Colour Balance When Printing

[gangan34]

I have an Epson xp 860 printer,when I print a colour photo,there is a blue tint in the print,nothing like the image on the monitor.How can I get a more realistic colour print?

[bhg481]

Are you sure your monitor is set up correclly? Your eyes get used to the colour balance and automatically correct if it's not right.

If you go Control Panel > Color Management and click the "advanced" tab you can set up the colour balance on your monitor. If you do that it may be that your prints will come out right.

[Buenchico]

The first thing to do is to take a look a this test card:
http://reeddesign.co.uk/testcard.htm
The colours should all be vibrant and (very importantly) you need to be able to see all of the numbers, from 0 to 10, on both of the relevant lines. (If you can't, follow the instructions on that page to try to improve things). Once you know that you're viewing your images correctly you'll be able to move forward.

The next thing to do, almost certainly, is to throw away the photo paper that you're using! A lot is written about whether compatible inks are as good as those from the printers' manufacturers but people seem to forget about the quality of the paper that they're printing onto! The truth is that most compatible inks are capable of producing results as goods as (or very close to) 'originals' but the majority of so-called photo papers aren't much good for printing on at all. (The usual problem is a noticeable colour cast, which is exactly what you're experiencing).

If you're using photo paper from Poundland or, say, the 'everyday' photo paper sold in Morrison's (under their own brand name), throw it in the bin! Such papers ALWAYS produce a colour cast.

The best 'everyday' photo paper is probably the HP one. (It's what I use myself). It costs £12.79 for 100 A4 sheets in Staples or £14.00 in Sainsbury's. Tesco also sell it but, at £7.00 for just 25 sheets, it works out far dearer there.

The quality from HP Everyday Photo Paper is nearly as good as with the very best (and very expensive!) papers and there's definitely no colour cast (as long as you've gone into your printer's settings to select 'Photo Paper' and 'Best' quality as your settings). However if you're printing out top-quality wedding photos, give Kodak Ultra Premium paper a try. (£16.99 for 50 A4 sheets from PC World). It's superb!

Simply use a decent paper and your colour cast problem is likely to disappear!

[Buenchico]

PS: Although I love Kodak Ultra Premium paper, I definitely do NOT recommend Kodak's 'everyday' stuff. It's also prone to producing a colour cast.