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Monitor and printer color differences
As will be aware,
printed output you receive hardly ever matches exactly that seen on your monitor 100% of time. This is because way that color is produced is different and range of colors that are produced is different between monitor and printer, as described above.
There are ways to get a closer match. You can experiment with printer driver settings or use image editing/color management software to help match up two.
Printing Process
Most inkjet printers can't produce variations of three primary colors so they employ a process called 'halftoning' to represent thousands of colors needed. The two methods used for this are 'Dithering' and 'Error Diffusion'.
With 'dithering', different colored ink dots are aligned to give appearance of neutral colors...suitable for large areas of color such as in graphs and bar charts. There are often additional settings such as 'Coarse Dithering'...for images with limited detail and shading, and 'Fine Dithering' for images with significant amount of detail.
If there is only text to print then 'No Halftoning' should be selected.
With 'error diffusion' inkjet cartridge dots are merged with surrounding color dots to produce natural colors with possibility of subtle color gradation. Ideal for detailed images or photos.
When scanning, be aware that it will be more difficult to get a good match because scanner will make image using CMYK data format, then RGB on monitor and finally changed again to CMYK data format via printer.
(c) Paul Curran, CEO of Cuzcom Internet Publishing Group and webmaster at Ink Cartridge Store, providing discounted brand name compatible ink cartridge and laser toner supplies.
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