Calibration- images printed way to dark...

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charlottemarie_15

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Hey, not sure its in the right place but I've just had some promo leaflets printed and I'm really happy with them apart from the pictures look a lot darker than on my laptop- but I have no idea about calibration. Is it my laptop? Do I need to know something about the printer I'm sending it too? Is it the camera? And is there an inexpensive way to fix it?

Thanks!
 
Laptops arn't really the best for photographs and don't forget the pictures on a computer are backlighted as well which makes them look brighter. Calibration may help a bit but I doubt it, have a look at your printer and see if there is any setting to lighten your pictures. A good editing suite may help something like Adobe Element 9

Realspeed
 
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Calibrating a laptop DOES work - made a huge difference for me, my prints were always too dark when printed until I bought a Spyder calibrator.

Try to find someone who will let you use theirs to calibrate your laptop, Charlotte, and if it makes a difference then maybe you can buy one.

Some camera clubs also have equipment like this available for the use of their members, so there's another option for you.

hth.
 
charlottemarie_15 said:
Hey, not sure its in the right place but I've just had some promo leaflets printed and I'm really happy with them apart from the pictures look a lot darker than on my laptop- but I have no idea about calibration. Is it my laptop? Do I need to know something about the printer I'm sending it too? Is it the camera? And is there an inexpensive way to fix it?

Thanks!
Click to expand...


TBH trying to get prints to match your screen is pretty much a waste of time without a calibrated monitor. You can get it closer and trial and error but you will never get it right if you want to print on a regular basis and be sure of what you're going to get.

But just so you know most monitors are set way to bright by default as far as print matching goes, I calibrated a new imac recently and the factory brightness was like a bloody floodlight compared to how it should have been. I use the colour munki system but there are cheaper alternatives.
 
david357 said:
Calibrating a laptop DOES work - made a huge difference for me, my prints were always too dark when printed until I bought a Spyder calibrator.

Try to find someone who will let you use theirs to calibrate your laptop, Charlotte, and if it makes a difference then maybe you can buy one.

Some camera clubs also have equipment like this available for the use of their members, so there's another option for you.

hth.
Click to expand...


Agree, it will work on laptops too, even projectors.
 
Well the long run is to get a computer for editing but thats about a year off- thanks for the answers guys- two questions;

How often do you have to do it? As in if I could get one to try, why would I then need to buy one?

Does it calibrate to a universal spec or something? I'm not printing to my printer at home so how do I know they're going to come out right once calibrated?

For some reason I've really struggled to understand how it works even though its been explained to me before! Stupid I know...
 
Check with your printer to see if they require the pictures profiled to their printers.
The print lab I use requires that you apply their printer profile to the file before you send it to them.
And as the others have said,calibrate your monitor.
 
You can adjust profiles on your monitor and printer so they match each other. Largely by trial and error (i don't print at home so never done this tho)

But the proper calibration tools will calibrate you to a standard (ICC, International Color Consortium). This means that what you see on your monitor should be the same as you print out and the same as the image you sent to a printhouse half way round the world.

I have a huey pro for calibrating my monitor, the software asks me to re-calibrate every 2 weeks but i've never noticed a large swing, I guess over time the temp of the CCFLs in my monitor and maybe the screen itself with change a bit slowly. I did notice a huge difference when i first did it tho, my screen was really green by default.
 
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