Monitor too bright ?

[PBC]

Wonder if someone could help?

I have calibrated my monitor (glossy iMac) and set the luminance target to 110 cd/m2  

When I print from Lightroom (or from Photoshop after soft-proofing) the prints are coming out too dark; by about 0.5 of a stop. What I have been doing is giving the image an increase of exposure of +0.5 before printing to make up for the darker prints.

However, is this the right thing to do?

I wonder if I need to adjust the luminance target lower to cater for this or is there a better way of applying a lift of +0.5 exposure in Lightroom?

Appreciate any help you can give

Thanks

Phil

[Pat Herold]

There are lots of ways to arrange this, but generally we set this up so that what you see when you soft proof in Photoshop looks as close as possible to what you see coming out of the printer.  You are right in thinking that your monitor may still be too bright if your prints look dark.  Start with what we call "the white paper test."  Open up a blank image in Photoshop (with a white background) and hold up a blank sheet of your printing paper.  If the white of the screen does not match the white of the paper, you will not have success getting the actual display image to match the print.  Of course, how bright your paper is will depend on how bright your illuminant is, but at the very least you need the two to match in order for your actual prints to look like the screen.

There's more information on this in one of our newsletters:
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/My_Printer_Is_Too_Dark

BTW, you don't say what you are using to calibrate the monitor.  Are you sure that you're actually at 110 when you're done?

[PBC]

Thanks for this; I will have a try

I calibrated using ColorEyes Display Pro and checked that it had used 110 cd/m2; basically my calibration set-up is: -

White Point Target: - x = 0.3161, y = 0.3275, 6259 K, 111 cd/m2
Gamma Target: L*
Black Point Target:  - 0.488 cd/m2
rXYZ:- 0.4850, 0.2629, 0.0105
gXYZ: - 0.3361, 0.6520, 0.0775
bXYZ: - 0.1431, 0.0852, 0.7369

Unless there is something amiss with these results then I think the monitor is calibrated OK. My only problem now seems to be a brightness issue of the image/print which I am struggling to understand/fix

Also, and excuse me if I am being dumb, what happens to my images when displayed on other people's computers (e.g., web sites)? If I darken my monitor down to match the paper, and then brighten the image accordingly; wont the image appear washed out on other people's monitors?

Thanks

Phil

[Pat Herold]

CEDP is great; it will ensure that you hit the aim that you've set.

With other's monitors, other people's eyes will have gotten used to the color temperature and brightness of their monitors. So your images will be as "normal" as anything else on their display.  In other words, if their displays are too bright, then everything on their screens are going to be washed out, not just your pictures.  But because of chromatic adaptation, their eyes get used to it.  

Of course other people are not trying to get their display to match their printer like you are.  If they were they'd find their display a lot lighter than the prints just like you.  

I guess this brings up why it pays sometimes to have a good quality monitors.  The better ones allow you to still retain all the details in the shadows that would otherwise be lost due to turning down the luminance.

[PBC]

I have re-calibrated and reduced the luminance target to 90 cd/m2 and the prints are now a much closer match to the screen; or at least as close as I think I can get given the glossy screen and the back lighting of a screen.

Thanks

Phil