- Your monitor is not fully warmed up. May take 1/2 hour.
- Your monitor is not calibrated.
- You have not calibrated your monitor for a month.
- Your printer is not calibrated.
- You are not using the correct printer profile.
- You are not using the paper for the profile you are using.
- The lighting in your workspace is not consistent.
- You are working on your images with a screen background that is distracting you with strong color. Best to use gray.
- Print head is out of alignment or nozzles are clogged.
Even if you do all that stuff, your prints can be a little off – even if you have a large monitor. Monitor color and brightness are not exactly the same from side to side and top to bottom. Also, colors and brightness will look different the more you look to the sides. Knowing this, after you calibrate your monitor with your calibration device placed in the center of the monitor, work on the most important part your image there.
What's more, a print reflects light, while your monitor projects light. So the quality of the images is different.
Still more: Prints take a while to fully dry. Colors and brightness can change after a few hours.
Finally, we see colors differently at different times of day. We also see colors differently after drinking cola and coffee.
Well, I gotta go - and get my first Diet Coke of the day.
See the light (and color),
Rick
P.S. My guess is that age might also have something to do with it, especially if one has cataracts. Is there a doctor in the house who could comment?