Manage printer colours

Get printed colours looking their best using colour profiles to indicate which printer, paper and ink should be used

Get printed colours looking their best using colour profiles

When you print out one of your digital photos, do you get frustrated when it doesn’t look the way it did on-screen? This is because your screen and your printer each produce a different range of colours, so the same photo can end up looking very different in each medium.

One of the ways to address this is to take more care in the way you print your photos. It’s always worth using a colour profile for your printer: this is a reference file that describes which colours your specific printer model is capable of producing, so that the on-screen colours and the printout match up better.

We’ll show you how to select your printer’s colour profile, as well as an alternative method where Lightroom makes the colour selection for you.

If you’re printing at home, you should also make sure that your printer is performing properly if you want the best results out of it. Make a regular test print to check that the print head is aligned. Clogged nozzles will ruin a print, so do a nozzle check as well. Using the ink that the printer manufacturer recommends will produce better results. Cheap paper tends to absorb and spread ink, leading to muddylooking prints, so choose a heavyweight photo gloss or matt inkjet paper that’s designed for high-resolution prints.