Monitor suggestion?

I am shopping for a new monitor. I am NOT a professional, I do retouch my own photos, I have 50 years worth of old pix that I am restoring. My Viewsonic VP930b is not corresponding with my printer profiles that were made, the prints are coming out very dark

I have:

Calibrated the monitor using the Spyder Pro 3

Used Spyder Print to do a printer profile.

The result: The colors are very good and match however, the monitor is showing a beautiful bright picture in Photoshop, but the prints are very dark. I am wondering if my monitor is going bad? I am working with Data Color right now to solve this issue.

I need a suggestion for a monitor that will be a good choice but under $300.00. I can't justify spending more than that for home use.

Thanks

First thing I would check is the brightness setting of your monitor. Could you possibly have it set too bright? That is the most common cause of dark prints. Your bright monitor is causing you to adjust the exposure of the image too dark. A normal brightness to use for image editing is 120 cd/m2. Potentially your Spyder3Pro should help you adjust the brightness properly?

As for a new monitor in your price range I would suggest you consider the Asus PA248Q and the Dell U2412M. At the same price I would pick the Asus over the Dell as it comes factory calibrated. I have the PA248Q and have the brightness turned down to 20% to get approximately 120 cd/m2. That shows you how easy it is to adjust a monitor too bright. Most monitors will be way too bright if you have them set near the maximum brightness.

What intensity to set your monitor depends on your working conditions and your eyesight. It can range from 80 cd/m² for a dimly lit room with no windows, to 160 cd/m² for a brightly illuminated room with daylight through windows.

What I would try first would be printing a standard printer evaluation test image, totally unedited, and see if that comes out too dark: http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html

Brian A

Marni said:

I am shopping for a new monitor. I am NOT a professional, I do retouch my own photos, I have 50 years worth of old pix that I am restoring. My Viewsonic VP930b is not corresponding with my printer profiles that were made, the prints are coming out very dark

I have:

Calibrated the monitor using the Spyder Pro 3

Used Spyder Print to do a printer profile.

The result: The colors are very good and match however, the monitor is showing a beautiful bright picture in Photoshop, but the prints are very dark. I am wondering if my monitor is going bad? I am working with Data Color right now to solve this issue.

I need a suggestion for a monitor that will be a good choice but under $300.00. I can't justify spending more than that for home use.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Below you will se some very good suggestions for two other very experienced members.

Your problem is your monitor is TOO bright. A monitor is displaying a back lit image which is naturally going to be perceived as much brighter than the print which is viewed by frontal reflected light and will ALWAYS appear darker. The apparent Brightness of a print will also be affected by the intensity of the viewing light.

In dim room light it will always appear darker than by the black lit or transmitted light of a monitor.

SO you need to lower your monitor brightness depending on your editing room's ambient light level.

If your room is relatively bright you can set it to 120 cd/m2. Higher if the room is very bright. In my dark editing environment I use 80 cd/m2

During your monitor calibration you would choose the luminosity level that will ultimately be correct.

Assuming your are editing on a too bright monitor, you would then be moved to darken your images to what appears to be correct. They will then obviously print dark.

That is what is happening to you.

CAPPED FOR ENPHASIS!

I SURELY HOPE YOU DID NOT SAVE YOUR EDITIED IMAGES ( EDITIED IN YOUR TOO BIGHT MONITOR 0 BACK ONTO THEMSELVES!!!! If you did they are permanently ruined.

Of course that all assumes that if you are using printer ICC profiles you are also turning off ALL color management within the printer's Driver!!!! Only allowing the editing application to control or map all colors, hues and densities through the ICC profile for the paper you have chosen to print on.

I have a link to my video channel listed below. You might want to take a look a some of my videos which should clarify all of this for you.

Specially the Color Management three part video.

Joe

Thank you all!!!

