Printing waaaaaaaay too dark

[amyliz]

Hi,

Why are my shots printing out waaaaaay darker than they are showing on my screen. My screen is a 24" monitor and im am using Windows 7 64bit and CS4

I am printing on an Epson SX415.

I know you are supposed to calibrate your screen but if its out that much i would have to up the exposure in cs4 by about 3 stops to get it to the right brightness?

Any ideas?

 

[Paul-H]

How are you printing

What program are you printing through

What setting did you adjust in the printer driver

On my system which is similar to yours 24inch Monitor, Windows 7 64bit but CS3 & Epson R360, I get a 95% perfect print using full auto and 99% perfect once profiled.

There is a basic monitor profile utility built into Windows 7

The only time I ever got Dark Prints was when I accidently turned colour control off in both Photoshop and the printer driver.

It has to be turned off in both during the profiling process I use and I forgot to turn it back on in Photoshop.

Let us know how you are doing things first,

Paul

 

[Chappers]

Are you printing with colour amangement, or are you using "printer manages colour"option.

If it's the latter there are colour controls within the Epson Printer dialogue ( Advanced) that lets you adjust the density and colour of the prints..

However it wouldn't surprise me if your monitor is a bit bright as well. You may need a combination of Monitor brightness and printer control to get things under control.

Just did a quick test. Full frame camera (5D) ISO 400 Photoshop background grey image. at a focal length of 50mm and at a distance of 30cm ( front of lens) exposure indicated is 1/13 @f8. This is on a calibrated screen with a brightness set to 130Cd/m2 ( which is roughly in the accreted range for monitor brightness 0f 120-140 Cd/m2). You might find that of some help