting for and not something completely different?

Or is there another process (output to TIFF, etc.).

Thanks!

[Newsy]

I've been doing a bit of study into color profiles and I'm still a bit confused with regards to how it works and what I need to make prints come out 'right'.

I have a Pantone Huey Pro for calibrating my monitors so it's a step in the right direction there.

I have also enabled the color management in Lightroom for my HP printer (which is an all-in-one so, as I understand it, I should really let the printer driver handle the color management).

My question then is: how best to handle color management with your own printer vs. a professional printer like Mpix or even Walmart or something.

If you spend all this time correcting or working with an image and you send it to a printer, how are you sure you are getting what you want?

Are there profiles available that you can apply to Lightroom so you are sure you are getting what you are adjusting for and not something completely different?

Or is there another process (output to TIFF, etc.).

Thanks!

You could soft proof.

As I understand it, Lightroom does not yet have a "soft proofing" feature. This is where you acquire the ICC printer profile for the off site printer and the software attempts to simulate what the end result will be. Imho, it is not that useful for fine adjustments though it will catch gross errors. You can also soft proof for your own printer - it is simply a matter of pointing the proofing software to the right paper/ink ICC profile for your own printer.

The biggest key with prints is ensuring that the brightness of the monitor is set to the best level in balance against the ambient lighting of the room. This is to ensure you that you are not editing images on an overly bright monitor which could result in dark prints.

Some off site printers have an option to "correct colors". If you've already spent the time to edit and ensure the white balance of the image is accurate, DON'T select this option. You also have to watch out for the cropping options.

The best strategy is to have some sample prints made up using the various options before you commit to printing several images in the expensive large sizes. Reflective light on paper is far superior to backlit soft proofing and is the only true test.