Printing with Capture NX2

[ellery]

<p>So I have read through the chapters in Mike Hagen's book on CNX2 regarding printing...and I have read in articles and watched in tutorials about what you need to do to get good prints in say LR and PS.<br /><br />I have only really used CNX2 so far, never PS (have used PSE a bit). Nor do I have LR.<br /><br />My plan in the coming month is to start doing more printing at home and before I delve into that, I have a specific question about CNX2.<br /><br />Is softproofing using CNX2 adequate for me at this point? How much am I missing out regarding quality printing abilities not using PS or LR? <br /><br />I know this question could easily rabbit hole into other questions (what monitor are you using, printer, how large of prints, what will you be doing with these prints)...but I am looking perhaps for any guidance as to whether or not CNX2 would do the job great for me and if so, do folks have any pointers or tips to avoid pit falls.<br /><br />I am in the midst of learning alot of the info needed to have a proper color management workflow....im not there, but getting there....but most of the info out there is geared toward LR and PS.....<br /><br />It looks like I will do fine with CNX2 - it has similar menu choices as the LR/PS tutorials have shows....but any help from more advanced CNX2 users would be appreciated.<br /><br />Thanks</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>The trick to avoiding trouble there is to keep it simple. It's hard to be specific without knowing that you <em>are</em> indeed calibrated on your display, or which printer drivers you're using, etc.<br /><br />But (for example) I print right out of Capture NX2 (running on Win7 64) to an Epson 3880 using Epson's drivers and color handling, and what I see (on screen) is - for practical purposes - what I get. The biggest challenge is usually related to image size, margins, placement, that sort of thing. </p>

[ellery]

<p>I have heard about this concern when I was reading through previous posts that I had searched on that....any tips on that "biggest challenge" of course would be great....<br /><br />I think my initial big screw up was to use "use output resolution"....that ended up making screwing up the whole ordeal...now that I have read a bit I "think" I know why that happened.<br /><br />My monitor is about to be ordered...NEC PA 241w with i1 display pro and spectraview software...once I run that, then ensure that the printer profile is good...perhaps create a custom profile (I think I will not do that until my prints prove problematic with included ICC printer profile)...my current printer is nothing high end...epson artisan 710....I figure I will tinker with this for a while while I get my feet wet and consider something else a bit later...unless this proves woefully inadequate.<br /><br />But you pretty much answered my question, you do print from CNX2 and get "WYSIWYG" - so that is an affirmation that I can at least for a while bypass PS...If/when I pull that trigger...I will go into an obsession of reading, watching videos, and tinkering with it in the late of the night.....and I think at this point, for my purposes that distraction can wait just a tad longer.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>The printer manufacturers have quite a vested interest in their own software doing a good job when handed a decent image. So definitely start with the canned profiles when it comes to printing. I've found Epson's basic drivers and native paper profiles to be very satisfying. So long as you aren't kidding yourself by having your display set too bright (dark prints!), you'll be in good shape.<br /><br />Tips on getting NX2 to handle paper sizes and margins correctly on the first? Sacrifice a chicken each time the moon is full, and leave a pint of Guiness on the grave of anyone with an "N" and and "X" in their name. Or, that's what I heard on the internet!</p>

[ellery]

Lol - well that is reassuring :)

 

We shall see

[Wouter Willemse]

<blockquote>

<p>Tips on getting NX2 to handle paper sizes and margins correctly on the first? Sacrifice a chicken each time the moon is full, and leave a pint of Guiness on the grave of anyone with an "N" and and "X" in their name. Or, that's what I heard on the internet!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's prety much spot on....<br>

I printed once from CNX2 directly, and it worked fine in terms of colours (I have a fairly standard Canon printer and a calibrated display; the canon printer exposes several Colour Profiles for common papers, and one's really close for the paper I use). But it turned out quite undoable to print a full A4 page without white border....<br>

So, in the end, exporting the JPEG and printing that using the Windows built-in tools gave me what I needed.... a bit silly, but I really needed to have a full-page print.</p>

[chris_letts]

<p>Important ! - if you let CNX2 handle the colour management, make sure your printer has its colour management turned off or you won't get the right result.<br>

CNX2 has a 'quirk' (or is it a bug?) that it automatically selects your default printer so if like me you have both a mono laser, and a colour printer, you have to remember to change your default before opening CNX2 !</p>

[ellery]

<p>the lula tutorial I am more than half through on printing discusses the issue of borderless printing...<br /><br />The printer has to spray beyond the border of the paper and essentially "crop" a bit of the image...and spray ink into the printer (although I understand they are designed to allow this)...<br /><br />But I too am a bit interested as to why people want borderless prints....having to handle the area of the print with your fingers....<br /><br />But that is a side note I guess....but I will avoid borderless within CNX2 for sure<br /><br />Chris, yeah, thanks! Good point. In my research so far, it seems that alls you need to do is select the wrong button in some of these settings (page layout, printer settings, color profiles, etc) and devastation ensues :(<br /><br />Thanks for that heads up.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Ellery, even if it's a side note... I wanted borderless prints for a very simple reason - to fit the frames I have. They have a cut-out that's just a bit not-quite-white, while the photopaper is a lot more white. I wanted to make sure the photo would fill that frame 100%. And well, it is the maximum size my printer can handle, so little choice left!<br>

Plus, I kind of like these full-page prints anyway. I do not have to touch the printed side anyway, I can lift the print (after drying a bit) from the tray touching only the bottomside of the paper - really no issue at all.</p>

[ellery]

Hadn't thought of that

[ellery]

<p>As it relates, I tried printing a photo of some flowers that were pink in color today taken in my neighbor's flower garden. <br /><br />My current TN monitor is uncalibrated and I printed to my artisan 710...<br /><br />Just last night I printed a shot of a unique water lilly in my region - it was mainly white and green and that print turned out fine as far as I could tell...<br /><br />But this pink flower, oh boy, it printed something more like purple....<br /><br />I did soft proof...soft proof looked good (on my uncalibrated monitor)...<br /><br />I then tried to edit the image to make the purple more to look pink...that made things worse...<br /><br />I guess trying to edit data you cannot see on an uncalibrated monitor is futility :)<br /><br />Im off to order my new monitor now....<br /><br />My current monitor as well, if I shift even just a bit, the color/contrast/brightness can very noticeably shift...although it was not enough to go from that pink to purple...</p>