My daughter sends me photos from her camera and I try to optimise them for photoprinting. I often find that the final photos end up too dark, even when I tweak my computer monitor brightness. I know I can buy additional equipment to help with this, though I'm not keen to. Would printing the files on an inkjet printer provide adequate examples of how the photoprint will ultimately come out?
The final photoprint is also an inkjet printer. Only specialist printers might use a dye-sublimation printer, but the self-print consoles in Boots and Jessops (are they still going ?) are inkjet.
If your photos appear differently on your computer monitor compared to a printer then turning up the physical brightness on your monitor is pointless. You might just as well turn up the volume on your tv, it still won't alter the actual digital attributes of the photos. Only something like photoshop or adobe photoshop elements can do that by altering the digital photograph itself and updateing its metadata.
Getting a photo to print exactly as it appears on screen is a dark art. There are many factors at work, and the pros rely on some seriously expensive computer monitors and printers.
This is commonly refered to as a workflow, adjusting your monitor is probably the worst thing you can do.
I'd set my monitor to a fixed brightness for viewing the photos and leave it there.
I'd take one or two typical photos and with a few copies of each. Then adjust the brightness and perhaps contrast using whatever photo editor you have/use say move it up a notch and on another move it down a notch or percent or mark on the sliders. I'd do two adjustments at least, then save the image and send off for printing.
When you get them back see which one looks the correct brightness and associate that printed picture with how much you increased or decreaed the original image from the camera.
So you might find that you have to increase brightness by 20% or two marks before printing then setting it back to 'normal' after sending it for printing if needed.
There might be other ways, you could ask on rec.photo.digital too.
Yep. What may work is print a photo then make the screen match the print via the screens brightness and contrast controls to "calibrate" the screen. Then when you load another photo and make it look right on screen it ought to print right as well.
Not that'd I'd put any money on it, too many variables that simple brightness/contrast don't have any influence over.
might help if you knew what make/model of printer they use and can get an sRGB profile for it
Not usually, commercial printers invariably have a greater range of colours they can reproduce than a domestic inkjet printer. As a result the images produced are more vibrant and better able to reproduce detail in areas of shade and brightness.
As has been suggested altering your monitor brightness and colour profile (sRGB or Adobe should be available) so it looks close to a commercially printed picture your are happy with is the simplest way to go.
If the camera can be set to sRGB or Adobe you might find it closer to the commercial printer.
I take it you are having them printed by a commercial firm ? If so it will be trial and error until what you see on your PC matches.. best free photo editing software for Windoz FastStone Image Viewer
Sounds like you haven't got gamma matched on the monitor and printer.
There should be a setting in the photo application that shows a mid tone and a corresponding chequerboard of full on pixels and black. You adjust that to match and then with any luck your images will be consistent across all output media.
In Paintshop Pro it is under File Colour Management/Calibrate Monitor
I think the free evaluation copy will let you do this too.
Once you have a calibrated system then it should all just work. There are always minor differences since CMYK print media cannot handle anything like the contrast ratio that an RGB emitting display can.
The only time I had trouble was with a particular version of Jessops digital print software which could not handle pure monochrome JPEGs at all and colourised them in a most peculiar way in the final print even though they previewed perfectly on the console application.
I have the (relatively cheap) Spyder5Pro and have found that useful in setting up my monitor.
The paper you print on can make a big difference. Printing colour on ordinary "photo copier" paper will look dull, lifeless and possibly much too dark whereas printing on a glossy photo paper will give a different colour rendering and be more representative of what a commercial printing service may achieve.
Calibrate your monitor first Google "calibrating monitor to match printer" but use a decent print on quality photo paper.
Only then can you optimise the original photo with a representative image shown on the screen. Once calibrated you would not necessarily have to print again on expensive paper to check the result.
Also be aware that some photo printing services will also try to enhance the image to give a better print unless you tell them otherwise. Their image enhancement may undo or change any manipulation you have attempted.
Thanks for all the good advice. Gives me plenty to work on. I think I'll take a look at the Spyder5Pro. My current main monitor is an oldish 35" LG TV. I might get a new TV for the job, even though some people think that doing so is a bit Philistine.
If there's one adjustment I use more than any other, it's to move the brightness levels of the file up so the white areas come out white. In Gimp it's Colour, Levels.
NT
Well if your going to look at your prints on a TV then that is a good idea otherwise it isn't.
As an amateur in all things with a limited budget that has other, more equall priorities, I do the best I can with the advise I get. Thanks
Thanks, I'll have a look at that.
You can get a really good 24 inch IPS monitor for under £100 at Novatech in Portsmouth (see web site). IPS is best for accurate colour reproduction.
Unless you spend oodles on an OLED tv, most tv's are never going to be as good as a proper monitor. Some older panasonic tvs used IPS panels. Finding out what type of panel is used by a modern tv (TN, VA, MVA, IPS, PLS) requires a lot of detective work. Only LG TVs are definate IPS users because they are the largest manufacturer of IPS panels.
Me too.
Married with kids sorry to hear that ;-)
Perhaps I was confused by yuor terms such as prints and photos and files.
TVs unless the 4k higher end ones are pretty crap for photos. and the resolution os pretty low compared to a decent monitor.
Overall I thought your aim was to get better exposed physical prints, I doubt buying a new TV will achieve this.
Any easy sanity check is to take a look at the luminance histogram. That will show any obvious faults in the raw image like under/over exposure.
Most print shops will automatically scale maximum brightness in the supplied image to 255 if you feed them something underexposed.
But that isn't usually what you want. For general photos you want at least some of the bright area to overexpose & white out. How much is matter of judgement, but for general photos if you only have the brightest spot at white the rest is too dark. Brightest pixel at white is a good approach for diagrams, text etc, and some very carefully staged photos, but not for most real life photos.
NT
Great Stuff! I'm on it.
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