If you follow what you read in books or discussion groups you may think the way to get the best prints is to simply calibrate your monitor, select the best paper and obtain a good profile for it, choose the best printer you can afford and click Print. Or maybe you first soft-proof, make the appropriate corrections then click Print. Well I’m here to tell you it doesn’t quite work this way.

• Firstly, let’s look at monitor calibration (or more correctly calibration and profiling). The question is: calibrate to what? When you calibrate a monitor it prompts for the target values for white-point (and in better profiling packages black-point), gamma and monitor luminance. Ideally the white-point should match that of the white of the paper you’re using and under final viewing conditions. Most monitors (those with CCFL or white LED backlights) however have a fixed white-point (usually around 6500ºK) and the adjustment is done by the TFT panel. This requires sophisticated electronics in the monitor itself and hardware (internal) calibration, available only in high-end (read expensive) monitors. If adjustments to white-point and gamma are done with the video card LUT banding can result. Hence a general recommendation to stick to the default values of 6500ºK/2.2. (A gamma of 2.2 isn’t optimal for the display of the darkest tones in your image either.) Most general purpose monitors are way too bright and reducing the luminance level for print matching may not be achievable. This isn’t meant to discourage calibration and profiling, just that there’s more to it than just having a “calibrated” monitor.
• The paper with the highest Dmax (maximum density), largest gamut volume (range of colours) and nicest surface isn’t necessarily the best paper for a particular image. Printing at heart isn’t a mechanical process, it’s instead meant to convey the impact and reinforce the emotional content of the original image. We’re fortunate today to have a huge range of papers to choose from and matching a paper to an image is a significant creative control. It’s not sufficient to examine the print just coming off the printer, you need to view it in the intended environment (portfolio, gallery, on the wall in your or the buyer’s home) to judge the success or otherwise of its execution.
• Profiles model device-dependent spaces in a colour managed environment so that what you see on the monitor translates to what you get in the print. Kinda. They’re best viewed however as an assist and don’t replace human judgement. You can generate any number of profiles for a given paper on a given printer with given media settings. Variables include the instrument (spectrophotometer) used to measure the target patches, the target itself, gamut-mapping options and the profiling software used. Ideally you select from a range of profiles for a single paper and choose the one that best suits the image and rendering. Note that if you’re reliant on manufacturer’s (aka canned) profiles, these are rarely optimal. Most paper manufactures farm out profile building and include simplified/common media settings that may not be optimal for a specific paper/printer. A single profile will also lock you into one table for Perceptual rendering and you don’t want the same gamut-mapping for skin tones as you do for vivid colours.
• Not so long ago the newest printing technology appeared first in desktop printers then migrated to large-format models but the reverse is now true. Premium printers today incorporate extra colours, larger and more precisely manufactured printheads, better paper transports, self-calibration features etc which may not be financially viable in printers with carriages narrower than 24″ wide. The extra colours don’t just translate into larger gamut but smoother tones, more believable transitions and nuanced highlights. Greater precision in dot shape/placement also means sharper results. While there have been enormous strides in output quality from the earliest inkjet printers, but no means has the technology plateaued.
• If you’re using soft-proofing (Photoshop’s View->Proof Setup/Colors) to predict what the output will look like, keep in mind that monitor/working and printer device spaces are largely dissimilar in shape. Modern inkjet printers can’t print the gamut extremities in even smaller working spaces like sRGB (see below), nor do the widest gamut monitors encompass those of typical inkjet printers. (Beware of terms like “98% of Adobe RGB (1998)” as there’s no common standard as to what this means. Manufacturers will even use different values in published specifications for a single model!) The main problem though is that emissive technology (your monitor) and reflective media (the print) are fundamentally different. Photoshop also has difficultly accurately portraying the blacks in matte papers. At best soft-proofing is just a guide. If you find that you’re continually making substantial changes to the file as a result of soft-proofing and/or viewing the printed results, it’s probably worthwhile revisiting the monitor calibration/profiling step above.
  
  

  sRGB (colour) vs Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique with UltraChrome HDR (white)

All the forgoing isn’t meant to discourage printing for yourself as it can be a very satisfying process, just to point out that there’s a lot more to it than the industry (printer manufacturers, purveyors of colour management tools etc) would have you believe.