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To ensure that what you see on your home monitor matches what you print on our Polielettronica LaserLab, please use our guide to help calibrate your monitor.
Calibrate your Monitor with an External Device
Yes, they are a bit expensive, but if you are serious about photographic printing at home or in our lab, the only way to truly ensure that your monitor is properly calibrated is to purchase a calibrating device. We strongly recommend the
X-Rite Eye-One.
Use our Macbeth Calibration Card
Either stop by the lab or call/e-mail us to request a Macbeth Calibration card. Then follow our easy online instructions to determine how your the colors on your monitor match up with the colors outputted by our Polielettronica LaserLab printer.
Set Up a Calibrated Adobe Photoshop Workspace
If you are prepping your photos at home for printing at our lab, you want to make sure that your Photoshop image's color profile is set to Adobe RGB (1998). You will also want to soft-proof your image using our Polielettronica ICC Profile. How? We're glad you asked!
Download and Install our Printer's ICC Profile
- Download and unzip the ICC profile for our printer.
- Make sure Photoshop is closed
- For Mac users, place the file in the following HARD DRIVE directory:
"Library --> Application Support --> Adobe --> Color --> Profiles"
- For PC users, the file should be placed in the following directory:
C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color.
- Open Photoshop, go to the "View" menu and select the following:
"Proof Setup --> Custom."
- From the drop down menu next to "Device to Simulate," select Laser3.icc.
- For "Rendering Intent" you want to select "Relative Colorimetric."
- The only box that should be checked is "Black Point Compensation."
- Save your profile as "Dickerman Prints" or whatever else you want.
Set Your Photoshop Image Profile to Adobe RGB (1998)
- Go to the "Edit" menu and select "Convert Profile."
- A box may pop up that says, "Changing the document profile can affect the appearance of layers. Continue with assign profile?" Click "OK."
- On the "Convert to Profile" box, make sure you select Adobe RGB (1998) as your Profile, Adobe (ACE) as your engine and Relative Colorimetric as your Intent. You should also check "use black point compensation" and "use dither" but leave "flatten image" unchecked. Please refer to example 2 on the right hand side for a screenshot.
Soft Proof Your Image
Once you have set up your printer profile and assigned Adobe RGB (1998) to your image, you can now soft proof it to get a better idea of what it will look like coming out of our Polielettronica LaserLab.
- Go to the "View" menu and select "Proof Colors."
- You will notice that in the image's title bar, there is now a "/ProfileName" after your file name. Some of the colors in the image may have shifted as well. This means that they are outside of the printer's gamut range and need to be adjusted.
- Spend some time tweaking your image until it looks right while soft proofing. Keep in mind, the only way that we can guarantee that what you see on your screen matches our printer's output is if you come in and work on one of our complimentary Digital Darkrooms.
Working with Adobe Lightroom
Unfortunately, there is no way to set your workspace to Adobe 1998 in Lightroom, but you CAN work the file in Lightroom and export it to Photoshop in the correct format. To do this:
- Open "Preferences" and select "External Editing."
- Set your options to Edit in Adobe Photoshop to match the box to the right.
- Export to your image to Adobe Photoshop.
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Installing an ICC Profile in Photoshop
Converting your Photoshop image to
Adobe RGB (1998)
How a soft proof title bar should
appear in Adobe Photoshop
Exporting from Lightroom to Photoshop
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