Printing to canvas and metal

Badrad

Smug responders suggested I notch up brightness 1-2 stops for canvas and metal surfaces as they tend to print darker than conventional papers. Is there a guideline for this via PS or online with the Pic Monkey, ie 20 points of brightness, etc? I can't relate to stops in editing terms. Thx.

rnrjosh

Badrad wrote: »

Smug responders suggested I notch up brightness 1-2 stops for canvas and metal surfaces as they tend to print darker than conventional papers. Is there a guideline for this via PS or online with the Pic Monkey, ie 20 points of brightness, etc? I can't relate to stops in editing terms. Thx.

In general, any prints will probably appear a bit darker than what you see on your monitor, as prints reflect light, and your monitor projects light. To my knowledge, you shouldn't need to make any special adjustments for canvas/metal prints in particular. They should print similarly to traditional photographic prints, though again, they can often appear darker, especially if viewing your image on a bright monitor.

Brightness increments really aren't equivalent to 'stops' per se, as stops is a measure of light or exposure. The best way to describe a stop would be the difference you see in your camera between an image shot at 2 adjacent f-stops, or the difference between an image shot at ISO 400 vs ISO 800 for example (that would be one stop of difference).

Also, this would only be applicable if printing with no color correction. If using color correction, the lab will make corrections to the images, so it would be difficult to get an image to match exactly what you see on your screen. If you want to make sure prints match what you see on your screen *exactly*, it might be best to calibrate your monitor to the lab's printing. We have more info about that here:

Here's another helpful page about preventing dark prints.