Prints look different to screen

[Gawain Hewitt]

Hello,

I have just bought a spyder elite calibrator and calibrated my laptop, however the images I print still look brighter on screen than on paper. I was wondering if anyone could help me to understand this better?

I have listed the kit I used below, but I also have Photoshop cs2 if that would help me. Also I am not using any special instructions to the printer, just the driver, so if i was meant to use a canon colour profile then I haven't .
I am very new to printing my own files digitally so please excuse me if I am being basic, I just would like to get some consistant results before sending my files to printers for big prints and making an expensive mistake!

Many thanks for your time,

Camera - leica m8
laptop - MacBook
calibrator - spyder elite
raw conversion - capture one 4.8
printing software- aperture
Printer used in this case - canon selphy es1

 

[benmacphoto]

Macs do have screen contrast control.

command-option-control-, decrease the screen contrast
command-option-control-. increase the screen contrast

 

[sahe69]

If the printed images only look dimmer but the colors seem to be right, then the issue is probably that your laptop screen is set too bright.

 

[achi4]

I don't know if the spyder elite allows you to calibrate the brightness of your display, but the too bright Mac displays are the source of your problem.
I have calibrated my iMac display to a brightness of 80 cd/m2, gamma 2.2 and using printer profiles downloaded either from the paper manufacturer or ones I make myself using an x-rite i1pro system, I get prints from my Epson 3800 that are extremely close to the display.

Maurice

 

[Rob-F]

Check if the on-screen dialog box for your Canon printer offers a choice of printing papers. My Canon S9000 does, under "printing preferences," if I recall correctly. If the default paper is different from what you are using, you will probably get results different from what you were expecting. So if you are using economy everyday paper, and the printer is set up for pro grade, or "deluxe glossy" or whatever they call it, the print can come out too dark. Different papers take ink differently. Experiment with the choices, and also try different brands of paper. Canon paper works pretty well in my Canon printer. So does Kodak paper, and Ilford. HP paper is less good for me. And they all need to be optimized with different choices in the printer setup box.

 

[benmacphoto]

When using the Huey Pro to get accurate calibration you have to change the contrast a bit. And by doing that I have gotten very accurate color calibration.

 

[Gawain Hewitt]

Many thanks all, I will do some tests this evening and will let you know how I get on.
Thanks

 

[Gawain Hewitt]

Ok further research suggests that the canon selphy printers are known for printing dark. Although canon don't supply colour profiles I have managed to find a couple from kind web users.
Leaving work now and will try out later this evening...

 

[kully]

Gawain, run the calibration again - I had the same problem as you with with prints looking darker than on screen. I have the Spyder Elite as you do.

I ran calibration again, but went for full rather than simple and was asked to adjust contrast and other bits and bobs. As has been mentioned before, the contrast made a huge difference and although prints still look a little dark when printed, they dry down to become lighter and pretty much the same as the screen.

 

[navilluspm]

Do you soft proof? Soft proofing (while teadious to do and ugly to look at on the screen) will generally give you a better idea of what the print will look like. In order to soft proof you need printer profiles (Canon supplies the for Canon printers and paper). If you are sending out to a printer, you might ask that printer for the profiles so that you can soft proof your images before submitting them.

2 important items: 1) Since you have Photoshop, you have the ability to soft proof
2) Read this web page on canon printer profiling: http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/using-icc-profiles-with-canon-printers.html

 

[navilluspm]

One more thing: If you know little about going from camera to print and what to get SERIOUS about printing, I recommend watching Michael Reichmann's "From Camera to Print" video. It explains soft proofing and profiling very well. It is expensive for what it is, but you you are serious about wanting to make nice prints, have limited knowledge at the present and you're willing to invest the time and money to do so, check it out at the luminous landscape website.

 

[elshaneo]

From what I learned when I did my Photography studies. The laptop screens are no good, even if you calibrate them with the best monitor calibrator, recommendation is to get a good modern LCD monitor such as the Samsung LCD displays as a start, otherwise go for the Eizo LCDs ;-)

Secondly, you also need to calibrate your printer to get "almost" exactly the same results of the prints from the monitor screen. I say "almost" because it's never going to be 100 percent exact since the color space from the screen to printer is still not in the same dimensions...

 

[Gawain Hewitt]

Hello everyone,

Firstly thanks to you all for your time and advice.

I have run the Spyder Elite again and that has made a difference.

The biggest difference however have come from finding some color profiles online, for example these http://www.frozentimes.net/wordpress/archives/tag/selphy which I have added. I still needed to increase the gamma a bit more (another 1.2), but now am beginning to get prints that I am lot happier with.

The link to the video tutorial on luminous landscape looks very interesting, thanks. I will definitely be looking at this during my journey into digital printing over the next few months.

Incidentally Aperture is really nice for printing, great controls

Many thanks all.

Gawain