DARK prints

RKnecht

I got an email from a customer and she was telling me the prints in her order seemed very dark. I also got an order yesterday that I am going to deliver to a customer, and out of curiosity, I opened it. The prints look NOTHING like what is on my screen/site. Very dark. I have a lot of orders going out and I am afraid that I am going to get more emails about dark prints. Can someone provide some type of input here?

RKnecht

Thanks for the email Andy.

David Manning

It sounds like your monitor may be too bright.

laslo

RKnecht wrote:

Thanks for the email Andy.

Just wondering what the problem was and how resolved?

Laslo

Ann McRae

Hi Laslo

I do not know the specifics of this case, but if you check our help pages here you will see that the number one reason for returns is that the prints are too dark.


The first thing to think about is that monitors are lit with transmitted light where as prints are seen with reflected light and that in and of itself means a print will never be as bright as your monitor display.

Then you need to consider the variation that folks can impose on how bright their monitors are, and whether they have glossy monitors and so on.

The help pages have lots of tips for getting great prints. The color correction process at EZPrints will increase exposure on photos. Bay Photo will evaluate the photo and correct exposure if necessary. In either case, color correction by the labs is a good tool to help with underexposed photos.

Hope that helps

ann

RKnecht

According to Andy, the pictures were underexposed. I find that odd because they look great on all of my calibrated monitors here at home. I always "soft proof" using the EZPrints ICC profile and never had an issue before. The prints in question were printed on matte paper, which is apparently the "darkest" paper. Again, I don't get it. Andy did send the prints to Bay Photo for me and had them reprinted on Lustre paper at no charge to me. The new prints arrived, and whereas they do look good, they still do not match what I see on my screens. I'm really confused about where the issue lies. I have had a lot of prints done by EZPrints in the past and never had an issue with dark prints. I have recalibrated all my monitors. I saved the old settings to see if there was a difference. There was not.

I'm not sure where to go from here. Any help from other pros would be great.

Andy

Calibration, your eyes, everything lies.
Use the histogram, to see how much of your photo is dark, underexposed.

I really expect that you have your monitor too-bright.

colourbox

RKnecht wrote:

I have recalibrated all my monitors...Any help

One thing that isn't being mentioned...what did you calibrate the monitors to? Specifically, what luminance level do you pick when you start the calibration process? (e.g. 90 cd/m2 or 120 cd/m2)

Andy

Andy wrote:

Calibration, your eyes, everything lies.
Use the histogram, to see how much of your photo is dark, underexposed.

I really expect that you have your monitor too-bright.

And if you want some help with the histogram, holler

wmm

I know just enough about the histogram to be stupid. I can tell on each end if the curve flattens out before the end of the histogram, but in my histogram view (and I am only using PSE 7.0) I can look at each color channel, and "luminosity" and "RGB" and "colors". In a RGB view the histogram looks fine, but in some of the individual colors and luminosity sometimes the right side of the curve still flattens out before the end.

Do you know of online resources that might help me read these correctly?

-Mickey

Pa. Patriot

I received my first set of orders today (test prints) from both EZ and Bay.
CC on and off.

The EZPrints photos are typically brighter. Very close to my calibrated monitor. One was borderline too bright.
Several BayPhoto prints are considerably darker.

I will start a new thread on my order results as there were other differences but I figured I would add my datapoint on dark prints to this thread.

Andy

Pa. Patriot wrote:

I received my first set of orders today (test prints) from both EZ and Bay.
CC on and off.

The EZPrints photos are typically brighter. Very close to my calibrated monitor. One was borderline too bright.
Several BayPhoto prints are considerably darker.

I will start a new thread on my order results as there were other differences but I figured I would add my datapoint on dark prints to this thread.

Order #s please? I'd like to review each order.

Thank you.

mtnbiker

I've got to agree...Bay Photo's prints are pretty dark.
All the prints in my last order are darker than they should be.

Order # 1231072

Andy

mtnbiker wrote:

I've got to agree...Bay Photo's prints are pretty dark.
All the prints in my last order are darker than they should be.

Order # 1231072

There are a lot of fine-arty type of prints there - which bay will tend to go much easier on as far as color correction thinking that you have your style - please write our Support Heroes ATTN: NickW and let our color specialists work directly with you. We guarantee everything and we'll get your orders right, every time.

mtnbiker

Andy wrote:

There are a lot of fine-arty type of prints there - which bay will tend to go much easier on as far as color correction thinking that you have your style - please write our Support Heroes ATTN: NickW and let our color specialists work directly with you. We guarantee everything and we'll get your orders right, every time.

I will Andy thanks.

Should I expect photos like this to be printed dark by Bay?
http://www.jonpratt.net/2009/Maine-July-20th/9060960_GFzMp#603248685_r9zdK

In the print I received from them you can't make out the dock and water in the foreground, they are completely black. Would it be better to send these type of shots through EZ, or am I doing something wrong on my side.

Andy

mtnbiker wrote:

I will Andy thanks.

Should I expect photos like this to be printed dark by Bay?
http://www.jonpratt.net/2009/Maine-July-20th/9060960_GFzMp#603248685_r9zdK

In the print I received from them you can't make out the dock and water in the foreground, they are completely black. Would it be better to send these type of shots through EZ, or am I doing something wrong on my side.

I think you have your monitor set too bright, the dock and foreground are nearly plugged (nearly all-black) and I'd expect them to print very, very dark.

mtnbiker

Andy I agree while the monitor is probably too dark, LCD set to luminance of 120. I opened up another thread in finishing to go over this issue. Thanks

Andy

mtnbiker wrote:

Andy I agree while the monitor is probably too dark, LCD set to luminance of 120. I opened up another thread in finishing to go over this issue. Thanks

It's a common problem. Remember, I & we see bazillions of prints