[Mr.PD]

I recently had a photo printed by Sony Imagestation. They have always done pretty good work in the past. I do always notice some minor variations in color depth, or brightness between prints and what I see on my monitor. But this time I lost a lot of subtle bright details. The sad part is that I had a 16X20 print made. I don't know if I like the print better than the monitor image or not. In some ways it's better, in some ways it's not. For what it's worth the colors match up well. This photo is almost a black and white with lots of bright light rays on a pitch black background.

Is it common for a print to be darker than what you see on a monitor?

 

[mbriant]

Could be darker, could be lighter. For the two to match consistently, the monitor and printer must be calibrated with each other. Obviously an online photo printer's printer won't be calibrated with anyone's monitors but their own, so I imagine, like regular film printers, they use their own (or their software's) judgement to determine colour correction, brightness/contrast etc. This time they decided on something different than you were expecting.

 

[blip]

Mbriant's got it.... Calibration is the key! Monitors are very unstable devices and (depending on the monitor) can vary tremendously in their color/brightness over the space of a few months. Furthermore, they aren't even calibrated to a set standard after manufacturing. Thus what you print may have little to do with what you see on the monitor (or what is in the actual file).

Printing is similarly complex because it is, generally, an inexact science. Not all printers replicate a certain RGB value in the exact same way that another printer would. Another problem is that, in some cases, a monitor can replicate more contrast than your printer can.

Since you are using a service, there is an added layer of potential "correction" that they do in house... Though with digital they generally do much less of this than is done with film.

What to do? First things first, calibrate your monitor. There are non-hardware tools that can do this (Photoshop comes with one) but they are rather error prone. (Or at least they are when I use them!) Hardware color calibration is much more accurate and fairly cheap these days ($89 for the cheapest Spyder). So long as your monitor is up to the task (accurate production requires a certain level of brightness etc. but most monitors can handle it easily) you're all set on the digital end.

Printing is a bit more complex because you are using a service. Ideally you want your printer to be calibrated to your monitor... either by eye using color swatches or using a hardware system... But this is impossible if you are using a service.

Luckily, many services have at least rudimentary calibration information for you... Dig around their website for information on this.

Realistically, however, your monitor is far more likely to be far out of proper calibration than their printers are... so start there and it may solve your problem!

 

[Mr.PD]

Oh boy!
I did use photoshop's calibration on my old monitor. I haven't done so with this newer flat panel monitor yet. I suppose I should break down and purchase one of those spyder tools.
Just for reference Sony printed that 16X20 on Fuji archival paper. I was impressed.

I think I will try another company and have another print made to see if there is any difference. I have a free 5X7 coming from Idaho Camera, I'll see what their work looks like.

 

[Illah]

Even free calibration from a multitude of websites online can help. Basically do this:

1. Set the color temp to 6500K (daylight). Most monitors default to 9000K+ which is very blue light, and often percieved as 'brighter'.

2. Max out the contrast. That's right, all the way up.

3. Set the brightness really high, then set your background wallpaper to jet black (create a 100% black file in Photoshop). Now shrink the scan area so that it's smaller than the screen. Keep going until you can see unscanned areas of the monitor. Now, set the brightness low enough so that the black wallpaper matches the unscanned area.

4. If it's too bright for you back the contrast down a bit.

That alone will take care of 95% of calibration issues.

The downside? Since 98% of the world never calibrates their monitor they're running overly bright, 9000K+ screens. So I'll touch a photo to perfection and put it online, and other peoples' brightness and color temp is so high it's as if I overexposed a stop or two!

--Illah

 

[Stephonovich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illah The downside? Since 98% of the world never calibrates their monitor they're running overly bright, 9000K+ screens. So I'll touch a photo to perfection and put it online, and other peoples' brightness and color temp is so high it's as if I overexposed a stop or two!

Indeed. Creating perfection always ends in failure for this very reason. Same with web design. Since IE refuses to meet W3C standards on many things, you can't get as creative as is possible with spec because IE will barf. I meet middle ground by just taking pride in the fact that all my stuff is 100% XHTML compliant

 

[Mr.PD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illah Even free calibration from a multitude of websites online can help. Basically do this: 1. Set the color temp to 6500K (daylight). Most monitors default to 9000K+ which is very blue light, and often percieved as 'brighter'. 2. Max out the contrast. That's right, all the way up. 3. Set the brightness really high, then set your background wallpaper to jet black (create a 100% black file in Photoshop). Now shrink the scan area so that it's smaller than the screen. Keep going until you can see unscanned areas of the monitor. Now, set the brightness low enough so that the black wallpaper matches the unscanned area. 4. If it's too bright for you back the contrast down a bit. That alone will take care of 95% of calibration issues. The downside? Since 98% of the world never calibrates their monitor they're running overly bright, 9000K+ screens. So I'll touch a photo to perfection and put it online, and other peoples' brightness and color temp is so high it's as if I overexposed a stop or two! --Illah

Thank you.

I know what you mean about 98%. I was showing someone a photo of mine on a computer in a motel. My picture was all dark and red on that monitor. I almost didn't recognize it.