Colors not right on laptop display

[kindaScrappy]

I'm so discouraged tonight. I recently got a laptop and have been working like crazy on an album for my folks. Just a small 4x6 album with 28 fairly simple pages. It's finally finished. So tonight I decided to start printing as I'll be visiting my folks this coming weekend. Was I in for a surprise! Apparently my laptop screen is way off as far as color goes. The printed layout was much darker and the colors a lot more vivid than they appeared on the screen.

Before I do anymore work I need to figure out how to calibrate the screen so it will display reasonably close to what I print. Can anyone direct me to a thread or some other source of information? I use Photoshop Elements 3.

Thanks
Red

[Amanda]

Here is a thead that links a tutorial for calibration: http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1614&highlight=calibration

[Brenners]

I've had the same problem. After going to this tutorial link, I did a search in my PSE 2.0, for things like color managment, color profile..., and found some very helpful information. I plan to do a little play with all the different color management options and printing color options to find out what works best, but I'm too tired tonight.