Posted by John Farmer on September 23, 2009 at 1:38 PM
I need assistance with a printing issue. I'm printing on an HP Photosmart Series 7200 printer, using high quality HP papers and printing thru Windows, not CS. My prints are coming out significantly darker than on my (calibrated) laptop monitor. I understand this is a common issue and wonder if you have any suggestions on proper PP adjustment prior to printing. Some thoughts would be to adjust thru Levels or Curves (or Brightness, altho I doubt this would be a good option). Or are there others PP or Printer Setup adjustment(s) that others have used succesfully?
First, let CS (I assume you mean Photo Shp CS) manage the color. After you set up your page by choosing your printer, paper size and orientation , you then go to File>Print With Preview and select Let Photo Shop Manage Color. Also, be sure that a paper you are using is selected. The Windows, or standard HP print driver will print using sRGB instead of another color space, such as Adobe RGB. When you click 'Print' your printer driver will open. Turn off any color managment done by the printer, if that option is available.
Now, if you can't turn off color managment by the printer, you shouldn't allow Photo Shop to manage color, because there would be two conflicting profiles, and the results will not match what's on your screen. be sure to select the corect paper in the HP driver screen.
If your prints are too dark, the first thing to check is your monitor's brightness (luminance). Even if your monitor is calibrated, it may still be too bright. If you hold a piece of your usual printing paper next to your screen, they should match. Adjust brightness so that they do. It won't be a perfect match, but it will be close.
There is a wealth of info regarding color management and printing. A good source is Chromix.
-P
Posted by John Mumaw on September 23, 2009 at 9:47 PM
Turn down your monitor's brightness 'til it matches your prints.
Then re-edit your work accordingly. It's as simple as that.
Posted by Gene Lugo on September 24, 2009 at 9:16 AM
John, playing around with color spaces, profiles etc will drive you crazy unless you organize your approach. Unless you are using a Lenovo W700 or T61 or T60P, your first step is to not use your laptop display for photo editing. The preferred choice these days is an S-IPS monitor. They can be purchased from Dell or HP for less than $500 these days. After you calibrate, you will need to adjust the brightness to more or less match your paper. Identify and use generated profile in Photoshop. Next, you should calibrate your printer/paper/ink combination. If you try to save $$ by skipping this last step you will end up spending $$$$$ on ink and paper as you try to make things match.
With those two laptops as an exception, nearly all laptop displays are TN technology, which means that they are 6 bit, and only capable of displaying 2^6 x 2^6 x 2^6 = 64 x 64 x 64 = 262,144 colors. S-IPS and H-IPS displays are 8 bit, and can display 2^8 x 2^8 x 2^8 = 256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 colors simultaneously.
6-bit displays achieve the illusion of greater color depth by dithering, particularly temporal dithering, where adjacent pixels are rapidly adjusted in brightness and color value to trick the eye into thinking it is seeing a range of colors that the display cannot display simultaneously. This is not what I would recommend you do serious photo editing on. While your concern is brightness, upon closer examination you might find other negative impacts resulting from using a display with a limited gamut.
Printer/ink/paper profiling is critical - there is no way you can even come close, especially on representation of shadow/highlight detail, and smooth subtle color/tonal transitions - unless your system is properly profiled.
If you think about it - you have a serious investment in Photoshop, a laptop, printer, ink and paper. Why leave out the most critical part - your profiling system? Its the reason why high-end display and printing systems come bundled with profiling hardware. It just makes perfect sense - and your results will be completely consistent once you set everything up. If you are willing to go with a more manual system, you can get printer/display profiling systems for around $500-$600 like Datacolor's Spyder3Studio SR or for a little more, XRite's Eye One system. There are many solutions for printer-only profiling from these and other companies.
Even if you get the colors right on the display using a profiling system you will still, as several posters have suggested above, need to adjust your display's brightness to better correspond to the paper you are using. Most LCDs are way too bright for photo editing as they come from the factory.
Discussion
3 repliesAny and all suggestions appreciated. Thanks.
First, let CS (I assume you mean Photo Shp CS) manage the color. After you set up your page by choosing your printer, paper size and orientation , you then go to File>Print With Preview and select Let Photo Shop Manage Color. Also, be sure that a paper you are using is selected. The Windows, or standard HP print driver will print using sRGB instead of another color space, such as Adobe RGB. When you click 'Print' your printer driver will open. Turn off any color managment done by the printer, if that option is available.
Now, if you can't turn off color managment by the printer, you shouldn't allow Photo Shop to manage color, because there would be two conflicting profiles, and the results will not match what's on your screen. be sure to select the corect paper in the HP driver screen.
If your prints are too dark, the first thing to check is your monitor's brightness (luminance). Even if your monitor is calibrated, it may still be too bright. If you hold a piece of your usual printing paper next to your screen, they should match. Adjust brightness so that they do. It won't be a perfect match, but it will be close.
There is a wealth of info regarding color management and printing. A good source is Chromix.
-P
Then re-edit your work accordingly. It's as simple as that.
With those two laptops as an exception, nearly all laptop displays are TN technology, which means that they are 6 bit, and only capable of displaying 2^6 x 2^6 x 2^6 = 64 x 64 x 64 = 262,144 colors. S-IPS and H-IPS displays are 8 bit, and can display 2^8 x 2^8 x 2^8 = 256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 colors simultaneously.
6-bit displays achieve the illusion of greater color depth by dithering, particularly temporal dithering, where adjacent pixels are rapidly adjusted in brightness and color value to trick the eye into thinking it is seeing a range of colors that the display cannot display simultaneously. This is not what I would recommend you do serious photo editing on. While your concern is brightness, upon closer examination you might find other negative impacts resulting from using a display with a limited gamut.
Printer/ink/paper profiling is critical - there is no way you can even come close, especially on representation of shadow/highlight detail, and smooth subtle color/tonal transitions - unless your system is properly profiled.
If you think about it - you have a serious investment in Photoshop, a laptop, printer, ink and paper. Why leave out the most critical part - your profiling system? Its the reason why high-end display and printing systems come bundled with profiling hardware. It just makes perfect sense - and your results will be completely consistent once you set everything up. If you are willing to go with a more manual system, you can get printer/display profiling systems for around $500-$600 like Datacolor's Spyder3Studio SR or for a little more, XRite's Eye One system. There are many solutions for printer-only profiling from these and other companies.
Even if you get the colors right on the display using a profiling system you will still, as several posters have suggested above, need to adjust your display's brightness to better correspond to the paper you are using. Most LCDs are way too bright for photo editing as they come from the factory.