[jeghead1]

hola!
I took some great portraits the other day and took them to kits camera to have them printed with at matte finish in 8 x 10. They came out beautiful but they were significantly darker in the shadow and background area than they appeared in photoshop! My question is this... is there a way to more accuretely preview what will come out on print?
I have an lcd monitor and am using photoshop cs3

thanks for any help

hola!
I took some great portraits the other day and took them to kits camera to have them printed with at matte finish in 8 x 10. They came out beautiful but they were significantly darker in the shadow and background area than they appeared in photoshop! My question is this... is there a way to more accuretely preview what will come out on print?
I have an lcd monitor and am using photoshop cs3

thanks for any help

Well there are many variables involve. First is your monitor calibrated? Did you download the drivers from the place you had your stuff printed? Remember that what your looking at on screen is transmitted light. What you see on the print is reflected. Apples. Oranges.

Even with everything correct on your end you may still find prints too dark. Oh what to do. Run a contact sheet. If it's too dark, consistently try a contact sheet with variations of lightening on it. Then print the sheet. See which looks like what you want then create an action and run that action on every print you send out to them. Sending a bunch? Batch process them.

[Ben_Edict]

To print what you see on screen, you need at least your monitor calibrated with a good calibration package (Spyder3, HueyPro, i1Display or whatever). While printing, you should at least use prefabricated ICC profiles, that most paper manufacturers provide at least for Epson printers and sometimes also for HP and Canon. It would be even better to get custom ICC profiles for your printer and your paper.

Without some basic calibration, contrast and brightness of the final print are more or less hit and miss.

Ben

[artobest]

To add to what has already been said:

Once your monitor has been calibrated, you can get a pretty good idea of how your prints will come out by soft-proofing in Photoshop. Go to View/Proof Setup and select the correct ICC profile for your printer/paper combo. Choose a rendering intent (most likely Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric) and select Simulate Paper Colour.

Once again, without a properly calibrated display, this is all academic. If you do all this and find your prints are still dark, then most likely your display is set too bright.

[GeneV]

Well there are many variables involve. First is your monitor calibrated? Did you download the drivers from the place you had your stuff printed? Remember that what your looking at on screen is transmitted light. What you see on the print is reflected. Apples. Oranges.

Even with everything correct on your end you may still find prints too dark. Oh what to do. Run a contact sheet. If it's too dark, consistently try a contact sheet with variations of lightening on it. Then print the sheet. See which looks like what you want then create an action and run that action on every print you send out to them. Sending a bunch? Batch process them.

Good points, George. I find this the most frustrating part of digital photography, to the point that I have just about given up on oranges and stick to apples. I tend to want to use my photos as slides, only to be displayed on backlit screens. But then there is a huge difference between plasma and LCD....

Good points, George. I find this the most frustrating part of digital photography, to the point that I have just about given up on oranges and stick to apples. I tend to want to use my photos as slides, only to be displayed on backlit screens. But then there is a huge difference between plasma and LCD....

Imagine what would happen if I actually knew what I was talking about. I make this stuff up as I go.
(insert sarcasm smiley here)

I also have some really great property in the water for sale.