I have previously written about printing issues with LR – and its no surprise that it sucks. For one, there is no soft proofing and in an effort to make it easier for dummies to print, Adobe has minimized the user interactions/controls to access and tweak the advanced configurations for printing.
Nevertheless, there has been several instances while printing works for several people. I have found that as i learn more, its less of a tool that satisfies me – the one thing that it simply doesn’t satisfy me any more is “Printing”.
On an average, of the 10 prints i do, 1 comes out excellent, about 2 comes out OK, and i just throw out the rest (7 that is). Now that’s disappointing! plus the fact that papers and ink are very expensive!
Now that i have wasted enough money – i think i have a few valuable lessons from it. Over time, my averages has improved and maybe my experience that will help others. Here are a few things that may help you reduce those “dark” prints.
I have a calibrated monitor (very important!), with a gamma of 2.2 and a white point of 6500k, use HP branded Smooth Fine Art papers (the other best 3rd party papers i found is Somerset Velvet/Textured, although the printer prints its best on the HP Advanced Glossy paper). Read this article for an in depth explanation on what the above things mean and why its important – I had been (and still have) complaining about “dark” prints when my digital darkroom lighting has pretty much been 2 incandescent lights (~3000k) – No wonder!
Another way to get by with this issue is to make your “dark” print, then change your monitor gamma/white point until your image on the screen matches that of your “dark” print. While this is not the best way to go about (you cannot share these – they will look too light on other calibrated monitors/Safari browsers etc) they will at least give you good prints.
You may eventually get tired of this – and may invest in “real” software such as “Photoshop CS3″ and get good prints – But, lets not go there yet….i think there may still be hope. If you use a Mac – the Preview Application has a built in feature to soft proof. On windows, you may try using QImage for printing. I have had very little luck with PrintFab, an equivalent on the Mac.
There may be various other reasons why prints may be darker than on screen:
- Could be related to the gamut of the paper
- Do the black/white points of your printer match your image?
Finally, i have to tell you – the satisfaction of holding a “Print” that matches the image on screen is really worth it.
References:
- http://www.creativepro.com/printerfriendly/story/12054.html
- http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/match_prints_to_screen.html
Sridhar,
See my old post regarding soft proofing (http://www.8thcross.com/blog/?p=157 and http://www.8thcross.com/blog/?p=159). They may help.
About kodak labs, I am not sure what printers they use; it depends on the lab. Ask them the specific model number of the printer and what profile they expect the images to be in and you might be able to soft proof for that specific color space. I am guessing that its most likely sRGB.
If so, just soft proof to sRGB and you should be all set. Since you are on Windows, use the drycreek’s free software (http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/profile_converter/) for soft proofing – this should give you an idea on how it might look when printed in the Kodak Lab before physically printing it (You can then tweak your image to make it print right).
About profiling your monitor – read http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration.htm
Great info for printing, what about Printing picture in Kodak Color Lab?
Last week I gave picture for printing out side the lab, and print was horrible (colors, contrast…etc) no where what I see on my monitor. In this case how to calibrate our monitors? What are the steps involved in this process?
Hey Umesh.. it is exporting to ProPhoto RGB, JPEG, Quality 100.. maybe when you come over sometime, you can take a look at the settings and see what the issue could be.. The converted jpeg also looks like LR but after I use the Flickr upload tool, I see that all saturation and other depth is flat in Flickr..
Balajee,
If your images in LR are not matching flickr, i suggest you look at the export dialog – is it exporting to sRGB color space? Worst case, you might be having a similar lighting problem with your monitor.
Good information. I seem to have problems with images I post in Flickr. I feel the saturation and brightness is way off from what I see in Lightroom. Have you ever run into that? What do I need to do to get the Flickr or other soft versions looking like it does in LightRoom?