printing what's on monitor

[joany]

i am trying to print with epson R1800 photo printer---from photoshop CS/ Leopard OS X. i downloaded the latest epson printer driver but the print colors are way off. where do i begin? thanks all---i am new at this!

 

[jampat]

I come from photography, not graphic design, so I won't be completely correct, but this could be a start. If your monitor is not calibrated what you see on screen will very likely not be what comes out of the printer. I expect the same thing about printer calibration, but I have never gone down that road. The cheap way to see where your problems are is to buy a pantone color swatch from a photo store. Paint or draw with the colors (by entering RGB or CMYK numbers) and see how close the colors look on screen and out of the printer to the swatch. That should tell you where your problems are.

 

[jerryrock]

The first step to a color managed workflow is to calibrate your monitor with a hardware calibration device.

You should let Photoshop manage the color, use the correct icc profile for your paper/printer combination in the Photoshop print dialog and turn off color management in the printer driver.

 

[JJJosh41]

Having years of experience in a print shop as a professional designer I can honestly tell you you can almost never rely on your screen for accurate colors. Unfortunately this is one of the downfalls of digital printing of photography. The only people that can accurately print your images the way you shot them are a print house that is color calibrated to exact specs every day.

That being said one of the easiest fixes is make sure you are working in the correct color space for your printer (RGB vs. CMYK). (Might seem stupid of me to say, but people do forget)

 

[jerryrock]

Having years of experience in a print shop as a professional designer I can honestly tell you you can almost never rely on your screen for accurate colors. Unfortunately this is one of the downfalls of digital printing of photography. The only people that can accurately print your images the way you shot them are a print house that is color calibrated to exact specs every day.

What a bunch of bull.
Even the 5 year old Apple Cinema Display is SWOP certified for CMYK and offset printing. The OP is asking for help with a rgb inkjet printer, not an offset printing press and CMYK.

You can absolutely get your prints to match your calibrated monitor. The rgb LED monitor available today produces a wider color gamut than has ever been available before.

As I stated before, the first step is to calibrate your monitor with a colorimeter.
If needed, a printer calibration device like the Spyder3 print system will also accurately profile your printer. You can even adjust the finished profile to the ambient light the finished print will be displayed in.

I have been using the DataColor Spyder3 Studio to consistently create accurate paper profiles for my Canon iPF5000.