Hi David:
Colour matching is a big subject!
This has nothing to do with "Word", it's the way your computer is set up
that makes the difference. The PC and the Macintosh have a different colour
gamut and a different white point.
While you 'can' tune each application on your Mac to a different colour
setting, generally it's not a good idea
Generally, you will get the
best results and ease of use if you use a single colour system for the whole
system and all of its devices. When you do that, each application should
print colour the same.
The exception is if you are doing professional graphics or printing work.
But if you were, you would not be asking the question
Unless you are
skilled with colour profiles, creating exceptions for each application can
soon spin out of control an make things very difficult to manage.
Generally, I would first set up your display to show you the correct white
balance and contrast, then set your printer's colour profile to match what
you see on the screen.
First set up your display: your Mac has a utility to help you do this. Look
up "ColorSync Utility" in the Mac Help. But here's a rule of thumb:
1) Turn the contrast all the way down,
2) Turn the Colour intensity all the way down
3) Turn the brightness up until the blacks just go milky.
4) Turn the Contrast up until the whites are as bright as they will go.
This adjustment takes a little practice: make sure that your are not losing
the detail in the "very light" parts of the picture that are "not quite
white".
5) Now turn up the Colour intensity to "colour the picture in" until the
flesh tones look natural.
That's a very quick way of getting the settings very close. You need to do
this adjustment in a dark-ish room (light too dull to read comfortably for
long) and give your eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dark.
If your display is an LCD, you will need to bring the brightness up a little
higher because LCDs have a relatively poor contrast ratio.
Once you have made those adjustments, you can next set your colour and
gamma.
Typically you would adjust your monitor colour temperature to either 5,500
or 6,500. (This measurement is in Degrees Kelvin ‹ above absolute zero ‹
and represents the 'colour of white'.)
Newer computers should usually be set to 6,500; PCs usually are. Older Macs
and anyone doing professional work sometimes use 5,500. 6,500 is a "cooler"
white, closer to the natural colour of the sun, and will give you a better
match for desktop and office printers. 5,500 is a warmer white, closer to
sunlight in the northern hemisphere, and may be a better match for people
working with photographic film.
Next set your display's "gamma". The gamma is the curve that corrects the
monitors response to brightness (the tracking of grey). Modern monitors,
including Macs, should be set to 2.2, which is likely to be very close to
the display's native characteristics.
The old Mac standard was 1.8, and it appears that many Macs are still
delivered with the gamma set to 1.8. This will make things look a bit dark
and dull. Chances are the problem you originally asked about is more to do
with your gamma being set too low than anything else
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management
And
http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/GraphicsImaging/Conceptual/csintro/
csintro_conversion/csintro_conversion.html
Hope this helps
Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Hi Everybody, I am trying desperately to move myself away from my pc and into
mac, so far I love it, however, I was trying to print a document which was
created in PC and what i got was a colour variation. the mac version was much
lighter. instead of my colour being blue (skyish) it printed off purpleish
(much like lavender). how can i get it to print the way a pc prints as the
rest of my office uses PC.
thanks.
ps if i can figure out how to attach pics i can post a picture of the 2
documents.
Thanks
David
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