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Prints Are Dark Even After Using Photoshop


13 years 5 months ago #3854 by Dee Ann
My pictures are printing really dark, but when I view them in photshop they look much brighter and a lot better.What could be wrong?
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13 years 5 months ago #3875 by NotReally
Either monitor calibration or printer profile/setting are mis-matched. It is probably easier to adjust your monitor/display to match your prints, but if your printer is wrong, everything else you view on the monitor will be wrong.

Try viewing a standard target on your monitor, first, to verify that it is displaying properly.
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13 years 5 months ago #3877 by wruzin
Dark prints could be the result of several ( many ) different issues, however, a place to start would be to make sure that your computer monitor is calibrated properly. There are devices available which make this chore pretty easy. Cost is dependent upon device features, but, a simple one like the "Huey" runs around 70 dollars or so. These devices do a nice job of getting you close to the color match that you are looking for. Some other factors which you may want to research would be color printer profiles which match your particular printer to the paper that you are using. Try calibrating your monitor first as a good first step in the process. Getting prints to look right is a process that does take some time to learn. Good luck and best wishes
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13 years 5 months ago #3943 by flyingv
I am not sure if this will help, but did you cancel the registration on your previous computer. Software is really cracking down on registrations, they do not want the software to be used on more than one computer. So if you did not cancel your registration you may not be able to get all of the features offered.
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13 years 5 months ago #4061 by Yasko
Are you printing them yourself, or are you printing at a commercial photomat? If it's the later, the operator may have an uncalibrated machine, or they're letting the machine do autocorrections which can darken, lighten, or adjust contrast in the output you didn't originally intend. Make sure they're printing neutral with no auto adjust or density/color adjustments.

If you're doing your own printing, there's two things you can do to improve results, and they're free.

1. If you're using Adobe Photoshop to edit and create the final output for printing, you can download a printer profile to match the printer you're using.

2. Your computer graphics card or monitor will likely have a monitor calibration utility available for download. E.G. One of my Gateway monitors has a program called EZ tune. If no utility is available, there's a handy general utility called QuickGamma that works well for all monitors. Find it here:

www.quickgamma.de/indexen.html

I use this to callibrate my CRT monitor, it's easy to use and works very well.
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13 years 5 months ago #4155 by JosephScha
I think I'm going to assume that you have not calibrated your monitor, and do you don't have profiles for the monitor or the printer. If that's the case, the monitor (which glows brightly, and may have trouble making a solid black) will show midtones and shadows much brighter than the print on paper (which doesn't glow, and easily shows solid black). Things that seem kind of dark but clearly visible on your monitor canl "block up" on the print and look like impenetrable darkness.

It's fairly easy to compensate using the printer driver's interface. It will almost certainly have a "darker ... lighter" control. Move it a few notches lighter. Make some test prints at a few different settings, and see which makes you happiest. I just about always use 2 to 3 notches lighter than default, on my printer.

If you're shooting in SRGB color space (you almost certainly are) then everything SHOULD work. But without calibrated profiles you may have to adjust brightness of the printer. And even so, remember paper doesn't glow like a monitor - you may want to brighten midtones and shadows to make a version to print.
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