Dark prints

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neilgriffs

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neil
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Hi all, novice here have found when printing out my photos at home the prints are a bit dark, dont want to spend a fortune on calibrating my cheap monitor, are there any easy ways round this ?
 
neilgriffs said:
Hi all, novice here have found when printing out my photos at home the prints are a bit dark, dont want to spend a fortune on calibrating my cheap monitor, are there any easy ways round this ?
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The first 'guide' to too dark a print compared to the monitor, is that the screen is too bright!

PS that would apply whether printed at home or the image file is sent away to a print 'lab'.
 
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neilgriffs said:
Hi all, novice here have found when printing out my photos at home the prints are a bit dark, dont want to spend a fortune on calibrating my cheap monitor, are there any easy ways round this ?
Click to expand...

One easy way is to alter the brightness in your print software. I don't know what you're using but there's almost certainly a print properties or set up section with sliders. I'd recommend doing small test prints until you find the setting that give you the best results.
 
Try setting the brightness to between 35%-40%, seems to be about right for most screens after calibration
 
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Thanks for the advice gents, at the moment am doing a separate edit for printing and just guessing based on the print before.
 
No, not really. Your edits must be way too dark. You could post some if you wanted an actual critique rather than going on a wild turkey hunting
neilgriffs said:
dont want to spend a fortune on calibrating my cheap monitor, are there any easy ways round this ?
Click to expand...
 
@neilgriffs

Would you like to clarify whether you are saying the prints are dark compared to the screen view that you see when editing i.e. the screen view in your editing software looks fine but the print is dark?
Because as I said above in post #2, if your screen is too bright it is almost(?) inevitable that any prints will be too dark by comparison................and no amount of editing will truly IMO compensate for that type of mis-match :banghead:

OR that they look dark on screen i.e. (apparently) underexposed as shown by looking at the histogram and you are looking for post processing guidance to improve them???

PS how about posting a screengrab of the editing software view including the histogram? ;)
 
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yes, edit to the look i want on my screen, then when printing they are much darker, would a better monitor be the way to go as mine is fairly old and basic
 
New monitor and then calibrate it would be the best option.
You need to have the right base settings before you start editing for printing.
 
neilgriffs said:
yes, edit to the look i want on my screen, then when printing they are much darker, would a better monitor be the way to go as mine is fairly old and basic
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Sorry to belabour the point...................and surmise?

Your screen shows a nicely post processed image that looks 'right' in regard to its overall brightness but the print is darker than the screen view :thinking:

If so, then perhaps to start with reduce the brightness and re PP the print to suit the look you want and see how that prints by comparison. That will or should clue to in as to the 'too bright a screen = too dark a print' question.

As for whether you need a new monitor that is down to your wallet and why you think you need one! Yes, for colour accuracy a more modern IPS panel screen and a calibrator to be sure it if accurate are IMO a good idea ;)

PS and FWIW
This site has some test confirmation imagery to see how your screen looks now and with explanations as to what you should be seeing......guiding you as I infer to reducing the brightness. However, IMO this checking out is not substitute for a good screen that is properly calibrated BUT it might sort out your problem for now to start the journey of getting some decent'ish looking prints.... for you to enjoy :)
Site here http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
 
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You can do a kind of manual calibration. Hold the print next to the screen in normal room lighting, then turn down brightness of the screen until they match. Re-edit your images to look normal and print again.
 
benc98 said:
The histogram should give a very good indication as well in terms of the image being too dark
Click to expand...

One thing I worry about when people start talking about new monitors or calibration is that dark prints could be just that, prints that are too dark.

I went through hair tearing hell when I changed my HP printer to an Epson and pictures that had been perfectly ok with the old kit (and which were perfectly well exposed and looked to be fine on the camera) were now waaaaay too dark with the new kit so I think some basic checking is worthwhile before spending money on new monitors or time on calibration.

A well exposed picture shouldn't be too dark when printed. Looking at a histogram seems sensible and getting someone else to print the same file could help as this could be a the print is too dark issue rather than a monitor being too bright issue.
 
ancient_mariner said:
You can do a kind of manual calibration. Hold the print next to the screen in normal room lighting, then turn down brightness of the screen until they match. Re-edit your images to look normal and print again.
Click to expand...
This really. I find that I have to have my monitor on its lowest brightness to get anything like the same as the printer. Calibration works for colours but not for brightness so if the colours are coming out OK then calibration won't make a lot of difference.
 
Windows has a built in method to sort out brightness and contrast.
Go into settings then type calibrate in the search box.
Self explanatory from there on, should hopefully help a bit.
 
Glad you're getting somewhere with it :D
 
neilgriffs said:
Thanks for all the help gents, seem to be getting much better prints now, I think a lot of my problem was having settings on the printer, settings in lightroom ,physical controls on the monitor and setting on my graphics card all controlling the brightness .
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Good to know that you have a resolution :)

PS though possibly for the enlightenment of other newcomers to TP with similar issues.....it might be helpful if you broke down what you did to improve/correct the 'dark prints' problem :thinking:
 
No problem , used the graphic card software to drop the brightness of the screen slightly, then in the lightroom printing adjustments uped the brightness just need to play about a bit more to up the darker parts as still finding those slightly dark, hope this makes sense
 
neilgriffs said:
No problem , used the graphic card software to drop the brightness of the screen slightly, then in the lightroom printing adjustments uped the brightness just need to play about a bit more to up the darker parts as still finding those slightly dark, hope this makes sense
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Frankly no.......but as long as you are happy and are getting the results that you like & please you :)
 
Thanks for that very interesting video , only problem now have a touch of printer envy
 
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