In the past, I've primarily used my printer for adding text to scrapbook pages, and I've been relatively happy with it. However, the more familiar I get with my Photoshop Elements 3, the more I want to play around and print out photos at home.

I'm currently taking color photos, turning them into black and white photos and using a brush to bring back color in certain sections. For example, I have a photo of my kids that is black and white except for the pumpkin which is orange.

Whenever I try to print these out, they seem dark and muted. And they seem to be darker on the top half of the photo rather than at the bottom. I tried lightening the photo, but it didn't seem to help.

Even with my color prints, I've noticed that they seem muted, and when I print text, I often have to print several versions in order to get the printed version to match the color I see on the screen.

So 1) is there anything I can do to fix the too dark and too muted problems?

2) What can I do with my settings to ensure that what I see onscreen will be closest to what I print out? And please, include instructions suitable for a toddler as that pretty much describes my computer hardware/printer knowledge level.

Thank you!

Terry

Welcome to the glorious mess called digital photography! Althought praised on TV and demonstrated with simplistic ease.. most digital photographers have this exact same problem.. and the solution is not very easy. Firstly, you will need to calibrate your system. The simplest (and cheapest) way to do this is to use the Adobe Gamma softawre that comes with Adobe softawre.. The next best thing is to calibrate your monitor with a hardware calibartion tool... they range from $100 to $1000. Then, you need to calibrate your printer using ICC profiles.. Each paper and ink (printer) manufacturer can provide ICC profiles for your printer and a number of companies will provide them to you for a small fee.

In the end... unless you calibrate your system, you on screen photos will not match your printed results.. this will be case when you print at walmart for example. I've often pulled up a digital photo on their kiosk screen and it looked great.. when I get the print, it was way too red. I asked them about this and they admitted that the system hadn't been calibrated in a while.. Most people don't think about and just click and print (like the commericals) but the results can be disappointing.

Anway.. good luck!