HP color woes

[brett_davis1]

Due to a pressing deadline, I'm trying to print some 8x10s on my HP all-in-one

2210xi.

 

 

The web is full of great reviews of this printer's color, but I can't get a

decent print out of it. The color always seems washed out. I am printing small

versions of prints that I sent to Mpix and had printed 20x30 and they look great

and match what I see on the monitor, but the HP prints (even with the six-color

option) look too light and the colors are dull.

 

My question is, can I override the damn HP driver and let Photoshop handle the

colors? I can set that in Photoshop CS2 but the crappy HP software doesn't seem

to have a place for me to do that. I'm using a Mac and OS X 10.3.9, by the way.

 

The printer is good for business stuff but for me it sucks as a photo printer,

despite the glowing reviews.

 

Thanks!

[alec_myers]

I'm sure this is not the problem in your case, but it might stick in someone's mind for the future. Last time I got a whole load of washed out colour (as opposed to just wrong colours) it was because I was printing on the wrong side of the coated paper.

[brett_davis1]

I got around that problem by buying double-sided paper. ... another alert reader has clued me in on how to change the printer's color space, which may be the problem. I suspect the printer is set to aRGB and I want to print an sRGB file.

 

I still don't like the HP software, but it appears that I may be the defective on in this case. But don't get me started on the uneven borders that are hardwired into the printer.

[robert_martin5]

You need a printer profile for the ink/paper combination you are using if you want to get correct color. Is this a photographic printer or just a color printer?