Skiextreme2 Loc: Northwest MA

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

You are missing the point. If the image is too dark it will print dark regardless of who or what prints it.

bweber Loc: Newton, MA

This is the correct answer. I use a Colormunki to celebrate my monitor and set it to 90 CDA. This matches the brightness rating of most of the papers I use. The monitor is a little dark for other work, but I can change the brightness from the keyboard and reset it from the keyboard when I want to print photos.

StevenG Loc: Long Island, NY

I agree with everyone who suggests that your monitor is to bright. As was suggested, setting the brightness on the monitor to about four bars should help significantly. In addition, when I print from Lightroom, I set the brightness to 10, and the contrast to 3. This adds a touch more brightness. And, as has been mentioned, make sure your monitor is calibrated. It is difficult to get the final print to match the vibrance of a backlit screen. However, I find that these simple steps work pretty well for me.
Steve

Bushpilot Loc: Minnesota

All good suggestions. It seems most folks that don't do a lot of photo editing have their monitor set too bright. I would at least start out by setting the monitor brightness to match that finished print, then do another print in your photo editor software setting the brightness the way you want it, print that one and see if it is closer to what you see on your monitor.

BebuLamar

In my opinion if you send the lab a JPEG image then all of them should produce prints very close to each other right? So the problem is really with the screen calibration.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

Are you printing from a laptop? Remember that the screen gets darker the more angled back it is. I was told by a computer geek that I should use the monitor straight up and down to adjust my pictures for dark/bright. I found that didn't work so I literally played with the angle of the monitor until I found a match. And he showed me how to adjust the brightness on my large monitor so that it wasn't too bright.

Goldyrock

You might want to subscribe to Jose Rodriquez's website. He is very good with Canon and Epson printers. He has many YouTube videos that would be helpful to you. His website is Jtoolman. He will answer questions.

Hyperhad Loc: Thunder Bay, Canada

I made lots of mistakes when I first began colour printing digital images. It is not a quick process to learn. Use the resources mentioned in this post.

Once you gain some proficiency at printing, take a look at all the different types of papers available. There is such a variety, from canvas to metallic finishes. There is always a learning curve when you first start printing your own images. It is so satisfying when you see that print slowly making its way out of the printer, and it looks fantastic! Learn and enjoy!

P.S. You'll need deep pockets! Ink is expensive, and so it paper. While I was still teaching, I found hand-made (in Japan) paper, made from Mulberry bushes. It was $25.00 for one sheet. No test prints there!

Enjoy this very satisfying part of digital photography!

jak86094

You didn’t mention what platform (Windows or Mac) you’re printing from. Used to be that the default gamma for each platform was different...1.7 for Mac (darker) or 2.1(?) for Windows. The 1.7 screen gamma would be a darker image and you would therefore brighten the photo more in post. This is part of monitor calibration and might be worth checking along with other suggested factors.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

9 out of 10 times, this is the answer.

Right out of the box most computer monitors are way too bright to use for photo editing and adjustments. This causes you to make your prints too dark. They look fine on your screen, but not anywhere else (prints or online when viewed with a properly calibrated monitor).

They also are rarely very accurate rendering color, so will cause you to misadjust your image colors, too.

The solution is a calibration suite. That uses a "puck" that you position on the monitor to measure it's brightness and how it's rendering color. First you adjust the brightness to a more proper level, then the software runs a series of color sample tests to arrive at an accurate color profile, which is then applied to the monitor.

Monitors also gradually lose brightness and shift color rendition over time, as they age. So they need to be re-calibrated every so often. I have my Datacolor Spyder software set to remind me every 60 days... some people do it more often, others less often. 60 days works for me, but it's up to you to decide how often you want to take 15 minutes to re-calibrate.

If you do very much printing, a calibration device will save you money in wasted ink and paper (or the cost of having reprints done, if you send the work out to a printing service).

There are several different brands of calibration devices... I use a Datacolor Spyder suite (hardware puck and software) and it works well. But others seem to work fine too.

You can buy a lower cost, fairly simple calibration suite that only works on a computer screen... or one that can be used on CRTs, flat screen TVs of various types, projectors, etc. Some, like the one I use, can even read prints to help calibrate one's printer with custom profiles (used to "softproof" images prior to printing). I mostly use OEM inks and papers and printing processes that provide good profiles, so rarely need that feature. But it's there if I want to use it.

Pixie Jackie Loc: New Hampshire seacoast

Hi Thomas -- I have a Canon Pixma Pro-100 also. Before you try all the calibrating, etc. do some test prints with only Canon papers. I have found that I always get good results with Canon paper because it's "dedicated" to their printers. They seem to understand and "talk" to each other. There are other brands that work well also, (especially the expensive papers) but you have to be sure that you set the correct Profile for each particular paper. However, there was one package of paper (forgot what brand it was) that I tried several times and the prints would ALWAYS come out too dark. I finally gave up on it and threw the package away. -- Jackie