[Vicioustuna2012]

So I purchased my first DSLR this week, a Pentax k-30. I've been editing all my photos in Lr5. They look great on multiple different screens such as my dual monitors, which are calibrated as best I could, my phone, and my HDTV which I used to show them to family. However, tonight I decided to print a couple. They came out way darker than what was shown on any screen. At this point, I think it may be my crappy printer, but I'm not sure.

If I post a couple of my shots here, can anyone with a properly calibrated monitor tell me if they look dark on your screen? Keep in mind, I'm an amateur, these might not be the best shots, lol. I'm learning though! As an aside, any critique is welcome as well :-)

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Last edited by Vicioustuna2012; 02-17-2017 at 01:22 PM.

[MarkJerling]

Your four photos:
1st seems OK to me.
2nd seems very slightly dark.
3rd seems dark.
4th seems OK to me.

Saturation can be a problem with some printers, some inks and some papers.

[lithedreamer]

It's good to keep in mind that your screen is backlit, unlike any print I've ever seen. Lightroom's print tab gives some 'for-print' adjustment sliders for exposure. I usually push up exposure to compensate. Alternately, see if you can lower your monitor's brightness to match your prints, then adjust a virtual copy until the photo looks bright enough.

[Swift1]

Are your files color profiled? Does your printer software recognize those profiles?
Are you printing from LR5? Is LR5 managing colors, or your printer software? Do you have the right paper profile? What rendering intent are you using?

[DeadJohn]

Your four photos: 1st seems OK to me. 2nd seems very slightly dark. 3rd seems dark. 4th seems OK to me.

What he said.

[C_Jones]

If you can take one of your prints, place it under some normal lighting, and calibrate the brightness of the print image with the original image brightness on the computer by adjusting the computer brightness to appear to be comparable to the printed image brightness, you will be set up. That is what I have done, and it works well.

[stevebrot]

Matching prints to what you see onscreen is a challenge. Here are the rules:

• Your brightest white is the white of your paper, you can go no brighter
• Your darkest black is the black ink applied over your whitest white (the paper)
• Your color saturation is limited to that of the inks you apply with brightness limited by the reflectance of your paper
• Contrast and saturation also depend on paper surface

Since you are using Lightroom, I can offer the approach I have found useful. You will need:

• Calibrated monitor
• Adobe Lightroom (your version is fine)
• ICC profile for your printer and paper combination (available from paper maker)

The ICC profile will allow you to "soft proof" the printed appearance on screen from within Lightroom. To "soft proof":

• In the Develop module click the soft proof button below the main window
• On the right-hand panel, find the drop menus for profile and select the ICC profile for your printer/paper combination
  
  There is some skill associated with whether to choose "Perceptual" or "Relative" as rendering intent. Your paper manufacturer may include their recommendation as part of the instructions for use of their ICC profiles. In short, "Perceptual" retains out-of-gamut detail, but may result in shifts of in-gamut color. "Relative", on the other hand, preserves color accuracy, but at the expense of out-of-gamut detail. If neither of those explanations make sense, the tutorials on color management at the Cambridge in Color Web site may help: LINK
• Notice with horror that the soft proof image sucks. Usually there is a strong decrease in both brightness and contrast.
• Click the button to create a new virtual copy. Do this avoid screwing up your perfectly edited on-screen version as we fiddle to make it look better.
• Edit the soft proof so that it looks better
• Print the soft proof copy using Lightroom's Print module. Take care to use the same ICC profile and rendering intent as in the soft proof copy with printer color control by Lightroom rather than the printer.

There are many ways to use the soft proof as the basis for printing. The above is fairly straightforward from the Lightroom perspective. If you have Martin Evening's Lightroom book, he gives the detailed steps.


Steve

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Last edited by stevebrot; 02-03-2017 at 02:20 PM.

[darylk]

I agree with the previous comments on individual photo brightness. Most monitors are adjusted way too bright to give a decent representation of what you'll see on a printed photo. I have my Dell monitor turned all the way down to 11 brightness and that may be too high. That's out of a scale of 100. You might check that aspect of your monitor settings.

