Printing far darker than screen...?

[Hari Seldon]

Ok,

I work with Adobe Lightroom 2.2 and have a HP Photosmart D7160.

I am far from happy the way the photo's leave the printer, they are wáy
darker than at my screen.

Any ideas on how to check this infuriating problem?

 

[Robert Peirce]

Ok,

I work with Adobe Lightroom 2.2 and have a HP Photosmart D7160.

I am far from happy the way the photo's leave the printer, they are wáy
darker than at my screen.

Any ideas on how to check this infuriating problem?

This keeps coming up on the HP B9180 mailing list. The consensus seems
to be that your screen is too bright. I had the same problem. Backing
my MBP off from a brightness setting of 14 to 9 solved it.

Some say you need to adjust your screen brightness by measuring it. I
don't have that capability. I just did test prints until my printer
output matched what I saw on the screen.

This is pretty much the same as when we used to do test strips in the
darkroom to decide on the right exposure for a piece of paper. It
adjusts everything to your equipment. That can possibly be a problem if
your output might be sent to printers over which you have no control.
Mine isn't.

 

[Hari Seldon]

This keeps coming up on the HP B9180 mailing list. The consensus seems
to be that your screen is too bright. I had the same problem. Backing
my MBP off from a brightness setting of 14 to 9 solved it.

Some say you need to adjust your screen brightness by measuring it. I
don't have that capability. I just did test prints until my printer
output matched what I saw on the screen.

This is pretty much the same as when we used to do test strips in the
darkroom to decide on the right exposure for a piece of paper. It
adjusts everything to your equipment. That can possibly be a problem if
your output might be sent to printers over which you have no control.
Mine isn't.

THanks mare,

So I can't tune up the printer - I have to darken the screen... sounds a bit
absurd: that way I would have trouble reading these pages...

I think I'll throw this crappy printer out of the window and try an Epson
;-)

 

[Dave]

THanks mare,

So I can't tune up the printer - I have to darken the screen... sounds a bit
absurd: that way I would have trouble reading these pages...

I think I'll throw this crappy printer out of the window and try an Epson
;-)

Well then you'll just have dark Epson prints.

With the advent of LCD monitors this "problem" (more like a situation)
has come up frequently. Calibration advice from the makers of the
devices has suggested that LCD be set 20-30 points higher than CRTs. My
experience is that it's way too bright a setting. Once you have your
monitor set to a correct (one that matches your printer output) your
brightness issues will be solved. This from many wasted dark prints
until I finally bought into the correct theory.

Hope this helps,

Dave

 

[Hari Seldon]

Well then you'll just have dark Epson prints.

With the advent of LCD monitors this "problem" (more like a situation) has
come up frequently. Calibration advice from the makers of the devices has
suggested that LCD be set 20-30 points higher than CRTs. My experience is
that it's way too bright a setting. Once you have your monitor set to a
correct (one that matches your printer output) your brightness issues will
be solved. This from many wasted dark prints until I finally bought into
the correct theory.

Hope this helps,

Dave

Sounds convincing...

First I have tried to uninstall all my HP drivers (there was a bunch of
tilted Photosmart printers & camera's in there...)

I will now reinstall and try one more (probably dark) print... after that,
the LCD gets the boot ;-)

I'll let you know!

 

[Hari Seldon]

One other thing to check - make sure you are printing with RGB output
rather than CMYK. Even though the printer inks are CMYK the driver is
expecting RGB data and if CMYK is selected in your application the output
will be garishly oversaturated.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

Thanks for all the replies.

I did set my brightness and contrast to zero (0), to no avail. Screen was
still brighter than the picture. I found more color options on the printer,
will fiddle with that one now...

 

[OG]

Ok,

I work with Adobe Lightroom 2.2 and have a HP Photosmart D7160.

I am far from happy the way the photo's leave the printer, they are wáy
darker than at my screen.

Any ideas on how to check this infuriating problem?

Can you adjust the display brightness on Lightroom (rather than the monitor
itself) so that it matches the printer. Paint Shop Pro 7 allows you to do
this, and it means that what's shown in PSP matches the printer output
without having to change the monitor brightness for everything else.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Robert is correct. Some time ago I did what he did and prints are great.
Warren

I beleive you guys.

Printed another 6 pictures that could have been taken without a flash at 100
ISO in a très drôle dark room...

I plugged a crt to the 2nd videoport of the graphic card and will tune that
one conform the printers output.

 

[Hari Seldon]

This keeps coming up on the HP B9180 mailing list. The consensus seems
to be that your screen is too bright. I had the same problem. Backing
my MBP off from a brightness setting of 14 to 9 solved it.

Some say you need to adjust your screen brightness by measuring it. I
don't have that capability. I just did test prints until my printer
output matched what I saw on the screen.

