RGB inkjet printer color chart
December 24, 2009 8:30 AM   Subscribe

RGB color reference guide. I have just purchased an Epson R1900. I need to match pantone colors & fabric swatches to create artwork. So ideally I would like to print a color reference book of all it's possible RGB colors that I can refer to as a guide to match a color. Is there an "easy" way to do this from either Photoshop or preferably Illustrator? I am a mac user. I did find a multiRIP software but it seems to be only PC friendly.
posted by sequin to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: In both Pshop and Illustrator, you can select Pantone color swatches, so I would start there. Create swatches filled with your Pantone colors, and print them on the R1900 and see how close the printer can get.

You should also make sure that your monitor is properly calibrated. If you don't have access to a hardware calibration tool, use SuperCal for a software solution.

You should also be utilizing the Epson ICC color profiles for the R1900, in order to get the most accurate output possible.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:08 AM on December 24, 2009


Keep in mind that whatever color/value pairs you print as references will only be correct for images printed from the same color space/profile for the image file and for the printer profile/paper type. So if you make your reference file from ProPhoto RGB and then print to Epson Enhanced Matte paper using the Epson provided profile, those numbers will only be true for that setup. If you change any of the profiles or the media, the numbers will be off by some amount. Also, color transforms have different possible methods of conversion. All of the methods except Absolute will attempt to squish one color space into the other, meaning the other conversion methods will try to maintain the relative values of the colors to each other rather than the color space itself. So when you're printing always remember to use the same transform method in the print dialog.
If this is all greek to you, I'd recommend a book like Real World Color Management for an introduction to the concepts involved. Feel free to mefi mail me if you have any questions.
posted by doctor_negative at 3:51 PM on December 24, 2009 [1 favorite]


Er... Printers don't actually use RGB. They (generally) use CMYK. By printing all possible RGB you would not be mapping correctly onto the printer's CMYK colorspace: the colorspaces are not identical. In either colorspace, the palette is gigantic (billions of possible colors) and printing it as a page would not be a useful document. I'm being pedantic though.

If you are trying to color match through just your printer, you can just knock something out in Photoshop and print that.

Color is actually hard stuff to do right.
posted by chairface at 10:08 PM on December 24, 2009


Actually, most (if not all) ink jet printer profiles are RGB. The actual ink colors vary from printer to printer, most of the newer ones have some combination of CMYK and RGB inks as well as lighter and darker versions versions of some colors. If you're using the Epson driver, your interface to the printer is as an RGB device, you don't have any way other than profiles to manipulate the output colors of the printer.
posted by doctor_negative at 11:01 PM on December 24, 2009


« Older Where (in Toronto) can I find a warm winter hat...   |   What shampoo should I use after a keratin hair... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.