Advice Sought - Colour Management

StephenArfer

StephenArfer

Messages
550
Name
Steve
Edit My Images
Yes
Windows 7, i5-750, 8GB RAM, 512 MB Nvidia 9800GT x 2

I have a NEC Spectraview monitor which I calibrate with an X-Rite i1 using SpectraView Profiler 4.1.24. This adjusts the monitor interal LUT.

I use two graphics adaptors with a second (NEC Non-Spectraview) monitor which is also calibrated similarly. The resultant displays are identical.

I use an Epson R1800 printer with original inks and Ilford Galerie smooth gloss. have created a printer profile using a Datacolor spectrocolorimeter and Spyder3print SR 4.2.1 software.

My problem has always existed with this R1800 printer, and is simply that printed images, although apparently accurate colour-wise, are darker than the display. No apparent loss of detail in shadows, just darker.

I normally print from Lightroom 3 with Lightroom managing colour and using my generated printer profile. However, it makes little difference if I select the Epson SPR1800 photo glossy driver.

When printing from Photoshop CS5, the prints exhibit an identical problem. However, it is relevant to note that selecting the "Match Print Colors" tickbox in the print dialogue immediately darkens the preview - Pretty well displaying the dark print that I am complaining about.

In both Lightroom & Photoshop I set Rendering Intend as Perceptual

If I use a calibration photo in photoshop, matching print colours in the print dialologue immediately displays quite a significant areas of gamut warning - In various areas of the spectrum.

If I simply print an image using the printer to manage colours, there dark shades simply turn black.

So, am I trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or is there something I can do with my existing R1800 printer? Am I missing something?

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Steve
 
A me-too I am afraid, you are not alone. Although I am using a Canon printer. I got the colormunki calibrator to try and rectify the problem. Calibrating my display ended up with a brighter display!

One tip I saw, was to ensure that adobe gamma was disabled (a background program that was running). This made my screen slightly darker after that, but still a noticeable dark print.
 
There are two reasons why your prints may be darker:-

You do not mention the amount of light that is illuminating the print. The amount is quite a lot - more than under normal domestic enviroments. The ICC standards were orginally set up for litho printing - and their proof viewing boxes are quite bright to mimic the amount of light in a bright supermarket.

Also, you do not mention how bright the room you are working in. Think about the following. Take your perfectly profiled monitor outside and look at it at mid-day under bright conditions - your screen looks dark, so you would make the image brighter to see it - so the files would be too bright.
Now do the same at midnight - your screen will appear very bright - though of course, it is exactly the same as it was at mid-day. Now you will make the files too dark, as the screen appears too bright.

Those are extreme versions to guide you.

I have found that making the monitor darker will make your files brighter, and hence your prints bright.

If you can access the brightness of your monitor during the set up reduce the brightness to 110 or 100cdm2.

Printer is probably perfect.

You can calibrate till the cows come home - but you cannot calibrate your eyes - as they are adaptive... which explains why after a very shot time most people don't see how bad their TV's are. Only people visiting can see it!
 
Thanks for responses - Very useful. Both monitors are hooded and I calibrate and work in a daylight excluded room (when I want to!) with dimmed tungsten lighting behind monitors. After calibration by the Spectraview application, both monitors vary brightness from the calibrated condition according to sensed ambient lighting. The software disables subsequent user adjustment of brightness.

However, the default calibration setting is 160cd/m2. I have just re-calibrated one monitor at 100 cd/m2 and the difference is immediately evident. I achieved a white luminance of 99 cd/m2 and black at 0.17 cd/m2 with contrast 583:1

I have a Colour Confidence "Grafilite" for viewing, and viewing the original print under this light and looking across to the recalibrated screen, the overall "brightness" is now much more similar. Contrast is lower, but as far as I can assess, also more accurate. It's good to have the second monitor as per original which enables an objective judgement on this. My wife who knows nothing about these things, immediately recognized the recalibrated monitor as being more accurate to the print. So, thanks guys for pointing me in the right direction.

