Slightly OT: need help calibrating

Hey y'all,
I've been pulling my hair our over a dark printing issue for quite a while now. Surprised I'm not totally bald by now.
I use a Huey (not-pro) calibrator and it doesn't have me adjust any brightness controls.
I'd like who ever has time to go to this link and tell me 1) if the images look too dark and 2) whether or not you have "brightness" or luminance calibrated on your monitor.
I posted this a couple of months ago and no one mentioned anything about being dark. From what I could tell all images looked fine on the web (after conversion to sRGB) but always print dark, on my epson 2200 and others (left in AdobeRGB).
I really appreciate your help.
I'd like to nail this down with the equipment I have, but would really like to know if I'm on the right track before a drop more $$ on a calibrator that MIGHT work.

Thanks!

I have a luminance calibrated monitor and that image looks correct to me.
If it's priniting too dark, then the problem doesn't appear to be your monitor calibration. Have this printed at Mpix or a local store in your area to help pinpoint the problem. If it prints out correctly there, then it may be a printer issue. Are you allowing PS to handle color management rather than your printer? Are you using soft proofing in PS? Did this just start happening, or is it a fairly recent problem? Mac or Windows?

This article titled 'My Printer Is Too Dark' may be helpful.

Images don't appear dark on my luminance calibrated monitor. Sounds like your issue lies elsewhere but I'm really scratching my head on how a calibration hardware/software package could not include luminance adjustment. As John mentioned, more details would help if you'd like others thoughts on troubleshooting.

Jason,
I used to use the basic Spyder2Express and it didn't have any brightness/luminance adjustment options either.

Thanks guys.
I'm using windows. I let PS handle color management (with appropriate paper/printer profile) and turn color management off in the printer driver (ICM - no color management). I'm sure I'm not double profiling, which usually turns out a dark and magenta cast print. Colors seem to be good, just to dark.

I do softproof with my profiles, colorplak's, and others and they look fine on screen.
Prints from my printer, colorplaks printer, and from zazzle, all look at least one stop dark.

What baffles me is how they look fine on the web but print dark from all 3 print sources. Why the inconsistency?

I did find the article John linked to - Good info but not helping this problem.

It seems to be a common problem but mostly on Macs.

If I get a better calibrator it may solve this problem. That's a big maybe.

Thanks again, any more input appreciated.

That is a big maybe at this point. Are you taking into account the inherent difference between transmissive (monitor) displays and reflective (print) displays? Prints will never appear as 'bright' as an image on a backlit monitor.

That image does not look too dark to me either.

Keep in mind when viewing prints that the print is reflective, while the monitor is illuminated. A monitor may be calibrated correctly, but if the light on the print is too dim, then your print will look dark.

That said, there have also been some issues with certain versions of Photoshop and dark prints after updates were applied to either the printer driver or Photoshop. So this is worth a look as well.

But you mentioned that your prints coming from the 3rd party printer were too dark as well. Are you sending your prints to them in sRGB or aRGB? Are they tagged correctly? You should only soft proof their profile.

But your comment that the 3rd party prints look too dark and the fact that your image looks fine on my monitor leads me to think your print viewing area is not bright enough. Do the prints still look too dark outdoors under sunlight? Does it help if you mask them under a black or charcoal overmat?

I'm pretty sure I'm considering the difference between transmissive and reflective.
It's a big difference. My monitor is bright but I have it turned down significantly (60 on the monitor control, 40 in the vid card control). If I go lower than that it really makes things look muddy and you have to strain to see.
The pieces I had mounted for the college hill library show were from colorplak and too dark, (I went ahead and hung them anyway.)
If the prints are in very bright light (sunlight) they are "not bad". And it is the higher contrast images that present the most problem.

Mel, not sure what you're asking with overmat question?

For a low key image on a black border the shadow details will usually appear more detailed. Light parts of the image may be almost blinding bright. Overall, the image will appear lighter.

For a high key image on a white background, the highlight tones will retain detail, while the image overall will appear darker.

These all relate to color or vision theory and how the mind processes the images we see. You view your monitor with a black bezel (at least most are these days). By overmating in black you will eliminate any influence the white edges of the print have on your view of the print.

