Preserved Topic: Printing from Photoshop is dark... (Page 1 of 1)

Hey folks. Some help or ideas, please?

We use Photoshop 6, on a Mac Cube running OS 9.1 with a Sony Trinitron monitor and a Lexmark Z42 inkjet. The images we create are vibrant onscreen...but print out awfully dark. It doesn't matter whether I use the photographic cartridge or not; I've tinkered with the Colorsync and Adobe Gamma settings and nothing changes. Does anyone have any clue why this occurs and how to fix it?

TIA...

Church of the Bunny

My guess would be that it's not that your print is dark, rather your monitor is way bright! Default macintosh gamma is 1.8, which is much brighter than most people have things set for, and brighter than your average inkjet or color laser printer will display. You can adjust your gamma on the cube using the Monitors control panel, or if you've added it, using the "gamma" control panel that came with Photoshop. (You'll have to restart if you're just adding it now.) I'd recommend a gamma of 2.2, with the contrast of your monitor set to it's highest setting, and the brightness somewhat dark. If your goal is to create works for standard 4/color process printing, the bright gamma makes some sense, but if you'r going to be doing digital prints or displaying your work online you're better off being dark like the bulk of everyone else out there.

Your pal, -doc-

i've had similar problems, but i'm using a pc. Does anyone know of a way to adjust things using windows? Doc, anyone...

Thanks, Doc! I'll give it a try and see what happens. I'm so used to running with the bright happy Mac Force that crossing to the Dark Side will take some getting used to.

Church of the Bunny

Ain't it that your document's made in RGB mode? I believe a printer works in CMYK, which seriously kills the 'vibrant colors' you were talking about. click view>proof setup>CMYK colors in PS6.0 to see the difference. (or click image>mode>CMYK)

Ah! That makes sense too. The "Gamut", or full range of possible colors, is different in RGB from CMYK, and most inkjets are cmyk after all. There's a whole bunch of bright bright colors that simply can't be printed using CMYK, flourescent gree, certain bright reds, etc... Do check your monitor, too, though!

Your pal, -doc-

Nice Sharma Sharpie, Sharma.........

Doc, Mahjqa...

The monitor gamma adjust made no difference to the print out (even when we went in and tinkered with the photos to bring the brightness up); the reds and greens were mostly ok, but the blues were printing out as almost-black. It turned out to be the RGB/CMYK thing. All of our stuff has been in RGB; I switched to CMYK, tinkered to get the colors right again, and it prints out mostly fine. Thanks...and you weren't kidding about CMYK killing the vibrant colors.

We're back to the Mac 1.8 gamma now, much to the relief of our eyes and brilliant display. We'll never fall to the Dark Side. We are Jedi, as our computers before us.

Thanks again! And if anyone wants to see the images in question...
http://home.columbus.rr.com/vpchrispv/journey/scarab3.jpg http://home.columbus.rr.com/vpchrispv/journey/colorspirit3.jpg

They're primitive, but we like them.

Chris


Church of the Bunny

hey, thanks jake