[goldworker]

Hopefully there's a quick fix to this problem. The image I see on my imac screen looks perfect, but when I print it, it's much too dark. So, I have to lighten the photo on my screen to get the right amount of lightness in the printed photo. Is this a hardware, software or printer problem? Is there some way to calibrate the colors?

Any help would be appreciated.

[alex_kac]

I guess it would help to know what software you are using as well as what Mac OS Version and printer you are using.

[goldworker]

I'm using a imac flat panel running OSX - Jaguar. I use Photodelux and Corel Print House mostly. My printer is an Epson 777.

[phobos]

FLat panels displays aren't good for the kind of work you're trying to do. Colors seem different then they are.
I'm sorry but I don't know the programs you are using.But I'm guessing that these programs have some sort of color profiles to build the pictures and assign the profile to them. Different color profiles make huge difference on the appearrance of the pictures. SO be sure that you have checked the correct color profiles.
Also be sure that when you print the pictures you make the correct adjustments on what kind of paper you're using. If you are using a coated paper and on your printers menu you say that you have a simple paper your printer will let more ink on the paper than it needs and the colors will look more saturated and darker than they really are.

Hope this helps.

[lland]

You could try setting the brightness of you screen in the control panel to match the dark print.

Then when you set the picture to look OK it should print the same as it looks on screen.

If this makes the screen too dark you will have to change this setting evertime you retouch.

You could do this by saving a colour sinc profile.

[art_director]

Originally posted by goldworker:
Hopefully there's a quick fix to this problem. The image I see on my imac screen looks perfect, but when I print it, it's much too dark. So, I have to lighten the photo on my screen to get the right amount of lightness in the printed photo. Is this a hardware, software or printer problem? Is there some way to calibrate the colors?

Any help would be appreciated.

get yourself a copy of photoshop. you'll be happy you did. here's where you can download the demo:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...form=Macintosh

[Chuck_star]

I'm guessing that part of the problem is that you aren't using print safe colours.

I as well don't use any of the above mentioned software, but;
in Photoshop there is a little guide near the colour picker that will pick the closest print safe and web safe colours

[art_director]

Originally posted by Chuck_star:
I'm guessing that part of the problem is that you aren't using print safe colours.

print safe colors? huh? there's no such thing. you get your four printer's primaries and you need to calibrate your apps, minitor and printer to speak the same language. it's far *different* from web safe colors.

one more thing to do: i believe most digital cameras save images as rgb (red, green and blue) for viewing onscreen. most consumer laser printers print cmyk (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). your app will translate the rgb files to cmyk before sending them to the printer which can result in poor color output. when in photoshop change your image to cmyk rather than rgb. that can make a *big* difference when printing to a consumer grade laser printer.


think of it like this:

rgb - how screens draw images with light using red, green and blue

cmyk - how colors are separated and printed on the page using cyan, magenta, yellow and black. if you were to look closely at a photo in a book / magazine you would see these four colors represented as dots that make up the colors of the image. if you've ever been up close to a billboard you've probably notice the large dots that make up images. same idea on a larger scale so it's easier to see without the benefit of a loop.

[godzookie2k]

when you have potatoshop and your comp calibrated, with the proper profiles set in potatoshop, go to view ---> gamut warning and it will highlight colors that *your* printer might have problems replicating exactly. Then head on over to curves and adjust accordingly.

[Chuck_star]

art director
time to go back to school
"print safe colors? huh? there's no such thing."


goldworker
here are links that may help
http://www.montana.edu/commserv/csgraphics/ugcolor.html
http://www.creativepro.com/printerfr...tory/6541.html

[godzookie2k]

Originally posted by Chuck_star:
art director
time to go back to school
"print safe colors? huh? there's no such thing."

Be nice, this aint OSX–General.

All colors *are* printable. It just depends on what you are printing on. the "print safe color" that appears in your pshop color picker is linked to the ICC profile in colorsync and your printers color profile. If it isn't configured (or configured as default) it gives a default, "yeah this color should print right on anything" recommendation.

[godzookie2k]

Originally posted by art_director:
i believe most digital cameras save images as rgb (red, green and blue) for viewing onscreen. most consumer laser printers print cmyk (cyan, magenta, yellow and black).

But there *are* still some consumer ink jet printers in existence that print with 3 colors, they are usually old, but check to make sure. A properly calibrated box with the proper profiles enabled should make this no worry, but still.

[art_director]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
Be nice, this aint OSX–General.

All colors *are* printable. It just depends on what you are printing on. the "print safe color" that appears in your pshop color picker is linked to the ICC profile in colorsync and your printers color profile. If it isn't configured (or configured as default) it gives a default, "yeah this color should print right on anything" recommendation.

godzookie: you're absolutely right. thank you for pointing that out.

Chuck_star: ask a printer about print safe colors and they'll tell you what godzookie posted: all colors are printable. your best bet, if going to press, is to use pms numbers for all color designation. that way you have a *specific* printed color to match rather than trying to hit a color you see on screen, which by the way, is impossible. because of the difference in how colors are represented on a printed page / on screen (additive vs. partitive colors) the two cannot match perfectly -- it's impossible. you can get *close* but never spot on.

all this said i realize we were talking about laser printers.