I did calibrate the monitor in a dim room and Spyder 3 pro wanted the brightness brought down to 80 which I did, but the prints were still dark. The contrast within the VP903b shows 70 and the brightness is at 72 as well, so I made those adjustments while profiling. I also profiled again using different lighting and the prints were still dark.

I am using Inkjetfly CISS system for my printer, Epson 1400. I profiled the prints on the paper I use which is Costco. I disabled all the drivers in startup menu. I DO think there might be a conflict somewhere as when I printed the print in Spyderprint using the new profile, the quadrant printed rather well, I don't know where the conflict could be coming from I use the following if printing in OTHER than Photoshop. If printing in Photoshop then I disable the print in Epson.

Paper: Premium Glossy

High Speed: Off

ICM

Driver CM Basic

Input Profile SRGB IEC61966-2.1 (However I have tried Adobe RGB 1998 as well

Intent Perceptual, I have tried others

Printer Profile: The name of my profile that I saved.

I just don't understand why these prints are so dark. In Spyder print I used the "patch" setting so I could go very slow to make sure I hit each mark.

But have you printed a standard test image using the profile? There is no way to tell if the profile is any good unless you print an image that is known to be good. The image from the link I provided is in ProPhotoRGB (so you cannot have the driver manage color) and should be printed using relative colorimetric first, and if that is ok, then perceptual second.

Brian A

Hugowolf said:

But have you printed a standard test image using the profile? There is no way to tell if the profile is any good unless you print an image that is known to be good. The image from the link I provided is in ProPhotoRGB (so you cannot have the driver manage color) and should be printed using relative colorimetric first, and if that is ok, then perceptual second.

Brian A

Click to expand...

Thanks Brian

I am going to do that today, I will let you know how it turns out.

I printed the test image and have made the following observations, now of course, I am a total layman and this is just off the top of my head.

The background on the children, instead of white they printed more with a purplish white. The picture of the teardrop arch shot, the blue is more purple, the red/orange is perfectly aligned to the monitor color, the quadrant with the cd/remote is purpleish cast. The grey gradient is purple cast at 14, 16, 18.

The overall tone seems purple, so something is off, but I don't know what.

What do you suggest?

Marni said:

I printed the test image and have made the following observations, now of course, I am a total layman and this is just off the top of my head.

The background on the children, instead of white they printed more with a purplish white. The picture of the teardrop arch shot, the blue is more purple, the red/orange is perfectly aligned to the monitor color, the quadrant with the cd/remote is purpleish cast. The grey gradient is purple cast at 14, 16, 18.

The overall tone seems purple, so something is off, but I don't know what.

What do you suggest?

Click to expand...

If you are sure your workflow is good: nozzle check print is good, Photoshop manages color, the correct profile selected, relative colorimetric with black point compensation (BPC shouldn't) matter for this purpose, and all color management turned off in the printer's dialog; then you probably have a poor quality profile.

However, the original print you posted is very dark. Is the test image also dark?

I have never been enamored with Datacolor products.

Brian A

The test image actually looks good other than it having the purple color cast.

I have disabled all the color management in startup, the only workflow I have is the profile I made, I was printing in a program without photoshop even involved, so I know the only settings were the ones that I chose via my printer profile.

I just don't know how to get rid of the cast, could there be a driver somewhere that I am missing? Why would there be purple in the blacks and greys? The test print is proving that I must have a setting wrong? Can I just profile blacks in Spyder???? I wonder if I should use the extended grey's in a new profile? It might not be the best, Datacolor, but it's what I have and I must be able to use it and make it right. Thanks so much!!!!! I appreciate all the help.

Marni said:

The test image actually looks good other than it having the purple color cast.

I have disabled all the color management in startup, the only workflow I have is the profile I made, I was printing in a program without photoshop even involved, so I know the only settings were the ones that I chose via my printer profile.

