Prints are darker than my monitor shows

[waple]

I've calibrated the monitor using Spyder2 Pro and PrintPlus, and when I print things from either Lightroom or PSCS3, the print looks pretty close in colors but is noticably darker in the print. And I have no idea why or how to remedy this.

And I'm actually not sure what profile settings should be set in my apps, so if someone could help me there, I'd appreciate it.

In Photoshop under Edit->Color Settings, I currently have this:


But under the Working Spaces RGB dropdown, I can choose my custom profile:


But I don't know if I'm supposed to.

When I print, I have these settings:


I'm not sure if these settings are right, or if under the Printer Profile selection, I'm supposed to use one of the Canon i9900 profiles I downloaded from Ilford (I use Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl and Ilford Printasia Premium Photo Pearl), or the custom printer profile that Spyder made. To be honest, I don't have a clue if the profile Spyder made is remotely correct because I frankly don't understand what I was doing when I made it.

When I print, I also use these settings:

I use that Media Type because the Ilford site said to use that setting when using the papers I have.

Finally, in Lightroom, I have this diolog in the Print module, and I'm not sure what I should be doing there:


I've been struggling with this profiling for a long time and I just find it very confusing, the fact that there are so many different choices for so many different things, it's hard to really know where to start... or finish.

I'd really appreciate some help.

[JDArt]

To me this looks largely correct. I've always been mystified by the PhotoShop color settings, I have to admit, but your printer settings look correct.

I use Qimage for printing, which makes the whole business of using profiles much easier, IMO.

[blumesan]

Originally Posted by waple

But under the Working Spaces RGB dropdown, I can choose my custom profile:


But I don't know if I'm supposed to.

No, you are not supposed to! Never use your monitor profile as a working space in PS.

[nxen]

Take a look at this (about colour management) and this (about print with colour management) links.

I hope they would help you.

[Flash2Bang]

ICSY,
I have been suffering with the same problem. I have got a head full of profiles/icc/calibration/paper/ink....... until I don't know whether I am coming or going. I saw the link nxen refers to several days ago and until I can fully work out what the heck to do I have opted for workflow 1. This has got rid of the dark print problem and is a fairly good representation of my screen. Give it a go !! Anyway I am still at the learning stage and if I achieve a good copy who cares how I do it.

P.S. If you crack the other workflows let me into the secret.

[jfrancho]

When you profiled and calibrated your display, did you use measured luminance and black point, or did you skip that part? This is the part of the calibration that allows you to match relative brightness correctly. Skip it, and you get the problems you describe.

[waple]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

When you profiled and calibrated your display, did you use measured luminance and black point, or did you skip that part? This is the part of the calibration that allows you to match relative brightness correctly. Skip it, and you get the problems you describe.

I had called Spyder support because I was confused as to when to use the different profiles I made (one for day and one for night) since they looked so drastically different. I did those adjustments then.

But when the support guy walked me through it, he wanted me to just set to 2.2-6500 and leave everything else off/default.

I'll try it again and turn those two on and see what happens. Thanks

[jfrancho]

But when the support guy walked me through it, he wanted me to just set to 2.2-6500 and leave everything else off/default.

That is because it is the ISO standard target, and assumes that you are working in a ISO certified environment. You can't really go too wrong with that. But you still want to use measured lum/black point, even if you are using the standard target.

[BMMack]

I've had the same trouble with Ilford papers and my i9900. For quick and dirty fixes, I've just gone to Image>Adjustments>Brightness and bumped it up by +40. For a quick snapshot to hang on the fridge, this works. But for prints I care about, it takes tons of tweaking. I'll be trying to sort out the workflows above. Thanks for the link, Nxen.

[Worm324]

I have the same issue as you. I've found that raising the brightness up a tad before I print does a good job. I attributed my problem to not having a calibrator that does Black point adjustments, but apparently that might not be the issue

Please keep us posted on your outcome.

Best,
Jay

[nyschulte]

Photoshop should be using adobeRBG or prophoto workspace

using photoshop for color management for printing is the way to go IF you can disable color management in the printer driver.
Then you need to configure the driver to use NO ICM, which is OK according to your printscreen.

in photoshop you have to select the correct profile for your printer/paper combination. this gives you the first half of the equation.
In the printer driver you have to select the correct media.
this will set the kind of ink the printer should use, the amount of ink sprayed, the time to wait between passes of the printhead, eventually paper thickness, etc (second part of the equation)


You have to make sure as well to use the exact same settings in your printer driver when you print the target for profiling.


