Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: sglicata on December 23, 2007, 11:14:08 am

Title: Colour Management - need help
Post by: sglicata on December 23, 2007, 11:14:08 am

Hello,

My prints are much darker than they look on the screen.  I can futz around with brightness and get an acceptible looking print, but seems to miss the point of colour management

I am assuming it is colour management issue.

I use Photoshop Lightroom (1.3), and have a calibrated (spider pro) LCD, and an Epson 2200 printer. Enhanced Matte paper, Matte black ink

In the pre-lightroom era, my prints were fine, but now they are much darker than they appear on the screen.

My print process is:
- print using Lightroom
- Print Settings
      o Enhanced Matte, 2880 DPI
      o Color Management: ICM
      o ICC profile: No Color Adjustment
- Lightroom Color Management
      o Profile: SP2200 Enhanced Matte_MK
- "Print ..."

Retrieve the print out (too dark, curse, ligthen, repeat)

Anything I'm missing?

Note: The printer profile was downloaded directly from Epson some time ago when they released updated profiles for the 2200.

Thanks for any advice,

Sean

Title: Colour Management - need help
Post by: rdonson on December 23, 2007, 02:43:18 pm

Quote

Hello,

My prints are much darker than they look on the screen.  I can futz around with brightness and get an acceptible looking print, but seems to miss the point of colour management

I am assuming it is colour management issue.

I use Photoshop Lightroom (1.3), and have a calibrated (spider pro) LCD, and an Epson 2200 printer. Enhanced Matte paper, Matte black ink

In the pre-lightroom era, my prints were fine, but now they are much darker than they appear on the screen.

My print process is:
- print using Lightroom
- Print Settings
      o Enhanced Matte, 2880 DPI
      o Color Management: ICM
      o ICC profile: No Color Adjustment
- Lightroom Color Management
      o Profile: SP2200 Enhanced Matte_MK
- "Print ..."

Retrieve the print out (too dark, curse, ligthen, repeat)

Anything I'm missing?

Note: The printer profile was downloaded directly from Epson some time ago when they released updated profiles for the 2200.

Thanks for any advice,

Sean
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What you seem to be missing is softproofing.  Lightroom doesn't do it so there's no way for you to adjust your image for the paper/printer/ink combination.  You could send the image to Photoshop for softproofing/adjustment, save it and then print from Lightroom.  That's what Jeff Schewe is doing.

Title: Colour Management - need help
Post by: sglicata on December 23, 2007, 04:11:51 pm

I should have said that I've also checked in Photoshop.  Soft proofing prints look fine.

The printer output is quite a bit darker, maybe one and 1/2 stops different than what I'm seeing on the screen.  Strangely, though, overexposed highlights (bright white) are fine.  All other colours are quite a bit darker.

I should also say that I've run a print test pattern - all OK, and cleaned the heads just for good luck.

Sean

Title: Colour Management - need help
Post by: sglicata on December 23, 2007, 04:31:01 pm

I also forgot to say ...

When I print and allow the printer to manage the colour management, then prints are much better.  I'd rather use Lightroom, though.