Poor Prints

[35artillery38]

I have an HP Deskjet printer and using a Chromebook and Pixlr editing prog.The prints I'm getting are very poor.The colours are not ^natural*and dark,especially to one side of the photo.I've tried editing but with no improvement.Any ideas please.Thanks.

[bookbinder]

Check your manual:
https://support.hp.com/gb-en/product/hp-deskjet-2540-all-in-one-printer-series/5295960/manuals

[Buenchico]

Probably the most common cause of problems like yours is using rubbish photo paper. If you're trying to print onto the stuff sold in Poundland, or even on some supermarket own-brands (Morrison's photo paper is unusable) you'll always get lousy results. I use HP Everyday Gloss Photo Paper for most purposes and Kodak Ultra Premium photo Paper for, say, prints that I want to frame as gifts. So what are you using?

Also, have you matched the paper to your printer? Many papers come with leaflets that suggest the best settings to use with your own make of printer. You need to read those and then, when you've hit Ctrl-P, ensure that you go into the printer settings to make the necessary adjustments.

I'm not sure either about how well a Chromebook's screen can show colours accurately. (If it's not doing so, then you won't get prints that match what you see on screen). Take a look here:
https://reeddesign.co.uk/testcard.htm
If you can't see all of the numbers from 0 to 10 on the lower two lines, you need to see if there's a way of adjusting the display on your Chromebook.

[35artillery38]

Thanks to you both I'll have to digest all the info. and see how I get on,it's a lot to take in.

[35artillery38]

As for the true colours of the picture on my screen,they are as good as I would like them to be.It's just the print out is so far removed from the original.

[TonyV]

It will be either the paper or ink you are using.

[bhg481]

Have you calibrated your monitor display for colour? If your monitor has a colour bias it will affect your print colours.

You can calibrate your screen via Control Panel > Color Management and Advanced tab.

[TonyV]

I have two sets of and ink and 3 paper qualities depending on what quality of print I want.