How do you get good results from a printer

Spoony · 9 Aug 2011

Hello

Today i received two photos from the printers, I got two of the same pictures done as a test.

Picture 1 - auto correction option
and
picture 2 I opted for the pro option (printed as i supplied the file, no correction)

Picture 1 (the one they auto correct is a lot better its brighter and has better colour. The picture they sent matches the one i see on my calibrated monitor

What i am doing wrong, or to put it another way what are they doing right?

Should I be doing something with the file which optimises the print?

I did just send a normal Jpeg.

mrjames · 9 Aug 2011

Spoony said:
Hello

Today i received two photos from the printers, I got two of the same pictures done as a test.

Picture 1 - auto correction option
and
picture 2 I opted for the pro option (printed as i supplied the file, no correction)

Picture 1 (the one they auto correct is a lot better its brighter and has better colour. The picture they sent matches the one i see on my calibrated monitor

What i am doing wrong, or to put it another way what are they doing right?

Should I be doing something with the file which optimises the print?

I did just send a normal Jpeg.

your monitor is likely way too bright, so the prints will be dull in comparison

what are you using to calibrate your monitor- and what monitor is it?

Spoony · 9 Aug 2011

mrjames said:
your monitor is likely way too bright, so the prints will be dull in comparison

what are you using to calibrate your monitor- and what monitor is it?

Spyder3 Elite.

Dell U2311 23 inch Widescreen IPS Panel LCD Monitor.

mrjames · 9 Aug 2011

Spoony said:
Spyder3 Elite.

Dell U2311 23 inch Widescreen IPS Panel LCD Monitor.

that should be good enough

download a program called 'colour eyes display pro', you get a 10 day trial.
Calibrate your monitor using that and that will give you a reading for what settings your monitor is actually calibrated to.

The accuracy of a calibration is called deltaE, the deviance between the expected colour and the colour which is actually displayed. Anything above 1 is cause for concern.

I use a i1 display 2 and I was getting ok calibration but it was way too bright, I used colour eyes to check the profile and it told me that my monitor had a deltaE of 4- no where near ideal, and my screen brightness was 180cd (candelas- measurement of luminosity). I recallibrated my screen using colour eyes and got a deltaE of 0.57, and it turned the brightness down to 120cd (which is optimal for printing), at first it looked super dim but after a few hours I realised how much more comfortable it is working on it, and realised most of my images were underexposed (which is why they looked so dark in print)

The spyder might not be able to get the brightness low enough, so use colour eyes to get a proper calibration and then try turning your screen brightness down on the monitor and try to get a spyder calibration that matches the colour eyes profile. Or you could just buy colour eyes.

Spoony · 9 Aug 2011

mrjames said:
that should be good enough

download a program called 'colour eyes display pro', you get a 10 day trial.
Calibrate your monitor using that and that will give you a reading for what settings your monitor is actually calibrated to.

The accuracy of a calibration is called deltaE, the deviance between the expected colour and the colour which is actually displayed. Anything above 1 is cause for concern.

I use a i1 display 2 and I was getting ok calibration but it was way too bright, I used colour eyes to check the profile and it told me that my monitor had a deltaE of 4- no where near ideal, and my screen brightness was 180cd (candelas- measurement of luminosity). I recallibrated my screen using colour eyes and got a deltaE of 0.57, and it turned the brightness down to 120cd (which is optimal for printing), at first it looked super dim but after a few hours I realised how much more comfortable it is working on it, and realised most of my images were underexposed (which is why they looked so dark in print)

The spyder might not be able to get the brightness low enough, so use colour eyes to get a proper calibration and then try turning your screen brightness down on the monitor and try to get a spyder calibration that matches the colour eyes profile. Or you could just buy colour eyes.

I will give this a go and see how I get on; when I did the calibration i did have to set my screen to 120cd by adjusting the brightness on the monitor.

This is all still very new to me.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Chappers · 9 Aug 2011

Although 120cd/m2 I would assume a fairly good brightness level for most monitors, it still may too bright for you. ( mine's set to 130 cd/m2 ). Unfortunately there is no easy way to know what is correct except for a bit of trial and error. You could try reducing the brightness until it matches the darker print, this would give you a good idea of what the brightness setting should be and then repeat the test.

Color Eyes is an excellent program, but it is $175, so use with care, you may not want to go back to the Spyders own

mrjames · 10 Aug 2011

Chappers said:
but it is $175, so use with care, you may not want to go back to the Spyders own

QFT

in fact just don't download colour eyes unless you have $175 to spare, it's too good :lol:

Spoony · 12 Aug 2011

mrjames said:
QFT

in fact just don't download colour eyes unless you have $175 to spare, it's too good

This scared me so i have not download it (yet)

Having just spent £120ish on the spyder i cant spend any more on it, not yet anyway

I had to get some more prints done, so i thought i would do the same test!

This time both prints look the same, and match what i see on my screen.

Not really sure what went on with the last one.

I did try to darken my screen to match the photo but i couldnt get it to look the same. The more I look at the original picture it looks more like the colour is off (skin looks grey)

It was a picture i had edited so am not fully convinced i sent the right file to the printers, i might have sent the .tiff file by mistake (not sure if thats possible, or even if it would make a difference)

jomantha · 12 Aug 2011

.Marking so i can read later

Chappers · 13 Aug 2011

If both sets of prints came back the same second time round, it could have been something you did wrong the first time. A TIFF file shouldn't make any difference to the image compared to a JPEG , however there may have been some different correction on the TIFF. Only way to find out is to repeat the test again next time you get some prints made, and ensure exactly the same files are sent for each option. If you get a good match between the two, then then it looks like some error occurred in the first test .