This is pretty much the same as when we used to do test strips in the
darkroom to decide on the right exposure for a piece of paper. It
adjusts everything to your equipment. That can possibly be a problem if
your output might be sent to printers over which you have no control.
Mine isn't.

Alas,

I tried two monitors: a LCD and CRT, both must be set uncomfortably dark to
roughly resemble the output photos of the Photosmart: reading mails and
documents doesn't really work at that standard.

I'm beginning to think that my printer has some probs... L

 

[Arthur Entlich]

The difficulty you are encountering revolves around the process known as
"color management", the science of which is both involved and difficult
to tackle. Literally dozens of large books and courses exist solely
to learn how to properly incorporate these settings. So, first off,
know that you are not alone in your frustration with this problem, nor
trying to find a reasonable solution

In a perfect world, all devices and software using color would use the
same standard, an agreed upon color space, be built in a tight spec and
work nicely with each other.

Unfortunately, that isn't the case and although things have somewhat
improved in the industry, there is still substantial variability in both
models and individual products. It is amazing how well things do
compare once you know how much can go wrong.

Even the standards aren't standards. The gamma level (a contrast and
brightness standard) for PC monitors differs from that recommended for
Macs, and this is why you may sometimes notice websites that seem too
dark or two light, because they were designed on a PC or a Mac.

And that's the tip of the iceberg. Every Monitor, scanner, printer,
digital camera, graphic card and OS uses slightly different methods are
managing color, and worse still, there is variation right out of the
factory and also almost all color peripherals "drift" with age, amount
of use, warm up time, etc.

So, what's a person to do? It depends somewhat of if you only require
managed color within your own location (so-called closed loop) or if you
need to be consistent with outside sources, like a commercial printer,
or your photo lab. It also depends on how close you need things.

If you access your videocard management (on a Windows PC it is usually
accessed through the device manager) and look at the advanced menus they
will often allow for some setting changes to provide a starting point.

Then the simplest (and least costly) way of dealing with this is using a
tool like Adobe Gamma. It is a small program that comes with Photoshop
and probably Lightroom, which allows you to make adjustments to your
monitor using a "wizard" and instructions, which sets up your monitor to
a close to correct brightness, contrast and color setting. Be sure to
read the introductory information regarding how to place the setting for
the monitor before running Adobe Gamma. At different points in this
program, you will be asked to either have your room lights on as
normally used, or have them off completely. This is because things like
color balance, and brightness are effected by ambient lighting (the
amount and color of it).

If you set Abobe Gamma up correctly, it at east gets your monitor into
the ballpark. Adobe Gamma actually runs a little application as the
computer is booting up to "correct" the monitor to a more standard
contrast and brightness.

If that doesn't help enough, you may need to buy a monitor calibration
tool. These are hardware and software kits ranging between about
$80-$300 US. They literally read the monitor through a photo
spectrometer that is placed over the top of a section of the screen, and
then a profile and program are made to standardize the monitor's gamma
and color performance. Some of these kits (the more costly ones) will
also allow you to test and correct scanners, printers, and other color
peripherals. Some will even standardize your color output so it will
match industry standards which should allow you to provide a file to a
commercial printing company and they will print what you see on your
screen. Some can even make paper profiles so that your printer will
reproduce accurate colors on a variety of paper types.

The way these work is by creating something called an LUT, or Color
Lookup Table. This program takes a color that is showing on your
monitor, and translating that to a set of printer ink colors which when
mixed in certain proportions will reproduce that color on your screen.

On Windows PCs, color management is a bit of a mess because they never
incorporated it into the OS (Mac's have a basic one internal to the OS
even before the Mac had a color screen). As a result, every piece of
hardware or software dealing with color input or output has built into
it some form of color management, and if you turn the wrong ones on,
they will fight one another by "double color management". Your best bet
is to read any tutorials on color management on line or via Abode's
website or manuals.

How deep you want to get into this is basically determined by how deep
your pockets are, and how much time you devote to it.

Art






If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

 

[Jerry1111]

Well then you'll just have dark Epson prints.

I disagree. My HP printer was producing much darker prints (without
tweaking) that Canon. Don't ask why - I've no idea...

With the advent of LCD monitors this "problem" (more like a situation)
has come up frequently. Calibration advice from the makers of the
devices has suggested that LCD be set 20-30 points higher than CRTs. My
experience is that it's way too bright a setting. Once you have your
monitor set to a correct (one that matches your printer output) your
brightness issues will be solved. This from many wasted dark prints
until I finally bought into the correct theory.

Will try...

 

[Robert Peirce]

I tried two monitors: a LCD and CRT, both must be set uncomfortably dark to
roughly resemble the output photos of the Photosmart: reading mails and
documents doesn't really work at that standard.

I agree. I normally set my screen brighter for other uses. I just
remember to turn it down when I am processing photographs.