[kulverse]

Unfortunately, I do this for a living (printing industry). Fortunately, I got a new job in 2 weeks as a graphic designer working with all RGB images in PhotoShop, so I won't have to worry about this crap anymore

CMYK has a smaller color gamut. Many inkjet printers now use a 6 color (light cyan/light magenta added) scheme to increase the gamut. The printing idustry sometimes uses a process called Hexachrome printing(6 color-Green and orange added) which increases the gamut even more. CMYK alone does a great job, but many colors simply cannot be reprodued acurately. In this case you either...

A)As stated above, you can turn on your gamut warning and adjust the colors until they fit the gamut. (this is what I usually do) or...

B)Rely on the the fact that 99.9% of people won't really see the difference, or even care for that matter. the difference is subtle enough that it really doesnt matter. If parts are supposed to be PMS colors, then they should be spot colored anyway, not reproduced in CMYK if possible.

That being said, Earth-tones are an absolute bitch to reproduce via CMYK.

Anywho...The original problem may be solved by simply printing on a high-quality Gloss printing paper. In the world of Ink-Jets, paper makes the quality of the image. "Regular copy paper", and "good prints" should never be said in the same sentence. Also your profiles may not be set correctly.

I just got a new job, and "wowed" them with a Portfolio made 100% off a $150 Epson 6-color printer and Gloss paper. But then again, my profiles are set, and my monitors are calibrated.

Good luck

[fmalloy]

Remember, the original issue was print darkness, not color fidelity.

And, I'm seeing the same issue now in 2003:

- Panther
- 17" iMac
- Epson Stylus 740
- Photoshop Elements
- Epson photo glossy paper
- 720DPI, highest quality, four-color in the Apple Epson driver

I set Color Management in PSE to Epson 740. Colors look different than without, but it's still way too dark. Looks great on the LCD and in Print Preview.

Before I crank up the brightness in the print driver and in PSE, any ideas? Remember, it's print brightness, not color.

Frank

[gadster]

Originally posted by fmalloy:
Remember, the original issue was print darkness, not color fidelity.

And, I'm seeing the same issue now in 2003:

- Panther
- 17" iMac
- Epson Stylus 740
- Photoshop Elements
- Epson photo glossy paper
- 720DPI, highest quality, four-color in the Apple Epson driver

I set Color Management in PSE to Epson 740. Colors look different than without, but it's still way too dark. Looks great on the LCD and in Print Preview.

Before I crank up the brightness in the print driver and in PSE, any ideas? Remember, it's print brightness, not color.

Frank

OK, this may be worth a shot.

Do all adjustments in RGB, if practical. Take your RGB into CMYK (or whatever the printers colour space is) by invoking 'Convert to Profile' from the 'Image menu. Look for the printer type and media combo in the pop-up list. Then print it, it should come out pretty close to the screen.

I have an Epson 1290, and this tip works well on that one.

[himself]

These problems are typically due to printer issues, so I would check to see that you have the proper prinnter profile(s) for your printer, and setting other color management settings (screen, individual files, etc) should help. In some cases, setting everything to ColorSync CMYK or Generic CMYK can greatly alleviate these problems... might be worth a shot.

And there is such a thing as "printer safe colors," especially when working with RGB files (or on a computer screen, period). The fact is a typical computer display (LCDs, and especially CRTs) have a much wider color gamut in the RGB colorspace than any printer in either 4- or 6-colors in CMYK or CcMmYK space, whether its a six color inkjet or hexachrome. As a result, every color you see on your computer screen cannot be reproduced faithfully on a color printer. If you are used to taking photos directly from your digital camera and printing them out without any manual adjustments or modifications, the colors will most likely shift, as some of the colors in the photo will be out of the printers gamut, thus not "printer safe." If you want even more info (you probably don't, but I'm gonna tell it anyway), there is also the LAB color space, which is a theoretical representation of every possible visible color. It is theoretical in that there is no device in existance that can display or reproduce every color in the LAB color space. Not a computer monitor, not a color printer, the human eye can't even detect all of those colors.

[larkost]

Actually, the problem is almost definitely that you are not paying attention to your color profiles (ICC), and they are getting messed up somewhere along the line. With Photoshop you can go to a full colorsync workflow.

I have found that making a PDF tends to simplify things (as you can usually force a single profile to be set for everything... but that is program dependent...).

[gadster]

Originally posted by goldworker:
Hopefully there's a quick fix to this problem. The image I see on my imac screen looks perfect, but when I print it, it's much too dark. So, I have to lighten the photo on my screen to get the right amount of lightness in the printed photo. Is this a hardware, software or printer problem? Is there some way to calibrate the colors?

Any help would be appreciated.

1) calibate your screen, it sounds like you are printing with a Windows gamma

2) come back and answer some of the questions and

3) If you got it sorted, explain how, for the benefit of others.

[Headshot]

This $500 RIP software brought my accuracy into the ballpark, and then some. Make sure your working space is "Adobe 1998 RGB", and learn how your color profiles work. This may get you to avoid pricey "Rasterized Image Processor" software,
but Imageprint has been the answer to my prayers.

