Printing dark, new user

texsonsc · August 9, 2012

OK, I have placed my first order to see how prints look and received them today, with some questions and a lesson learned. I placed my order through my default printer, WHCC. I also have opted to have "Color Correction" done by the printer. I do NOT have a professionally calibrated monitor on my laptop, this may be part or all of the reason. They look great on my laptop and the 3-4 other monitors I've viewed them on.

My gallery is here if anyone wants to look and provide feedback. I know it needs a LOT of work, but I think I have the basics.

I ordered the following from my SmugMug site and the first two came back printed much darker than what I expected.

1. I printed this one as an 8x10 Standout (Lustre) and it came back dark in the shadows and darker areas. I see not detail in the foreground marsh grass and can only see the lightest highlights of the boats. This is also the one that I learned a lesson on, specifically, I chose not to crop because I didn't want to shrink the subject matter down. The downside to this is that I now have a large white band on both bottom and top...I could deal with that on a regular print, but since this is mounted on a 3/4" foam backing, it's not easy to trim or frame.

2. I printed this one as a 5x10 Print (Lustre) on paper, no backing. It too came out very dark, can't see nearly the details as I can on the monitor, or any other monitor I've viewed on...again, all of the monitors that I view are NOT professionally calibrated, but can they all be this far off?

3. The last print I had made I am very pleased with. I did this one as a 9x12 2mm Styrene Metal Print and it is absolutely beautiful! It also came out darker than my monitor view, but is acceptable, possibly due to the fact it was lighter to begin with or maybe because of the medium it was printed on.

Anyone that has a calibrated monitor, how do my pictures look on your monitor? Is this the most likely culprit?

Steve Cavigliano · August 9, 2012

Hi,
Sorry to hear you were unhappy with your print results. Dark prints are the number one reason for print problems : http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93358 The problem is normally less one of monitor calibration. Or, how photos "look" on a monitor. And more of a backlighting (monitor view) versus reflective lighting (print view) issue.

As photos will display 1.5-2 stops brighter, on today's highly backlit monitors. Than they will print. And they will also print with much less dynamic range (highlight and shadow detail): http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93365 This is due to being backlit versus being viewed under reflective lighting. This isn't your fault, our fault or the lab's fault. It's just the nature of the beast. And the difference between viewing with backlighting or under reflective lighting. We recommend relying on the histogram, rather than how the photo looks on your monitor: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93365

As you commented. The shadows in these examples are just too dark to print with much detail. Tonal values of 30-40, will pretty much print black (little or no detail). We are in Read Only right now. So I can't check your last order. Or, edit one of your photos, as an example. Tell you what? Please contact us at the help desk Include the order number. Let us know which line items you are unhappy with? And if there were any issues other than the prints being "too dark". We will have a Print Specialist edit those photos and place a new, no cost, order for them. They will also give you more information, in their reply. Regarding what they did to the photos. From what I can see. A bit of fill for the shadows, is all that's needed. I usually bring the photo into Camera RAW and use the fill adjustment there. Or, I use a curves layer to bring up the shadows only.

Our Finishing School forum is also a great resource. Lots of knowledgeable folks eager to help :-)

Again, this is almost certainly not a monitor issue.

We are standing by

Cavig :cavig

Steve Cavigliano · August 9, 2012

Hi,
We are back up and running. So I was able to do a quick edit of one of the photos. http://smu.gs/OOI0RH The trees in the background will still lack much detail, when printed Brightening them, any more. Causes them to flatten and causes a loss of the blackness (blackpoint) in the photo. However, the detail in the grasses and boats, in the mid and foreground. Will be more visible. Depending on how visible you wish this area to be. You can selectively brighten it further.