[Vicioustuna2012]

Matching prints to what you see onscreen is a challenge. Here are the rules:

• Your brightest white is the white of your paper, you can go no brighter
• Your darkest black is the black ink applied over your whitest white (the paper)
• Your color saturation is limited to that of the inks you apply with brightness limited by the reflectance of your paper
• Contrast and saturation also depend on paper surface

Since you are using Lightroom, I can offer the approach I have found useful. You will need:

• Calibrated monitor
• Adobe Lightroom (your version is fine)
• ICC profile for your printer and paper combination (available from paper maker)

The ICC profile will allow you to "soft proof" the printed appearance on screen from within Lightroom. To "soft proof":

• In the Develop module click the soft proof button below the main window
• On the right-hand panel, find the drop menus for your printer and paper and select appropriately
• Notice with horror that the soft proof image sucks
• Edit the soft proof so that it looks better. At some point, Lightroom will ask if you want a new virtual copy. Say yes to avoid screwing up your perfectly edited on-screen version.
• Print the soft proof copy using Lightroom's Print module. Take care to use the same paper, printer, and rendering intent as in the soft proof copy with printer color control by Lightroom rather than the printer.

There are many ways to use the soft proof as the basis for printing. The above is fairly straightforward from the Lightroom perspective. If you have Martin Evening's Lightroom book, he gives the detailed steps.


Steve

Can you clarify the section I highlighted in your comment? I have checked the soft proofing box, but nothing I do seems to make my image change in the manner you suggested.

[Stagnant]

Typically I re-process the shots that I want to print. I print everything in the same lab, and over the time I learned, how to achieve predictable results.
My first prints indeed ended up being dark and bleak.
Now I boost contrast, saturation and exposure. Of course, I try to avoid clipping, but in certain scenes minor highlight clipping does not look as bad as on screen. Shadows are less forgiving.
What I describe is my personal experience, and should not be treated as a universal rule.

[Bruce Clark]

Calibration of monitor is essential. Generally speaking standard computer monitors are too bright in their factory default setting. Especially so for many laptops. While the images are adjusted to look ok onscreen the resultant print is dark. As stevebrot says once you have the the paper and printer profile set correctly soft-proofing in LR and ensuring LR and not the printer manages the print process, you should begin to get better results. Some papers I have found, especially cheaper brands don't make it easy to locate the profiles. Some are impossible to track down. Here a bit of guess work and experimentation is required. I only print 6x4 snap shots for friends and family. Anything serious I send out to a professional lab.

[Vicioustuna2012]

Calibration of monitor is essential. Generally speaking standard computer monitors are too bright in their factory default setting. Especially so for many laptops. While the images are adjusted to look ok onscreen the resultant print is dark. As stevebrot says once you have the the paper and printer profile set correctly soft-proofing in LR and ensuring LR and not the printer manages the print process, you should begin to get better results. Some papers I have found, especially cheaper brands don't make it easy to locate the profiles. Some are impossible to track down. Here a bit of guess work and experimentation is required. I only print 6x4 snap shots for friends and family. Anything serious I send out to a professional lab.

In regards to sending prints to labs; do they usually correct things like dark prints for you, or do they just send what came out? Like, if I left a note that said "Hey if these are dark lighten them up", would they do that?

[stevebrot]

Can you clarify the section I highlighted in your comment? I have checked the soft proofing box, but nothing I do seems to make my image change in the manner you suggested.

When I posted the original instructions, I did not have Lightroom available for reference and was working from memory. I just edited the comment above for both accuracy and clarity and included a screen snippet showing the Soft Proofing panel. Clicking the "Profile" selector should provide a list of ICC profiles registered with Lightroom.

I should note that "soft proofing" is also useful when previewing content to publish to the Web using the sRGB color space. Using the two small buttons at the upper corners of the histogram, it is possible to see where colors have been lost or changed by moving to the target color space.


Steve

[lithedreamer]

In regards to sending prints to labs; do they usually correct things like dark prints for you, or do they just send what came out? Like, if I left a note that said "Hey if these are dark lighten them up", would they do that?

I recommend doing a test set of 8x10s, and setting your monitor display brightness appropriately. I've seen labs offer colour correction, but not brightness correction.

[Skewed]

Can you clarify the section I highlighted in your comment? I have checked the soft proofing box, but nothing I do seems to make my image change in the manner you suggested.

I don't rely on soft proofing for printing since I see no significant difference on my monitors.

But in the LR Print module, at the bottom of the right-side toolbar, there are sliders for Brightness and Contrast. These affect only the print, so you can experiment with them without affecting your saved image. Since your prints are dark, you might try +20 brightness to start.