RE: Flat Panels. I have a big CRT still, because they do say that works better for pro-work, but your flat-panel should be just fine for what you're doing, it's not that big a deal. Learn all you can about color-calibration, and you'll see drastic improvements.

[JacobyO]

1. Are you doing any commercial printing where you send your files to a Press? If you are then DO NOT calibrate your monitor to your printer, as this will make your files waaay off when it goes to press. Desktop printers (especially inkjet) are no where near accurate as far as color.

2. Don't Print RGB files. The color shift will never be acceptable. Change them to CMYK and then print them.

3. If you are only printing to your printer then take the resulting print from the "calibrated" printer and try to match your screen from that.

[zigzag]

Originally posted by fmalloy:
Remember, the original issue was print darkness, not color fidelity.

And, I'm seeing the same issue now in 2003:

- Panther
- 17" iMac
- Epson Stylus 740
- Photoshop Elements
- Epson photo glossy paper
- 720DPI, highest quality, four-color in the Apple Epson driver

I set Color Management in PSE to Epson 740. Colors look different than without, but it's still way too dark. Looks great on the LCD and in Print Preview.

Before I crank up the brightness in the print driver and in PSE, any ideas? Remember, it's print brightness, not color.

Frank

Frank, I've had the same problem with dark prints, I think a lot of people do. Unfortunately I don't think there's a simple answer - I've followed all the calibration procedures and it doesn't help. I've done a bit of reading about it and have concluded that you pretty much have to experiment and stick with something that works. I simply move the brightness up a notch in my HP printer driver and get fine results. It's easy to do and I don't have to mess with my screen brightness or anything.

I'm just a novice but I think it might have something to do with the fact that Windows monitors are set at darker levels than Macs. Since your Mac monitor is relatively brighter, you don't crank the image brightness up as much, so the prints come out dark. Similarly, I've noticed that when I put images up on the web, Windows people complain that they're too dark. I don't know if one (print darkness) is related to the other (web images), but it's something to be aware of anyway. Maybe one of the pros here can correct/clarify.

[velodev]

Originally posted by art_director:
get yourself a copy of photoshop. you'll be happy you did. here's where you can download the demo:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...form=Macintosh

I'm lost... where does spending hundreds of dollars on software help him?

Skip Adobe, that's not your problem. Art_director, what do you exactly do in this industry because a couple of your posts are sometimes unfounded.

You just need to calibrate your screen (in PC land, I adjust the monitor gamma) and also adjust your printer settings. I have an HP photosmart and there is a decent amount of setting for brightness and ink density (my PC printer settings for this printer has even more settings). This is an early start in a couple directions and might help you.

[Photo678]

change the gamma in the printer properties, I think by default it is set to 2.2, pull it down to 1.8to match your screen

[fmalloy]

I'm getting closer to this problem:

- The prints looked *great* before 10.3 with the Epson printer. No adjustment necessary

- Prints look dark with 10.3

- 10.3 apparently installs generic UNIX "Gimp" print drivers which are *not* from Epson. It's clear they do not have the quality or accuracy of the Epson drivers.

- You can apparently go into Disk 3 of Panther and install the true Epson driver. I'm going to try this tonight.

Frank

[fmalloy]

OK, problem solved!

It's not RGB color, it's not a monitor calibration issue, it's not an ICC profile issue, or some other esoteric color management problem.

It's a printer driver issue.

Apparently, with Panther, older printers get a default driver, which is a generic driver called a GIMP driver. It's an attempt to support printers that may not have an original manufacturer driver. The GIMP drivers work, but the output is awful. On my Epson, the prints were way, way too dark.

The solution is to get rid of the GIMP driver, and install the manufacturer's driver, which is on the Panther install disk #3.

Here are instructions (works for Epson, but the process is similar for Canon, HP, Lexmark, etc.):

1. Double click on the MAC HARD DRIVE
2. Double click on the LIBRARY folder
3. Double click on the PRINTERS folder
4. Drag the EPSON folder to the trash can

*NOTE* If you receive an access denied error message, this indicates
that
you do not have root access. You will need to contact Apple for
assistance
on obtaining Root Access.

Then follow the steps below to install your printer in OS 10.3:

1) Insert the Panther Installation Disk #3 CD and double-click on the
icon
created by it on your desktop.
2) Double-click the Packages folder.
3) Double-click the EPSONPRINTERDRIVERS2.PKG folder.
4) Enter your administrator password and hit CONTINUE, then follow the
prompts to complete the installation.
5) Make sure the printer is connected and turned on, then restart your
computer.
6) After the computer restarts, open your PRINTER SETUP UTILITY (you
can
open the printer utility by opening your HARD DRIVE, APPLICATIONS,
UTILITIES, PRINTER SETUP UTILITY).
7) If your printer is listed, simply close the print center and try to
print. If not, click the ADD button.
8) In the window that appears, select EPSON USB from the drop-down
menu,
then select your printer and hit ADD.
9) Try printing.

When I did this, I got the expected Epson printer utility, familiar print dialog and settings, and my prints look beautiful again with proper exposure.

Frank