downloading sRGB?

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madmardle

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Ken
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I use a Canon ip4500 and get prints that are too light, I have had suggestions from members on here earlier in the year, most of which I didn't understand. I contacted Canon and they recommended downloading sRGB and sent me a link which I have managed to lose. Anyone know what the link is, and is it easy enough to do/ ( I'm not very computer literate)
Thanks,
Ken
 
Bear in mind, that your screen, is most likely backlit and therefore when printing it is best to using an image that has the brightness decreased.

What software are you using to print and are you ensuring that you are using the profiles for the correct paper?
 
For problems of this sort there is really only one solution that works all the time.

1. Calibrate and Profile your Screen
2. Use a colour managed program for printing e.g Photoshop
3. Use the printer profiles that match the printer/paper/ink you are using.

There's some info about your printer and how to use it on my very old web site...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/colin_w/the_printer.htm

Colin
 
What are you viewing your images on. Normally the comment is that images too dark, not too light. The too dark problem is due to the extreme brightness of monitors straight out of the box. This can be 400-500 cd/m2 . Most viewing conditions are about 120cd/m2. ( Don't worry about the numbers it just shows you the problem. )

Now your prints are too light, which would initially make me think that the screen you are viewing them on is way too dark, and you are compensating by making the image lighter.

How are you viewing your images,, what computer and what software are you using? This may help track down the problem. For the time being don't worry about sRGB, I think it may be a bit of a red herring in this case
 
Chappers said:
What are you viewing your images on. Normally the comment is that images too dark, not too light. The too dark problem is due to the extreme brightness of monitors straight out of the box. This can be 400-500 cd/m2 . Most viewing conditions are about 120cd/m2. ( Don't worry about the numbers it just shows you the problem. )

Now your prints are too light, which would initially make me think that the screen you are viewing them on is way too dark, and you are compensating by making the image lighter.

How are you viewing your images,, what computer and what software are you using? This may help track down the problem. For the time being don't worry about sRGB, I think it may be a bit of a red herring in this case
Click to expand...
 
The os I use is XP, I do have photoshop Elements 6 but I don't print from it, I just use the windows wizard, although it does bring up the window shown in Spuriousfish's link, and looking at that it may be the problem, as I seem to remember ( I'm on my laptop now) that the colour correction is set to "Driver matching", so I will try the setting on "none" as suggested in the link and see if it solves the problem. I am afraid I do not know what driver I use or what profiles mean.
I understand that what you see on the screen will not be what the resulting print shows, but as far as I know the actual images on my memory cards are correctly exposed by my D90, and the monitor looks as close as I would have thought possible to the LCD on the camera.
Thank you all for trying to help me.
 
The main thing I do not understand is this: If what you see on the monitor has little or no bearing on the prints, how does calibrating the monitor help?
I noticed in the accessories for sale a spyder 2 or 3, I'm not sure which, for £25.00, is this the usual price for one of these?
I also seem to remember some years ago a member was loaning out calibration equipment and there was quite a queue for it. I didn't bother because I wasn't having any trouble with my prints at the time, unlike now.
Iv'e just checked, it was a datacolour 3 screen
 
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madmardle said:
The main thing I do not understand is this: If what you see on the monitor has little or no bearing on the prints, how does calibrating the monitor help?
Click to expand...

The monitor does have a bearing on your prints. If the monitor is too dark, the chances are you've lightened the image during editing, hence the prints will be too light. (Post 5 mentions this).
 
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What you see on the screen doesn't have a direct affect on your printing. What happens though if you have a poorly setup screen is that you may end up editing the image, with Photoshop for example, to correct a screen problem and not an image problem.

If your screen is set too dark, then you may correct what you see by making the image brighter, with the result that it may print out too bright.

If the screen is too bright (which is typically the case straight out of the box) then you may correct the image by making it darker, with the result that the print may come out too dark

If your screen is too red, then you may correct what you see by lowering the red channel, with the result that the print may be lacking in red.

There really is no substitute for having a correctly calibrated and profiled monitor.

Just and additional point - in my opinion the LCD screen on your camera is not a good representation of the image for similar reasons. Most cameras have a control to vary the brightness of the LCD screen - which level is correct? Also keep in mind that if you're using RAW then the LCD displays an in camera processed jpeg thumbnail, which may not be the same as what you get on your PC.

Colin
 
I think the simplest solution to your difficulty is to simply increase the brightness if the screen.

I suspect you are printing from windows picture viewer or similar. ( Sorry haven't used XP for about 5 years) . This is a very simple application. Works well but not one I would choose to print from. However you are happy using it so no problem.

I would increase the screen brightness until it matches that of the print and then adjust the image on the screen to give you the image you like. Then print and see how well it matches.

Even calibrating an profiling a system requires you to set the screen brightness so that it matches the print viewing environment to ensure a good screen to print match.

Alternatively you could print out of Lightroom as this has an option to adjust print brightness/darkness from the print module
 
I think the simplest solution to your difficulty is to simply increase the brightness if the screen.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear here. You don't print what you see on the screen, you print what's in the computer memory - which is not the same. You could turn off your display and still print a good image. What the screen can do if incorrectly set is to bias your judgement of the image quality and get you to make corrections that are not needed - because the screen is wrong and not your image.

Even calibrating an profiling a system requires you to set the screen brightness so that it matches the print viewing environment to ensure a good screen to print match.
Click to expand...

This is not quite true. Calibrating the screen sets it to a known standard and not necessarily the viewing environment. You should then try and view the prints in similar conditions. The fact that you use a known standard means consistency.

If the prints look too dark it may well be because the viewing conditions are wrong.

If you calibrate and profile correctly and use correct viewing conditions you wil not need any compensation during processing or printing.

Colin
 
Sorry if I misled you I was referring to the relative brightness of the viewing environment not necessarily anything else.
 
Get your screen calibrated, then don't adjust anything on the screen again. If you can't see the screen because it's too bright in your room, close the curtains or remove the light. Don't what ever you do change the brightness on the screen.

Now your screen is calibrated, it will show you what the PC is outputting to the printer.

If the prints are not as seen on the screen, you may have to look at the printer colour profile. The profile it what tells the printer which colour, and how bright to print when it receives the print info from the PC.

Normally the standard profile will suffice but if not, you may have to have a profile made for the printer/paper/ink that you are using.

I hope that helped and wasn't too gobbledygook.
 
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