How do I calibrate my monitor? I have a new epson 3100z and a Epson photo Printer890... PIM is a joke..... I use adobe for image editing and image expert to print... My photos look great on the monitor but when I print, the dark blue comes out purple... and the skin tone looks washed out, no color

In order to get out to the printer what your camera captured three things must be calibrated (profiled). First of all your camera must be profiled to descibe to the other elements what is the color space., Next the monitor must be profiled, and all of the Adobe, and other free programs that tell you it can calibrate your monitor will not do the job. You have to invest in one of the packages out there that will do it ACCURATELY. Finally, and maybe most important, is that your printer must be profiled for every type of paper and resolution setting. Once you achieve this, you will get accurate prints out of your 890 (I have it also). I suggest you look up several programs which will give you more detail on the Color Profiling Issue....Try Qimage, Monaco EZColor2, and Profile Prism (New ...to create a profile for your camera).

PIM uses the exif-info in your original jpg. I'm not sure, but I think if you edit the picture this exif becomes useless (because it relates to the original), even if you save the file including the exif-info. Also, you apparently you need additional printing software to make use of PIM. This was in the news on this site sometime ago. If you search, you can find out where to download this software. If you've got photoshop, you should also have a program called adobe gamma. With this you can calibrate your monitor. You should be able to find it under start->configuration. When you have calibrated your monitor, you should of course not use the settings on your printer that push up the saturation/contrast of your images, or else you will get Disney-colors. (I made the mistake of using 'digital camera correction' on the 1270 myself). I get good results printing from photoshop, with a calibrated monitor as well as some media profiles for the paper I use (just calibrating your monitor will probably be enough to get pictures that are close to what is on the screen, I just haven't tried that yet). If you want to calibrate your monitor, there are some good tips on http://come.to/digitaldarkroom. (it's where I got what I know about this). Btw, I cant seem to reach the site right now, but it will probably be up again in a few hours.