Anyways, getting back to your images. I did not realize there was a group there. I only saw the first image which appeared fine. The brightness of an image is subjective and you may in fact be going for a low key look. I'm assuming that you intent to place grass green around the middle tone on a B&W scale. I'm viewing these on an uncalibrated, but reasonable monitor. Images 1, 8, 10, 12, 14 look fine to me if you are shooting for a mid tone image.

Aside from those, generally speaking the images look too dark to me. I do not see any whites hitting white (255,255,255). The yellows in the last few columbine shots appear far too dark. Those yellows should measure somewhere close to RGB values of of 255, 255,128 when placing your cursor on them in photoshop and viewing the info tab in top right. The moving water in a number of the shots appears gray compared to the white background. The very highest values should go very,very close to 255,255,255.

I'm sorry I did not see the entire group before.

I didn't notice the group either.
They all look fine to me, save for a few dark foregrounds. (#'s 4 & 5). However, the backgrounds look well exposed to me. The flowing waters look fine to me, as well.
In essence, there are no overall dark images in that group to my eye.
I honestly don't feel a better calibration system will help.
Best of luck...hope you get a handle on this problem

Chuck,

If you'd like these removed, just let me know. Its good to work from known references. I'll also mention that when these are opened, the histogram leans heavily to the dark left side.

First off is one of your columbine images. Pure yellow measures 255,255,0 but we don't really live in a world with pure colors. Anyways, a patch of yellow is shown as a reference point along with a 50% gray and pure white. Here the 50% gray appears light on a white petal.

Bring the white slider in the left in levels reveals a yellow closer to pure. In addition the white petals of the columbine are brought much closer tone-wise to white. The 50% gray is starting to look dark against the white petal, as it should. But everything is maintaining detail.

Now this image holds alot more contrast.

A couple of things to look at from a sanity check standpoint.

The three dark patches are Black, 90% gray and 80% gray. The three light patches are White, 10% gray and 20% gray. The gray next to green is 50% and the green is a sample from one of my grassy images where I know the exposure is good.

1- the grass is often a good reference point. It should jive with middle gray, and here it does. This tells us the mid-tones are about right.

2 - the far side of the creek is averaging around 90% gray. This doesn't leave much room for shadow details. Those tones are pretty compressed and they measure pretty low too.

3 - the stream consists of flowing water which should just be shy of touching white in the brightest spots. Here it is averaging closer to 10% gray, so there is some room to move up.

This whole image could afford to move up in levels a bit and it would probably print more easily.

Here you see it on a white background.

Now the same image on a black background. It lifts the whole image up a bit. The 90% gray appears lighter. The whites are brighter. But I did not change any of those values. Its just a contrast effect.

Wow Mel, Thanks!
This is excellent processing info to chew on and work with.
I don't think it's going to help my monitor/printer calibration because that's relative.
But this is some great tutorial on processing. I do appreciate your time on this.

The stream shot seams a little to contrasty to me (I understand the thinking though) but that columbine re-work is spot on.

Chuck,

I'm glad to help. Just so you know, I didn't change anything on the stream shot except adding the color blocks and changing the border to black in the second one. It is otherwise the version from your website.

If I were working from raw on the second shot, I would turn on the white clipping point in the raw converter. I would increase exposure until the first bit of clipping occurred, then come back just a bit. This would bring up all the tones relatively uniformly. Then I'd check the mid tones up by the grass for sanity sake. Then you can get into the other changes like setting contrast, saturation, etc...

Mel-

One more thing I thought of Chuck. You might think about printing one of your images with a gray scale on 10% block steps of about 1 inch square each along one of the edges. You can then compare the gray scale to your monitor and evaluate how close your monitor and the print are under the viewing light. This helps to as a sanity check. If 50% gray is way off between your monitor and print, then there is either a calibration issue or an issue with the brightness of the viewing light. Try increasing the light on the print first, but try to keep it off the monitor so it doesn't throw you off. The steps can help you judge whether the print and monitor are displaying linear as they should or if there is a curved bias.

Great advice from Mel above. I was going to point out that to my eyes and possibly my monitor, I am also seeing a white balance issue with some of your flower shots. To me it is not only the increase in exposure as Mel points out, but I think you have things a little too cool on the white balance.

Thanks guys!