prints to dark help!

[henleyhelen]

Hi this is my first post.
Im having trouble getting prints to look how I see them on screen, they are always too dark. The colours are ok. I have calibrated my monitor with a spyder. I use the icc profiles for the papers I use. I let photoshop determine colours and turn off colour management on my printer. If I try to fix the problem in photoshop I either blow the highlights or mess up the colour. I  dont get some of this stuff 100% (im getting old) but am trying, it is so frustrating. I only have an epson R800 am wanting to upgrade to epson r3400 but am a little nervous if I cant get it right with the present printer.  Any assistance would be most gratefully accepted.

 Thanks Helen

[Josh-H]

Hi this is my first post.
Im having trouble getting prints to look how I see them on screen, they are always too dark. The colours are ok. I have calibrated my monitor with a spyder. I use the icc profiles for the papers I use. I let photoshop determine colours and turn off colour management on my printer. If I try to fix the problem in photoshop I either blow the highlights or mess up the colour. I  dont get some of this stuff 100% (im getting old) but am trying, it is so frustrating. I only have an epson R800 am wanting to upgrade to epson r3400 but am a little nervous if I cant get it right with the present printer.  Any assistance would be most gratefully accepted.

 Thanks Helen
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Helen - I do feel for your problem. However, the best thing you can do at this point is invest around $30 in Michaels 'From Camera to Print' tutorial.

It will teach you more about printing than you will learn anywhere else in 12 months.

I highly highly reccomend it.

There is quite a bit in the tutorial about why prints may look dark.

Sorry to sound like an advertisment - but it really is worth the cost of admission. In fact it should be required viewing for any photographer. And, it will address and help you resolve your print problem.

[francois]

I'm not familiar with the Spyder software but make sure that your display is not too bright... Depending on your environment & display type, it should be around 100-120 cd/m^2.

I second the above suggestion about Camera to Print. Buy it! It's an invaluable source of information.

[Charles Gast]

Check the tutorial. I haven't yet but I will.
If you have the paper and your monitor profiled they will still look too dark because they are not backlit like your monitor is. If you look at them under bright sunlight they will likely look like what you see on  your monitor if all is calibrated.

[GregW]

I'm not familiar with the Spyder software but make sure that your display is not too bright... Depending on your environment & display type, it should be around 100-120 cd/m^2.

I second the above suggestion about Camera to Print. Buy it! It's an invaluable source of information.
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I agree that this could be part of Helen's problem.  In addition I'd suggest experimenting in the range 90-120 as different hardware and software combination will return different results.

[mahleu]

Take a dark print, hold it next to your monitor, darken the monitor till they look the same. (not very scientific, but cheap).

[PeterTinson]

Are you using Photoshops proof setup with simulate paper white, if so try turning off the work space with the tab key and then cycle through the display options using the "f" key to get a black bacground. This will give the closest the display can give to simulate the printed output.
Peter.

[Lisa Nikodym]

Another vote for checking your print under a good, bright light (for example, direct sunlight or professional display lighting).  I always thought my prints were much darker than the monitor until I happened to look at a print under different - brighter - lighting, and it looked very much like the monitor.

If you plan to display your photos under less than optimal lighting, then you may need to add an adjustment to your images to make up for it.

Lisa

[Alaska]

Have the same issue but reversed.  The prints look great on the LCD but print too light.  Have not resolved the issue, but the use of a band aid fix has solved the problem.

Made up two adjustment layers as was suggested above.  One for levels (or curves if you prefer) and one for saturation.  This can be placed in an action and applied as your  final step.  

By the way, still have not solved the overall issue, but the band aid fix has taken care of the issue.

Jim

[Bob Ivy]

Hi this is my first post.
Im having trouble getting prints to look how I see them on screen, they are always too dark. The colours are ok. I have calibrated my monitor with a spyder. I use the icc profiles for the papers I use. I let photoshop determine colours and turn off colour management on my printer. If I try to fix the problem in photoshop I either blow the highlights or mess up the colour. I  dont get some of this stuff 100% (im getting old) but am trying, it is so frustrating. I only have an epson R800 am wanting to upgrade to epson r3400 but am a little nervous if I cant get it right with the present printer.  Any assistance would be most gratefully accepted.

 Thanks Helen
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[henleyhelen]

Thanks everyone I have watched the tutorials, love the information also the interaction between those two very entertaining. I My husband bought the monitor and printing calibration and profiling package that Michael recommended and am delighted to be able to produce great prints at last. It was a great birthday present.  Thanks again to all. You advice is invaluable.

Helen

[Rob C]

Take a dark print, hold it next to your monitor, darken the monitor till they look the same. (not very scientific, but cheap).
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Hi - great minds sometimes think alike!

I´ve been going through much the same trouble with my B9180 prints - what looks vivid on the monitor turns out dull/too dark on the print, but worse with colour than b/w. The surprising thing is, that for some time the match between screen and print has been very good. However, these last few days it has been anything but.
I took the route of doing it backwards: make the monitor match a good print.

