1

I'm a graphic designer and use an iMac. My monitor is correctly calibrated and I use appropriate colour settings. So when I send work to a commercial printer the colour of finished pieces are a pretty good match with what I see on screen.

I recently bought a Brother Laser printer and the proofs are quite a bit darker than what is on screen, and my commercially printed finished pieces. Colours are not bright, they're a little murky.

Is there something I am missing? Is there some way of matching my laser proofs to my soft proofs?

Any help much appreciated.

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    Relevant here: graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/491/…
    – curious ♦
    May 9, 2019 at 14:12
  • Hi. Welcome to GDSE. Is the document CMYK? What format is the image file in? What software are you using to create the artwork and what software are you using to print it? Can your laser printer handle CMYK image files? Is it a PostScript enabled printer? Many low end home or office printers expect RGB images. Please edit your question and add the missing information. Thanks.
    – Billy Kerr
    May 9, 2019 at 19:41
  • 1
    The commercial print shop has surely calibrated their printer. They printer is also characterized using an ICC profile. This is done by the print shop or the printer had a standard profile. It seems to me you want to have a look into a standard color management book. Or have a look into e.g. the wikipedia color management article and its references (no. 8).
    – Stefan Bollmann
    May 9, 2019 at 20:12

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Brother seem to do some color management attempt, but one can as well skip it:

enter image description here

Brother laser printer also can perform something that Brother calls "color calibration". It's well hidden in enter image description here"other print options"

Finally to see things right in Photoshop or other color managed graphics software you should find the right color profile and force your software to use it in proof color mode. Brother claims it gives one with the printer. See this Brother support page for details:

https://support.brother.com/g/b/faqendbranchprintable.aspx?c=gb&lang=en&prod=hl4000cn_all&faqid=faq00002364_000&printable=true

It's usage is not automatic, at least some Brother's printer drivers do not offer it before you make it active in printer driver settings.

Unfortunately without having Brother's printer it's impossible to make any tests, but hopefully here's something to try for you. Good luck!

Improve this answer
1
  • This is usually the way to go regardless of printer: set up presets for the printer to color-match to the image, rather than trying to color-match the image to the printer. I usually use a small set of known-good print-published images to work on a savable printer-driver profile. In most cases with consumer printer I have used, though ICM was not enough: I had to use any manual adjustment provided by the driver..
    – Yorik
    Oct 9, 2019 at 20:57

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.