When you use a profile provided by the paper manufacturer you have to check under which colorspace the profile has been made.
I found for example that hahnemühle paper was profiled under the adobe rgb colorspace and the tetenal paper required srgb.

with my canon pixma 8500 i had the same problem. I used to bump up the intensity in the printer driver to my liking and saved this as default setting.

With the epson 3800 i am using only hahnemühle papers and the profiles provided by the manufacturer. everything works fine out of the box. the profile from tetenal was unusable for me. i profiled myself with a 729 patch target, which gave a better result, but not to the same level as hahnemühle.

Luminous landscape covers all this well here
From Camera to Print

Nicolas

[f-stop]

This may sound ridiculous, but after a few years on a Photo-printing-specific forum, the #1 reason for this ends up being the lighting you are using (on your print) to compare to your monitor. Lots of folks do post-processing in a relatively dark room, then look at their print results under a cheap desk lamp.

I happen to use a solux desk lamp with a very bright halogen style lamp with a very specific colour temp. I fought this problem for months a few years ago, BTW. Darned near made me crazy (ier?)

Hard to take your monitor outside, but take a print outside under sunshine some day and see how different it looks!

Now then, here enters the Catch-22. Who, besides you (besides me, actually), is going to be looking at a print under a colour temp correct proofing lamp? Unless your stuff is hanging in museum with the associated museum lighting, the answer is; nobody.

Hope this is somehow helpful and I feel silly offering advice as I'm new here....and have in fact just discovered this section!

-Greg

[lightandimages]

Originally Posted by f-stop

This may sound ridiculous, but after a few years on a Photo-printing-specific forum, the #1 reason for this ends up being the lighting you are using (on your print) to compare to your monitor. Lots of folks do post-processing in a relatively dark room, then look at their print results under a cheap desk lamp.

I happen to use a solux desk lamp with a very bright halogen style lamp with a very specific colour temp. I fought this problem for months a few years ago, BTW. Darned near made me crazy (ier?)

Hard to take your monitor outside, but take a print outside under sunshine some day and see how different it looks!

Now then, here enters the Catch-22. Who, besides you (besides me, actually), is going to be looking at a print under a colour temp correct proofing lamp? Unless your stuff is hanging in museum with the associated museum lighting, the answer is; nobody.

Hope this is somehow helpful and I feel silly offering advice as I'm new here....and have in fact just discovered this section!

-Greg

Yep.. I bought a specific light that mimics daylight for my workstation lighting. It helps alot when I am trying decide if the print is too dark or light. Between that, my Canon ( the epson was never right ) and my cheapo Huey stick, my prints have been very close between screen and paper. I should also say that I work in RGB but print in sRGB color space and that I use a Mac. I know it should not matter but sometimes the details do matter.

You are correct that none will look at it but at least I know it's right and with the sRGB for printing, all my printers work the same, the stupid itty bitty HP I use for 4x6s and my Canon950 (9000 in disguise). like I said, my Epson 1280 was never "right" no matter what I did or tried. The closest I ever got was using a CIS ink system with MIS inks.

[craigsexton]

ok, so maybe a stupid a question but then where do you tell photoshop what monitor profile to view by that you set up when you calibrated to? Maybe just set up the softproofing to your profile?

Craig

[f-stop]

Oh! If you're having trouble with that, then that would likely be better explanation of dark prints than my viewing light explanation (which is still valid anyway).

This is just my opinion and I'll likely get lambasted, but your question is far from stupid and after about a month of trying to print from Photoshop I bought qimage and never looked back.

Somebody may pop in and say that printing from PS works great and is easy and I'm just too stupid to figure it out. No argument from me. It's probably just peachy after you get the hang of it. I just didn't have the time to get the hang of it, I needed prints.

Somebody will surely pop in and help you with the PS settings......as soon as they finish yelling at me.

[jfrancho]

Originally Posted by craigsexton

ok, so maybe a stupid a question but then where do you tell photoshop what monitor profile to view by that you set up when you calibrated to? Maybe just set up the softproofing to your profile?

Craig

Not dumb, but easy to answer: NEVER. The profile you created describes your particular monitor's behavior. Photoshop is a profile aware color managed app. As long as your monitor's profile is loaded at startup by the profile management tool (Profile Chooser, in the case of Spyder2Pro), then Photoshop will be using it. Soft proofing is for mimicking some other output device, usually a printer. If you want to see what your image will look like in an unmanaged browser on your own monitor, then set Soft Proofing up to use "Monitor RGB." Otherwise, your monitor profile is used only by your system to tell color managed programs like Photoshop how to display the colors.

[waple]

Thanks much for all the help. Dumb as I may be, the problem was, in fact, that I was sitting in a dim room comaring a print with a light monitor. When I got a flashlight and shined it on the image, it made a world of difference.