To calibrate your printer you first calibrate your monitor with DisplayMate.
Then you print the same DisplayMate test patterns
and match them to the monitor by using the print driver controls.
The process is straight forward and is explained below.
For Monitor and Printer Calibration you can use any of our
DisplayMate for Windows products.
If you have no additional special requirements then get
the Consumer and End User product
DisplayMate for Windows Standard Edition,
our least expensive product, which is available
on a CD, as an enhanced Portable USB Drive Edition, or as an internet download.
Before calibrating your printer you need to calibrate your monitor.
Calibrating your monitor and printer to produce consistent color and gray-scale
so that what you see on the display is what you get on the printer
turns out to be a surprisingly difficult process.
The articles below first explain why this is the case and then show you how
DisplayMate can help you match them.
You can use DisplayMate together with other color matching
software and hardware. In that case, DisplayMate will let you
check on and refine whatever calibration you have.
DisplayMate generates test patterns that you use to adjust your monitor
and printer with the user adjustment controls provided by the monitor
and printer manufacturers. You should do this before using any application
that may generate a profile or that modifies the display or printer drivers
because their corrections are implemented via software,
which generates artifacts
and contouring that degrades picture quality. To minimize these artifacts use
DisplayMate to make the hardware based adjustments first. Then if you still
decide to use an application that generates software profiles, you can use
DisplayMate to check their final accuracy and picture quality and tweak their
results if necessary.
Using DisplayMate you first calibrate your monitor by using
our visual test patterns.
Then you print out those same test patterns on your printer,
compare them visually to the test patterns on the monitor and
make adjustments using your printer driver,
color management software or image processing program.
Printer Calibration Articles
We have produced two versions of the Printer Calibration article:
a Short and Lite version that is designed for most users and a
Comprehensive and Long version that includes additional material for
advanced and motivated users.
Both are educational, explain the issues, problems and technology,
as well as how DisplayMate is used to calibrate both the monitor and printer.
The Long version is 50% longer and includes additional steps
and information.