This is how it went:

Original screen settings, before change were Brightness 58.8% and Contrast 100%.
New settings: Brightness 52.9% and Contrast 100%.

With this change, the screen looks very similar to the b/w print.

But with colour, the screen still looks one hundred percent superior. What surprises me most is that previous colour prints have matched the screen very well.

The monitor is a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 930.

Frustration does indeed rule!

Rob C

[Harry Carpenter]

I My husband bought the monitor and printing calibration and profiling package that Michael recommended and am delighted to be able to produce great prints at last.

Helen
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Helen, with that in mind, do you think it was the spyder that was part of the problem with calibration?

[Will Balwanz]

After purchasing and using Spider3 to calibrate my monitor and HP B9180, prints were still too dark.  After much web searching, I found that adjusting gamma prior to printing solves the problem.  In CS3, select Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Exposure.  Adjust Gamma to brighten image as desired.  1.15 is usually satisfactory, though one may choose as much as 1.20.  This layer is then turned off for image editing, on for printing.  This solves the problem.
I haven't experienced CS4, but dark prints remain a problem, this adjustment should also be effective.

[matthew]

Helen and Will.  I had a similar experience with my brand new b9180 printing dark (really dark) (Mac OS 10.4, problem occurred when printing either from LR2 or Photoshop CS3), although the colors were accurate.  Even though adjusting the gamma can solve the problem, this basically defeats the purpose of soft-proofing since the final gamma adjustment is trial and error.  Here is what I learned.  

1.  My monitor was already calibrated (Color Eyes).  Brightness was set at 130 or 140.  Some posts have suggested this could be the problem.  I felt that the prints were too dark for this to be the problem and this was confirmed by decreasing the brightness to 100 or 110 without improvement.
2.  Some posts have suggested that one should uninstall and then reinstall the drivers.  I did that and the problem improved substantially. Note that the driver was not updated, just re-installed.
3.  Profiles seem to be a major issue.  I went out and bought a pack of HP premium glossy photo paper (I normally don't print on glossy paper but it was half price and I was just testing profiles).  I used the HP supplied profile for this paper (I figured it should be reasonably accurate since they manufacture both the printer and this paper) and printed from CS3 and LR2.  Colors and tones are spot on!  I then switched to Epson premium semi-gloss paper.  Using the satin-matte paper setting and the HP supplied profile for this epson paper, the print was dark (although not as dark as before the driver re-install).  I then tried printing on this epson SG paper using a profile meant for HP papers (I tried both advanced photo satin and pro satin).  Both look fantastic.  I have also tried a couple of profiles supplied by Moab with Moab papers.  The colors and tones look very accurate.

So for me, the profiles provided by HP for Epson papers are dark.  HP paper profiles do a good job on Epson paper (at least on premium semi-gloss).  The two Moab profiles I have tries (Lasal luster and Colorado fibre satine) work well.  I haven't tested any other paper/profile combinations.  it would seem either trial and error, finding forums where other users have posted paper/profile combinations that work, or obtaining custom profiles can solve the dark print problem.

Hope this helps.

Matthew

[howseth]

I was getting prints that were darker than my screens. (two Samsung flat LCD - 214T, 213T side by side, on a Mac G5, printer is a Z3100) I use Photoshop CS3, and use the soft proof function.

I use an Eye-One Display 2 hardware device to calibrate (advanced mode) - They recommend  120 - but that was too high for my room conditions - so I set the calibration to 100. However, to achieve this 100 luminous setting, because the screens were way too bright, I had to reduce the brightness of the screens themselves till the calibrator read 100. (I did this by pressing the lower brightness button on the monitors)

Also, I set the color temperature down from 6000 to 5500; seems to be a closer match to the prints. Now, I generally get a fairly close match in brightness, and color. The time of day does affect this a little - at night with no daylight mixing into the room - the screens appear a bit brighter.

Howard

[Charles Cramer]

Your brain can also get in the way of perceiving the tones properly.  I believe a large part of the problem, especially with images that have lots of dark tones, is that the monitor glows, and, even with a good monitor profile, our brains will see these as lighter than they are.   I have been fooled many times...

One of the things I always do with dark tones is to use the info palette in Photoshop to see just how bright (or dark) they are.   I also like to turn the second info palette readout to LAB mode.   This way, the top number you see (the L) reads out lightness and darkness in units from 0 to 100,  with 100 being pure white.  You can also think of this as a percentage.   So when one of my big shadow areas read L 8,  I know that's 8% bright---which is really rather dark.

The L readout also interprets colors as humans do, and translates those colors into a meaningful number.  If you look at the RGB readout,  you get three numbers, many times quite different.   The L readout gives you ONE number, corrected for human color perception.   Much simpler...

Also, make sure the eyedropper tool option is set to 3x3 sample, or 5x5.  "Point sample"  reads only one pixel, which can be misleading.

Charlie