Again, contact us with the order number and the problem line item numbers. Or, if you wish. Now that you are armed with this information. You can edit the "too dark prints" yourself. Then place a new order. Contact us with that order number and we will void all charges. We'd be happy to review your edits, prior to ordering. If you wish :-)

Cavig :cavig

AperturePlus · August 10, 2012

I had a look on a new flat panel that was calibrated with a Spyder. Your last shot (the one of the baseball pitch) certainly looks brighter than others that I looked at, which might confirm your thoughts on this one.

The image of the sunset with the boats in the background is crtainly moody, but if it printed exactly as I see it on this monitor, I would be very happy with it. The detail in the shadow areas is there, albeit a little dark, but again, this adds to the mood of the image.

I strongly recommend that you look at a calibration tool. The Spyder is not that expensive and well worth it.

What it gives you, is the assurance that any errors in printing have come from the print process as opposed to the processing of the image.

Hope this helps you.

AperturePlus · August 10, 2012

Having read through Steve's comments properly, I totally concur on the comment about the trees. The detail is not showing this side at all.

Bob_A · August 12, 2012

On my calibrated system I'm seeing exactly what you describe that you see with your prints.

All monitors come from the factory with the brightness cranked up much too high for image editing, although it's great for using Office applications and watching video. I had a Dell eIPS monitor and had to reduce brightness to 12-15%, which is pretty normal. I now use a NEC PA241W calibrated with their SpectraviewII software and puck and find 110 cd/m^2 works pretty well.

While it's important to have a decent monitor and calibrate it for color critical work, unfortunately most of the calibration tools aren't of much help for setting brightness. You now have the best data at your fingertips ... your prints. As a start, look at them closely and reduce your monitor brightness until the impression you get by viewing your monitor matches what you see with your prints. A few other tips:

1. Are you using an IPS monitor or one with a TN panel? If it's not IPS you may find that the image "density" changes depending on viewing angle. I have a laptop that calibrates well but is too frustrating to edit with because changing my viewing angle by just a few degrees completely changes the image contrast and saturation. Laptops in general (Mac or PC) aren't great for photo editing (although at least one Lenovo model is decent).

2. Edit your images in a room where the ambient lighting is fairly consistent. I also like my workspace to have subdued light (25-30 Lux), but not completely dark.

3. I don't use any auto-corrections when I submit my images to EZPrints. If for no other reason this gives me proper feedback as to if I have my system set up properly.

4. I've used a Spyder3Pro for my Dell monitors and the device/software works really well. When you get one I recommend a) Calibrating in a fairly dark room b) Make certain your monitor has been running for over 1/2 hour before calibrating c) Run the calibration several times in a row d) Set you brightness to close to where you feel it should be before you run the calibration(s). Also, after using the same monitor for a couple of years you'll find you need to sneak the brightness up a bit (the back-light wears out with time).

5. If you only ever edit in sRGB colorspace and want a fairly easy workflow then don't ever purchase a wide gamut monitor. My current monitor is wide gamut, and while it's a beautiful panel it came some headaches that you just won't encounter when using a standard gamut monitor. I edit using aRGB and may venture into using ProPhoto RGB, so it was a good choice for me.

6. If you use Photoshop for editing your images and you graduate

to the point where you have a nicely calibrated system and want to go that one step further, learn how to soft-proof. However, for the images you posted you can get 95% of the way to matching monitor to print without soft-proofing. Don't worry about this one too much right now as a lot of folks (I bet most) don't bother with the "proof colors" feature in Photoshop or even understand how to properly set it up and use it.

For some help setting you monitor brightness take a look at the following webpages:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/monitor-calibration.htm
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/viewing.html#quick_monitor_check

However, the best guide is your prints. If they're dark then your monitor is set too bright.

texsonsc · August 12, 2012

Steve, thank you for the links and the comments, they have been tremendously helpful. I am going to try to tweak my samples and resubmit to see how they turn out.

AperturePlus, thank you for the suggestion for the Spyder...I've looked at calibration devices and figured I would have to go down that path one day. I may have to do it sooner than I thought!

Bob, thank you also for taking a look and providing feedback.

You all have been most helpful.

Printing dark, new user

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