However! - Detail in the printed shadows is still not as as visible in the print where these areas are still darker compared with the monitor(s). However the "difficult" image I have been using to assess this problem has a large exposure range, so I'm beginning to suspect it's just my eyes which are causing this problem. Another image with overall dark tones is much more accurate and a definate improvement.

I'm going to keep the second monitor at the original 160 dm/m2 and make a better comparision over a range of images and viewing conditions.

Thank again,
Steve
 
What contrast setting are you using? 2.2 seems to about right for most aplications

Have you tried soft proofing the image ?.

At the moment you cant soft proof in Lightroom. Probably the most sort after upgrade for Lightroom.

However you can in Photoshop. Using the view option select soft proof. For the profile select custom and choose your printer profile . You will now see what the print will look like ( within reason ).

What you can now do is duplicate the image so you have two on the same screen. Now deselect the soft proof option from one of the images. This is now your reference. Adjust the "Soft Proofed" image to match the reference. If your experience is any thing like mine, with Ilford paper it's mainly a slight brightness and contrast change that's needed to match the ref image.When happy print this image.

I have this saved as an action so it's quicker and easier to apply.

See if this works.
 
the paper/ink combo might not be good enough for what you want. the dmax of a print is not the same as what you'll get on screen
 
John, Thanks for your suggestion. When I follow your procedure the whole image darkens and the shadows definition deteriorates - Just as I am seeing in the physical print. Possible not quite as bad. (CS5). The "Simulate Paper Color" tickbox has to be checked to see the difference.

I've gone back to my previous (default) monitor calibration this morning as contrast was too low with the reduced brightness version.

As Poah suggests, I have probably been expecting too much out of my printer/paper/inks combination and if I want to get really fussy in future, I will follow John's suggested procedure

Thanks to all
Steve
 
Thanks Ian. Microsoft don't make it easy do they? In my case I am using the NEC monitor internal LUT's which are modified with NEC's Spectraview software using any one of a range of compatible measurement devices (i1 Display 2 in my case). The LUT(s) are loaded into the monitor(s) on Win 7 startup. Windows monitor colour management is thus required to be bypassed.

However, I'm going to get around to trying to calibrate my laptop some time, and the link you gave will undoubtably save a lot of frustration.
 
Great resource on Windows7 and colour management
 
Steve what you are seeing when you soft proof is the what the paper profile is able to give you, so you can then adjust to compensate. . Bit of a pain but hat's the way it works unfortunately. So soft proofing will hopefully get the result that you want.

Also of course has been stated there is a difference between transmissive and reflective which is why you see better shadows on the monitor
 
Going to have to have a look at that one. I've got the same issue but the odd thing is that even with no PP, my prints are still much darker than they are either on my laptop or desktop monitors or as shot on the camera LCD.

Using an Epson PX700W with Epson ink and Epson premium glossy paper incidentally. T'as got to the stage I have to artificially increase the brightness of the image in CS5 before printing. :(
 
It's highly likely that both your lap top and desktop screens are too bright. It's a common cause of prints coming out too dark. Ideally you should get a calibration device and get the screens set to a standard. However a very quick and dirty option is to reduce the screen brightness until it matches the prints. Not ideal by any means but it may just work
 
The OP already has a calibration device for their monitor, as do I
Personally, I have my monitor set to 80mcd
 
Sorry my reply was aimed at Frobius,

Forgot to add that to my Post... Long day!!!!!!!
 
But it is in effect a similar issue. An image, without any PP, printed from CS (or even DPP), is coming out much darker than shown in either DPP or CS (or even the camera).
When I first calibrated my screen, it actually appeared to be brighter after calibration (using the before/after buttons)
Have just printed out another photo, from DPP, using the easyprint pro. Will put up a capture of it and the orig, tomorrow, after it has dried. It doesn't look so different as some of the ones I have printed out, but there was less dark areas than other photos
 
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I've been giving this some thought. Maybe this will help.

When you compare a print to an image on the monitor the brightness of both the viewing area and the screen are important. If either is too bright or too dark then you won't get a good match. Now as you are using a Graflite and any additional ambient lighting isn't affecting this then you should have a good standard for viewing.

