Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: DLP Graphics on April 12, 2009, 01:02:03 pm

Title: Prints are dark HP z3100 APS
Post by: DLP Graphics on April 12, 2009, 01:02:03 pm

I have been having trouble with prints looking too dark for some time now. I develop the image to where I like it in Lightroom & Photoshop CS3 but when I print them they look too dark and then it becomes sort of trial and error printing and adjusting to get the print to where I want it. Its tempting me to turn down the brightness on the monitor after I calibrate it. I thought with the HP z3100 and its Advanced Profiling System would solve this problem once and for all but I must be missing something somewhere.

I am using Mac OS10.5.6 and a LaCie 22" CRT display. I have white point set to 6500, gamma at 2.2, and luminance at 90. I've tried calibrating the display to gamma 1.8 and luminance up to 120 but it makes it worse. When I print from PS I set it to "Photoshop manages colors",  set the profile for the correct printer profile, relative colormetric and checked black point compensation. For the printer I have "application managed colors" selected. I am currently using Red River UltraPro Gloss paper.

When I soft proof in PS the image looks flat when compared with the print.

I have experimented with ambient lighting. I have 6500 degree fluorescent lights which are quite bright. They are well above the 55 lux target measured with the Eye-one puck. I'm not sure what the 55 lux target is or how it relates to monitor luminance measured in cd/m2.

Any ideas. Do i just need to get my eyeballs calibrated?

Thanks
Steve

Title: Prints are dark HP z3100 APS
Post by: Pat Herold on April 15, 2009, 08:07:04 pm

Wow Steve,
It looks like you have covered all the bases pretty well so far.  People who do the things you are doing normally get good results.  Have you tried the "white paper" test?
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/My_Printer_Is_Too_Dark (http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/My_Printer_Is_Too_Dark)

Also, since you're on a Mac, we are finding that there is an obscure bug between the Mac OS or Epson drivers that often causes color management to happen even when it is supposedly turn off in the driver.  You would need to put the "GenericRGB.icc" profile into place in ColorSync.  More instructions are here:
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Tech_Support_Grab_Bag (http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Tech_Support_Grab_Bag)