However, your goal is not to have your screen image go dark but to have
your brightness set so that an image that appears properly bright on the
screen will print that way.

 

[Robert Peirce]

I disagree. My HP printer was producing much darker prints (without
tweaking) that Canon. Don't ask why - I've no idea...

I have an HP B9180, a Canon i9100 and an Epson R200. The HP does seem
to print slightly darker than the others. However, I only use the HP
for photos, so I can't actually be certain of that as I haven't tested
it. If it is darker, it could be because the HP uses pigmented inks and
the others use die, or it could be something else entirely.

It is also possible that there is a difference between the output from
RAW files (which I pretty much use exclusively now) and the output from
JPGs. There shouldn't be, but I haven't tested that either.

At one point, before I learned to turn down my display brightness, I
changed the HP printer driver to add brightness, which you can do.
However, that seems to be counter to the goals of "color management."
Since I don't ship stuff out for external processing, as long as I
remember to turn down the brightness on my screen when working with
images I am okay.

I really should put some things on a CD (RAW and JPG) and send them out
for printing just to see what happens. It would be an interesting
experiment. I would hope they came back the same as the HP prints, but
who knows?

 

[Jerry1111]

I have an HP B9180, a Canon i9100 and an Epson R200. The HP does seem
to print slightly darker than the others. However, I only use the HP
for photos, so I can't actually be certain of that as I haven't tested
it. If it is darker, it could be because the HP uses pigmented inks and
the others use die, or it could be something else entirely.

Mine are all dye inks.

It is also possible that there is a difference between the output from
RAW files (which I pretty much use exclusively now) and the output from
JPGs. There shouldn't be, but I haven't tested that either.

I've used same image, printed from same software, with same settings.
It's just darker with HP - can't see color shift, can't see mismatched
colors, it's just darker...

At one point, before I learned to turn down my display brightness, I
changed the HP printer driver to add brightness, which you can do.
However, that seems to be counter to the goals of "color management."
Since I don't ship stuff out for external processing, as long as I
remember to turn down the brightness on my screen when working with
images I am okay.

I really should put some things on a CD (RAW and JPG) and send them out
for printing just to see what happens. It would be an interesting
experiment. I would hope they came back the same as the HP prints, but
who knows?

Welcome to the club ;-)
I'm just not able to push myself to do that bit for comparison ;-)

 

[measekite]

I have an HP B9180, a Canon i9100 and an Epson R200. The HP does seem
to print slightly darker than the others. However, I only use the HP
for photos, so I can't actually be certain of that as I haven't tested
it. If it is darker, it could be because the HP uses pigmented inks and
the others use die, or it could be something else entirely.

It is also possible that there is a difference between the output from
RAW files (which I pretty much use exclusively now) and the output from
JPGs. There shouldn't be, but I haven't tested that either.

At one point, before I learned to turn down my display brightness, I
changed the HP printer driver to add brightness, which you can do.
However, that seems to be counter to the goals of "color management."
Since I don't ship stuff out for external processing, as long as I
remember to turn down the brightness on my screen when working with
images I am okay.

I really should put some things on a CD (RAW and JPG) and send them out
for printing just to see what happens. It would be an interesting
experiment. I would hope they came back the same as the HP prints, but
who knows?

I would think that turning down the brightness on the monitor to match the
printer for photos is not that desirable because you may want a different
adjustment for other uses of your display.

It would be better if all of the photo editors had a pseudo monitor
brightness adjustment that would be effective for the duration of the
photo editing and printing session without changing the hardware settings.

Another method is to have (not known to exist) a dual settings monitor and
then a separate button for switching between each of the settings quickly.

 

[tmonego]

Ok,

I work with Adobe Lightroom 2.2 and have a HP Photosmart D7160.

I am far from happy the way the photo's leave the printer, they are wáy
darker than at my screen.

Any ideas on how to check this infuriating problem?

The monitor calibration is a start, another problem maybe "dual
profiling". What this is, Lightroom and the HP driver are both trying
to calibrate the image and are conflicting with each other, only one
should do the printing. HP seems to have decent software calibration,
at least on my B9180. So I would turn off color management in
Lightroom and let the HP driver do the work. You need to choose:
1) You are using a paper compatible with the printer
2) Correct paper match ( should be no problem if you are using HP
paper)
3) Correct paper profile (should have a profile list in the driver)
Even some HP papers are not compatible with every HP printer so there
are choices.
All other printers I use Photoshop (or Lightroom) to do color, and
turn off the printer driver calibration.
Whether it is counter intuitive or not, monitor calibration does play
a role here too. Adobe Gamma can be used, but you have to stick to the
instructions to the letter. Hardware calibration is the best but costs
$. A down and dirt way of getting your brightness down but is not a
true calibration is to get a large white patch onto your screen and
then hold up the paper you are using and lower your brightness until
it comes close to your paper brightness. The room should be at working
brightness.