What you need to do is to determine if prints, viewed under you conditions are brighter or darker than the screen. Don't use the one that's giving you grief but other more general ones. If you need a good reference print have a look at the Colour Management check up kit the Colour Confidence do. They have digital images and hard copy prints from each image. This may help you decide if the screen is too bright or not.

Comparing the prints and the screen will enable you to decide if the brightness setting for the screen is too high, too low or just right. Mines set to 130Cd/m2 May seem a bit high for some people but it represents the average level of light in my workroom during the day. With this I get a good print to screen match via my calibrated and profiled system.

OK now to the question of the print. Now you seem to have problems with lack of shadow detail on the print compared to the screen. You found that when you "soft Proofed" with "Show paper white" ticked you got a similar result to the print on the screen. That's how it should be. Ink jet papers ( and others) absorb inks differently, and part of the profiling process takes this into account. When you soft proof you are representing on screen how the final result will print. The profile you made takes this into account and shows you the result. Soft Proofing is simply a preview of how the profile believes your image will print.

When I soft proof with Ilford paper I get a drop in brightness and a drop in contrast compared to what I see on the screen without Soft Proofing. Knowing how the printer will print the results enables me to make small adjustments to the image before I press the print button. As I wrote earlier by having a reference image and compare this to the soft proofed one enables me to match the soft proofed image to the reference. I can then adjust the contrast and the brightness of my image to match how I originally saw it Once I get an acceptable match, I print the original ( soft Proofed image ).

By profiling you printer you are providing the print system with a "map' of how you printer ( +paper + ink) can handle a range of colours, including neutrals). By using soft proofing you can see visually the limitations of the printing system and what corrections for this the system is making. For example if you have a colour on you monitor that the system just can't handle , using Perceptual rendering, the system reduces the whole range until it fits within the printing gamut, but keeps the relationship as it would be seen. Using Relative colormetric, it simply reduces the image proportionally ( generalisation ). You may find that some images respond better to Perceptual, other Relative.

I hope I haven't made things more confusing for you. If you have taken the time effort and financial commitment to profile your monitor and printer, then I think you should start to use soft proofing. This will enable you to get the most out of your investment. It's just a pity that Lightroom doesn't have a Soft Proofing options. It may be that for really critical and demanding images you may need to print via Photoshop, that does support Soft Proofing
 
What a succinct summary John! Not at all confusing and thank you for taking the time. I agree it would be nice to have a soft proofing in Lightroom, but on the other hand I'm quite happy with a workflow for critical print images where I leave my final raw file as-is in Lightroom, and edit in PS to create a print-ready TIFF copy tailored to a specific printer/paper combination which is then stacked in Lightroom with the raw file. After all, I may well wish to produce more than one print copy for different papers.

For all practical purposes the custom soft proof view in PS is an accurate rendition of what I see in print so I'm happy with that and I accept your recommendation totally.

I'm happy with the brightness setting that the Spectraview software sets and the monitor auto-brightness responds well to variations in ambient lighting. Once set during calibration the manual brightness menu is disabled so there's nothing I could do to muck it up anyway!

I'm not a skilled Photoshop user, but of late I have made an effort to learn more and I'm much more comfortable with the Lightroom/Photoshop combination than I used to be.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction

Steve
 
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geriatrix said:
Thanks Ian. Microsoft don't make it easy do they? In my case I am using the NEC monitor internal LUT's which are modified with NEC's Spectraview software using any one of a range of compatible measurement devices (i1 Display 2 in my case). The LUT(s) are loaded into the monitor(s) on Win 7 startup. Windows monitor colour management is thus required to be bypassed.

However, I'm going to get around to trying to calibrate my laptop some time, and the link you gave will undoubtably save a lot of frustration.
Click to expand...

If your laptop has built in graphics with the intel mobile driver, be prepared for some more frustration as the procedures above work most/some of the time, but not reliably :( It's not insurmountable, but a pita to begin with, setting up a couple of tasks to re-load the colour management once everything else is running.

This may help, but I hope you don't need it
 
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