Pysanka Artist Loc: Rochester, NY

I use my HP laptop for post processing my RAW images. Some of the images I recently used in a calendar printed out dark. What suggestions do you have for me when editing my photos so the brightness is rendered correctly? Should I do it during the day in daylight? I keep other lights in the room off. Should I be turning the brightness down on my screen? Should the room I'm in be darkened? Comments appreciated!

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Can you attach an image so we can intelligently answer your questions.
What program do you use for editing your images? It sounds like a calibration between your screen on your laptop with your printer.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Most people run their displays too bright so when they PP, the brightness tends to make the PP come out lower lower than what is considered "normal" - if you get my drift ....

rdubreuil Loc: Dummer, NH USA

Calibrate your monitor for the lighting conditions you work in. Be sure to set up your printer using the correct paper profiles and let your processing software handle the print job not the default printer settings. Not knowing what printer model you have makes a bit of difference. Some have secondary printing programs (i.e. Canon) that will out perform your PP software and yield better results in the final printed images. Good luck...

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

If I have some really good photos that I want printed, I send them out to a commercial printer. I don’t do enough prints to make it worth my while to gear up to a quality photo printer and learn new technology.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

How dark is dark? I doubt the problem is the monitor. If slightly dark, the difference between what the monitor shows and what the print has might be due slightly to the monitor but more so to including the ICC profile and if you are allowing the printer to correct the file automatically. My monitor is not calibrated but after turning off the auto-correct, I am amazed by how close Costco gets the prints to what I see on the screen.

Remember why we calibrate monitors. First, to make sure what I see on mine is what you see on your calibrated monitor. Second, to make sure what you scan is what you see on the monitor. Third, to make sure what you see on the monitor is what you see on paper. This becomes a closed system requiring recalibration from time to time.

JPG's are a problem too. If exporting from LR, I find I have to lighten them up 2/3 stop to get them to look like the way they do in LR. Sometimes, I print from a TIFF but am not sure it matters.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Even if you had the volume and figured in the cost of test prints and goofs, Costco will likely give you a better print at lower cost. Furthermore, they print photographically so the colors will last a lot longer than your ink jet ones.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

You cannot calibrate a laptop as the laptop screens moves constantly and thus the light is always changing. Use a desktop for correct color matching.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Print one and then adjust.
Calibration of monitor needs constant attention and the effect also depends upon print inks and paper used. Find a paper that you are happy with first. Some come with a calibration code to add to your printer software. Use the printer software to print images NOT adobe as there are different colour codes RGB &Adobe RGB. and SRGB. Other Post processing programmes can use other print colour codes.
You will need a printer that has multiple ink cartridges or tanks in order to calibrate everything. 3 in 1 ink does not do it for me.
So what is your volume.?
If you are printing small volumes at a time then I would simply do a single print run at the correct size you need and then pin the images above the monitor and make adjustments to each image. Reprint and see if that works.
Use the lighting that you are in..and also look at the images in daylight. Change bulbs if necessary.....incandescent or fluorescent can increase red or blue. Look for a daylight lighting.
If you are going to send out 'Printing'; each firm has a 'difference' in their colours so hunt out 'Free offers to new customers' and send the same images to different firms and see which 'difference' you favour.(you cannot use random images for this test)

If you have a local printer - go talk to them and see if they can help you 'define' the colour range for your images and what changes they can do to help provide a 'standard' should your images be off a little. They are the experts so pick their brains.....

Printing is a whole new ball game....It is worth searching the web for inspiration.

Have fun

10MPlayer Loc: California

I have found this to be true. I have a monitor I plug into my laptop for editing photos. I keep it calibrated so I get what I see when I print. When I have my monitor plugged in the colors are much more subdued and less bright than what appears on the laptop monitor. But when I print, what I see on the monitor is what I get on paper. If I do a quick print using the laptop monitor, adjusting the images so they look okay on it, the prints come out dark. For some reason, I can't seem to get two calibration profiles, one for the laptop and another for the monitor. It seems the Spyder software will only store one profile. OR maybe I don't know how to do it..

What others have said about setting up the correct paper profile in the printing driver is important. Different papers have different properties as to how much the inks spread and flow.

TonyBot

Ideally, your monitor will be in a location where the light is consistent, day an night. For most of us, this is not practical, so using a calibration device that adjusts the monitor to the ambient light is going to help - but will not necessarily be perfect every time, especially if the main source of light in the room is a window to the outside. If you're using a laptop and its screen, being in the same location whenever you edit/print would be helpful. Before I got a calibration device, I would almost always increase the "exposure" slider about 15 to 20 percent (in Mac's Photos). Since then, almost always it is WYSIWYG.
That said, when in LR, the slider print adjustment and contrast at about 20% seems to work best, *when and if I use it at all*.

Good calibration devices can be had for around $100, and they will save you lots of $ in printing. (I still, however, make a "proof" print on a similar paper in 4x6 or 5x7 size and compare it to what is on the screen - especially if the results are going to be displayed. Usually they're pretty close or right on, and rarely way off.)

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Profile your display, and edit in a darkened room for best results. You should use a white clipping point of 80 cda/m² which you can set in the profiling tool's software. The laptop screen is too bright as it is, probably around 120 cda/m² or brighter.

DO NOT calibrate for the ambient lighting conditions during editing. In a bright room you will set your display too bright, and you will make the problem worse. As far as not profiling a laptop because of inconsistent results because of changes in viewing angles - this really only applies to older laptops. Many newer laptops have IPS displays which have wide viewing angles without sacrificing image consistency.

A good profiling tool will run around $250 or so, though you can get a cheap one for around $100. The main difference is the speed of calibration and, more importantly, the "granularity" of the adjustments. You may want to adjust a level by a value of 7 but with the cheaper devices you will have to make a choice between 5 or 10. The $250 device will let you achieve better accuracy. Also, if you see yourself getting an external display with a programmable LUT (color Look Up Table) then the least expensive device that will properly profile those displays would be the Xrite i1 Display Pro, which is around $250. None of the DataColor options offer a means to program the LUT in the display.