Prints coming out too dark: need calibration workflow?

Picturequest wrote:

It was calibrated.

Incorrectly it appears. Read this: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/why_are_my_prints_too_dark.shtml

Max-

When calibrating your monitor, what are your Luminance/Brightness, Gamma, and Color settings?

Did you read Andrew's link?

The calibration and profiling is automatic - once you have defined your calibration targets. If you don't do that it'll just go by some arbitrary defaults which are probably not right (in fact they're by definition not right since you don't get a match).

You set your targets so that your output (in this case a print) matches what you see on screen. You need to set a white point luminance and a white point temperature that matches paper white. Also a black point/contrast ratio if that's available in the calibration software.

The DTP94 is getting old and will not perform well on LED and wide gamut displays. If you don't have either it's still a very good sensor.

why not just turn down the brightness on your display?

My colors are accurate.

IF that were true, you'd have produced a match to the prints. Along with proper print viewing conditions of course. You seem to want some software or plug-in to fix an issue you can fix yourself using the right calibration process.

Max-

Your best bet is to use a calibrating device where you can control the settings.  As Rodney's article addressed, many new monitors may have a difficult time going low (dim) enough.  This is the place to start.

Your other option is to do some trial and error and figure out a 'print' setting that you use every time you print.  In the end the trial and error aspect may cost you more than upgrading your calibration device.

-joe

If you don't have a calibrator that allows you to target a certain brightness, or your display simply doesn't go below a certain brightness, make sure you have enough ambient light around and that the ambient light is good quality (no yellow incadescents!) with high color temperature. One strategy is to use a piece of blank paper and hold it to the side of your monitor or tape it to the wall behind. Then dial up your ambient lighting until the piece of paper is as bright as white on the display. This is no match for a well calibrated setup, especially since this will make your shadow areas less well defined because of reflection and scattering of your screen, but it will make sure you don't develop your images too dark. As your mind will have a reference that isn't - "wow that's bright, let's tone it down." This will ensure not just that your prints are the right brightness but also that your electronic output is not too dark. Using the print setting trick is a really bad idea in general as your non-print output will still be way too dark.

Many times, with the current slate of very bright monitors, it is a bad idea to try to lower the intensity so much as to get to the recommended 100 cd/m2 or so as its spectral characteristics will shift considerably.

Also, the light conditions you view your prints in is very important. Again, dim, yellow incandescents or CFLs will make your prints look dull and dark. Use good lighting to judge your prints.

Jao vdL wrote:

 

Many times, with the current slate of very bright monitors, it is a bad idea to try to lower the intensity so much as to get to the recommended 100 cd/m2 or so as its spectral characteristics will shift considerably.

Yes, but it might still be the best option overall. The profile will still be written based on that behavior, so in theory it should be at least partly compensated there.

But this is another reason a decent monitor is a good investment. The better Eizos and NECs will hit 90 cd/m² without any problems. But a Dell U2410 I once had in the house just managed 120 with the brightness setting at dead zero.