Color calibration

Hi, recently I had an experience I'm sure many have had. The print came out much darker than what appeared on my monitor. I tinkered with it and print settings to no luck. I even sent the files to a lab, and they came back darker than the monitor image. I need to do something!.

Do you recommend one of the color calibrator that can be purchased? Which one? Will that ensure accuracy? Or, are there other steps which I'm painfully not aware of? Other than downloading profiles to my printer (Epson R1900), does it need anything?

This is really the first time I've not been able to make a few adjustments either with the photo, or the printer and get the results I've been happy with. It was a flower shot with a dark background.

Thanks for any advice.

You don't need a new calibration device to correct this. Just turn down your monitor brightness. It's pretty common to need to reduce brightness quite a bit. For example, I have a Dell eIPS monitor where I need to reduce brightness from the out of the box 60% to about 15% for photo editing.

Use a greyscale like this one: http://www.beautifulbr​itain.co.uk …rs/monitorsetup​_black.htm (don't follow their instructions) and reduce your monitor brightness until you can barely see the difference in x, Y and z. Then edit some test images and send them off to be printed. Based on those, tweak your monitor setting a bit +/-. Also, when you edit, room lighting makes a difference. I don't edit in the dark, but my room lighting is turned down a bit and the room gets no sunlight.

When you evaluate your prints don't do it next to your monitor with the image up on the screen. The print will always look darker that way. Instead, evaluate your print in a nicely lit room.

I was able to pick up a used Spyder 3 Elite off of CraigsList a while back. Really easy to use, and now both of my monitors are the same. I was really surprised to see how overly bright my monitors had bee set. When I get prints back they are much closer to what I expect, and I also got the labs printer profile to add to Lightroom.

When I went to the site that Bob_A provided, I am able to see all the graded differences in both of the sample strips.

I bought a Spyder 4 Pro a while back and am glad I did.

Also, as has already been mentioned, monitors tend to be way way too bright for editing photos. Mine was at over 70% brightness out of the box (which is where I left it until I learned otherwise) and to get a decent match with what gets printed I need it to be at around 18% brightness.

HOWEVER, turning the brightness down is just the first step. Without a color calibrator you won't have a clue if your monitor is displaying colors correctly, and without the monitor being correct there's no guarantee your prints won't have a strange color cast.

Remember also that once you have your system colour profiled and at the correct brightness, and using the correct colour profiles for both soft proofing and export (they may not be the same for many labs) you will need to ensure that the lab you use doesn't make any auto adjustments to the image, or all your hard work will be undone.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #17476409
Remember also that once you have your system colour profiled and at the correct brightness, and using the correct colour profiles for both soft proofing and export (they may not be the same for many labs) you will need to ensure that the lab you use doesn't make any auto adjustments to the image, or all your hard work will be undone.

Alan

With the lab where I send my stuff, I can just add a note to the order that they print the files without adjustments. Before I got my monitors calibrated the fixes the lab applied actually improved upon what I had sent in, but for the most part they don't make any changes now.

Spats139 wrote in post #17476005
I was able to pick up a used Spyder 3 Elite off of CraigsList a while back. Really easy to use, and now both of my monitors are the same. I was really surprised to see how overly bright my monitors had bee set. When I get prints back they are much closer to what I expect, and I also got the labs printer profile to add to Lightroom.

When I went to the site that Bob_A provided, I am able to see all the graded differences in both of the sample strips.

My Spyder3Pro doesn't adjust brightness. I have to do it manually.

Also, it should be really hard to see a difference between the last two wedges. Barely noticeable with some squinting

Same here Bob, I have to set the brightness manually as well. What I like about the Spyder is that it tells us what brightness level to set, and then it's a simple matter of adjust, take another reading, and adjust again if necessary; I find I usually get it dialed in exactly within a few tries. I also like how the software sets a reminder to recalibrate at time we choose.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk …ment/prints_too​_dark.html

or

http://luminous-landscape.com/why-are-my-prints-too-dark/

kirk

Thanks for helping out. So far I've adjusted the brightness on my monitor down from 55 to 17 (don't know if all monitors use the same scale or not), and it's helped a great deal. I'm going to use this and see if it's all I need to do. I took some pictures today and I was happy with the prints I made.

Hope this takes care of it, but it seems so simple. Anyway, thanks for all the help.

TSmith8779 wrote in post #17478144
Thanks for helping out. So far I've adjusted the brightness on my monitor down from 55 to 17 (don't know if all monitors use the same scale or not), and it's helped a great deal. I'm going to use this and see if it's all I need to do. I took some pictures today and I was happy with the prints I made.

Hope this takes care of it, but it seems so simple. Anyway, thanks for all the help.

Sounds about right. It's still worth getting a calibration device though, but if you're generally ok with the color reproduction of your prints and your only significant issue is with them being too dark then this will work well for you for now.

Just remember when you get prints made to instruct to have all auto-adjustments turned off (color, contrast, exposure).

I probably will get a calibration device somewhere in the near future. I did take two of the new files to get metal prints made. They looked great on their iMac too (mine's a pc). Will let you know if they didn't come out right. Again thanks for the help.

Also keep an eye on the histogram, and trust it far more than the brightness of your monitor.

Another Spyder user here, probably one of the best investments I've made for print quality.

If you're not ready to buy one, you could rent one for a week from BorrowLenses.