Tom

 

[Jerry]

Ok,

I work with Adobe Lightroom 2.2 and have a HP Photosmart D7160.

I am far from happy the way the photo's leave the printer, they are wáy
darker than at my screen.

Any ideas on how to check this infuriating problem?

Similar problem with my HP 5180, using HP paper. Was playing with the
printer driver this morning, discovered an Advanced button on the
Color Management tab, which let me crank up the brightness. Setting it
to near the maximum setting produced acceptable prints.

Jerry

 

[Charlie+]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:42:50 +0100, "Hari Seldon" <[email protected]>
wrote as underneath my scribble :

Look at Arthur E's post for good informed advice, I give my solution to
this problem:
1. Set your LCD screen and your desktop, printer, scanner etc. to the
default (auto) settings, this allows you to easily get back to these
standard settings in the case of any alteration.
2. Do all your photo printing and viewing through editing software that
allows you to alter the viewed gamma ratios in the preferences menu - (I
happen to use PaintShopPro 7) Im' sure your Adobe software will do similar.
You then alter these gamma settings progressively in your chosen software
and do small prints (use plain paper) till you get the viewed image to get
as close as you can to the printed image .- take you a hour to do once to
a high standard of match - job done. Try to leave all the hardware
settings in their bog standard positions.
3. The idea is to cut down all the variable settings of printer, scanner
screen and software to the only thing that really counts - the viewed
screen image matching the printed image as closely as you can - another tip
is to keep your LCD screen in unvarying lighting conditions as this alters
the perceived screen image. Trying to alter the miriad of hardware
settings endlessly is the route to madness and you junking hardware in the
vague hope something else will be better!! As you have found...
Charlie+

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Very dark prints often indicates double color management.

Often it is turned on in both the printer software and in something like
Photoshop. This sort of doubles the effect of any change. See if you
can shut down the printers color management completely, or that of
Photoshop or whatever the program you are printer out of.

Usually, although not always, Photoshop does a good job of managing color.

Art




If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

 

[Joel]

The monitor calibration is a start, another problem maybe "dual
profiling". What this is, Lightroom and the HP driver are both trying
to calibrate the image and are conflicting with each other, only one
should do the printing. HP seems to have decent software calibration,
at least on my B9180. So I would turn off color management in
Lightroom and let the HP driver do the work. You need to choose:
1) You are using a paper compatible with the printer
2) Correct paper match ( should be no problem if you are using HP
paper)
3) Correct paper profile (should have a profile list in the driver)
Even some HP papers are not compatible with every HP printer so there
are choices.
All other printers I use Photoshop (or Lightroom) to do color, and
turn off the printer driver calibration.
Whether it is counter intuitive or not, monitor calibration does play
a role here too. Adobe Gamma can be used, but you have to stick to the
instructions to the letter. Hardware calibration is the best but costs
$. A down and dirt way of getting your brightness down but is not a
true calibration is to get a large white patch onto your screen and
then hold up the paper you are using and lower your brightness until
it comes close to your paper brightness. The room should be at working
brightness.

Tom

It's a little more than that, and I will try to give the general
information. Also, this is not directly to you but to PUBLIC

1. You may want to have the monitor calibrated. And make sure Windows will
use the calibrated file as the default (Windows should do it automatically
*unless* something screws up).

HARDWARE monitor calibrator should give you the best result, but you can
always try software calibrator

2. After calibrated, and Windows uses the calibrated profile then ALL aps
should use the same Monitor Pro-file (LightRoom, Photoshop, and all others).
Color Space is another story but it usually only make some difference
between WEB and regular displaying.

What I am trying to say that LightRoom, Photoshop etc. have nothing to do
with the problem (unless you have the bad pro-file).

3. Photoshop, in general *if* you have the monitor calibrated correctly then
it should be fine (no extra step needed). But if you need extra step for
some specific requirement like special printer or paper then you may need an
extra steps.

- Go to the manufacture to download the Printer Pro-File, and other
pro-file for specific PAPER.

- From Photoshop you will need to tell Photoshop to load and use that
special Printer Pro-File.

- From within Photoshop, if you want to check the difference between
displaying (monitor pro-file) vs printing (Printer Pro-File) then you use
Ctrl-Y (it may and may not be the correct keyboard command, but you can
always check with F1= HELP file)

Also, because Photoshop (and most others) can't display some color
channel correctly (like RED and shinning) so you may see MUDDY displaying
color.

That's about it! if the BLACK is darker than displaying, and you think the
monitor calibration is correct (I have the feeling something ain't right
with the monitor calibration) then pay closer attention to the combination
of INK & PAPER.

If I am not mistaken Photoshop has its own or several options to deal with
Color Manager for printing, but I never have problem to learn more about it.