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Thread: Printing Woes

  1. #1
    Senior Member Dave Throgmartin's Avatar
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    Printing Woes

    I put in an order to one of the online printing labs while 11x14s were cheap for an upcoming local competition and the images are quite a bit too dark. I don't print terribly often and am not that well versed in printing.

    Does what looks good on my monitor for day to day computing not print well? I printed glossy. I'm having trouble figuring out if its the act of printing that makes my images too dark or if I edit them too dark.

    Dave

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Kayaker72's Avatar
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    Best thing you can do is calibrate your monitor.

    For my eye, your images are fine.

    I sent about 10 photos to 4 labs a few years ago. MPIX came out a solid half to full stop darker than the others. Quality was there otherwise.

    But I ended up with Adoramapix in that test. Been happy with them since.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Dave Throgmartin's Avatar
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    Spyder? Or something else?

    Dave

  4. #4
    Super Moderator Kayaker72's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Throgmartin View Post
    Spyder? Or something else?

    Dave
    It depends on how much you want to get into it and how good your monitor is.

    I've ended up with the X-Rite i1 Display Pro. I do really like it. I also have the Spyder5Pro. X-rite also has the colormonkey. When I did my winter research project on my monitor I ended up concluding the i1 Display Pro had some extra functionality over the other two, so I ended up picking it up. As I remember, this was a bit more control over the process, ability to assess multiple zones of the monitor (once you get into this, monitor panels are not uniform), and a few other things.

    But, really, any of them will check and help you adjust monitor brightness.

    Also, as I write this a few things I learned when going through updating my monitor, most monitors out of the box are intentionally "hot." Bright, intense colors, etc. If I recall correctly, they typically come out 180-200 lumens (candela/m2) whereas they'll probably have you calibrate down to ~120 lumens.

    Not sure if it will help, but I often create threads as I work through and learn on these little research projects.

    https://community.the-digital-pictur...ead.php?t=8418

    I may have had a different thread on this process too as this one does not include everything I remember going through, but I can't find the other thread.

  5. #5
    Senior Member Dave Throgmartin's Avatar
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    Thanks, it is a helpful thread.

    Dave

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