I just don't know how to get rid of the cast, could there be a driver somewhere that I am missing? Why would there be purple in the blacks and greys? The test print is proving that I must have a setting wrong? Can I just profile blacks in Spyder???? I wonder if I should use the extended grey's in a new profile? It might not be the best, Datacolor, but it's what I have and I must be able to use it and make it right. Thanks so much!!!!! I appreciate all the help.

Click to expand...

that you used to print the Spyder ICC generation scan patch target prints as when you print a photo using that Spyder ICC profile.

What I'm getting at is you would need to make all your driver settings with the correct final paper type, turn off color management, print the patches, scan them, generate the ICC profile, then print your photo to that same paper with the same driver settings and you should have great results. You can't set the driver settings one way to generate the ICC profile and then change them to another paper or not have color mangement turned off/on correctly. Purple casts usually mean double profiling.



Bob P.

I am printing in a program called Microsoft Publisher. I am using the profile I created, it's called Take 3. I printed in this program so I would not have any other program trying to control the color, it was only the printer and I changed the parameters to the following:

The settings look like this:

Premium Photo Paper Glossy

High speed : OFF

ICM is selected

ICM MODE: ICM (Basic)

Input Profile sRGB IEC61966 2.1 (I tried others as well.)

Intent Perceptual (I have tried others)

Printer Profile : Take 3, this is the profile I created.

So I don't know how I could be double profiling?

I'm 99% sure that ICM should be 'off'. thats where the double profiling is coming in. You're telling the driver to apply sRGB in addition to whatever else.

Howard Moftich said:

I'm 99% sure that ICM should be 'off'. thats where the double profiling is coming in. You're telling the driver to apply sRGB in addition to whatever else.

Click to expand...

If I turn ICM off, I have no options to select a profile, here is a screen shot.

Marni said:

Howard Moftich said:

I'm 99% sure that ICM should be 'off'. thats where the double profiling is coming in. You're telling the driver to apply sRGB in addition to whatever else.

Click to expand...

If I turn ICM off, I have no options to select a profile, here is a screen shot.

Click to expand...

I am pretty sure MS Publisher isn't color managed, there is no way to do this without a color managed app.

Brian A

Marni said:

I am printing in a program called Microsoft Publisher. I am using the profile I created, it's called Take 3. I printed in this program so I would not have any other program trying to control the color, it was only the printer and I changed the parameters to the following:

The settings look like this:

Premium Photo Paper Glossy

High speed : OFF

ICM is selected

ICM MODE: ICM (Basic)

Input Profile sRGB IEC61966 2.1 (I tried others as well.)

Intent Perceptual (I have tried others)

Printer Profile : Take 3, this is the profile I created.

So I don't know how I could be double profiling?

Click to expand...

Ah but you ARE double profiling after all!!!

ICM should OFF!!!!

Does MS Publisher even allow color managed workflow like and Image editor does? Where do you even get to choose a ICC profile within Publisher?

Joe

Marni said:

Howard Moftich said:

I'm 99% sure that ICM should be 'off'. thats where the double profiling is coming in. You're telling the driver to apply sRGB in addition to whatever else.

Click to expand...

If I turn ICM off, I have no options to select a profile, here is a screen shot.

Click to expand...

BUT you are not tuning off color management. ICM should OFF!!!!

Then and only then can your tell your Photo editor to print through a custom or Canned ICM / ICC profile. Otherwise you will double profile and your will get dark results with a color cast.

Joe

Joe

--
MY VIDEO CHANNEL. PRINTING and personal videos.

Hugowolf said:

Marni said:

Howard Moftich said:

I'm 99% sure that ICM should be 'off'. thats where the double profiling is coming in. You're telling the driver to apply sRGB in addition to whatever else.

Click to expand...

If I turn ICM off, I have no options to select a profile, here is a screen shot.

Click to expand...

I am pretty sure MS Publisher isn't color managed, there is no way to do this without a color managed app.

Brian A

Click to expand...

That is correct. Not much one can do in this case to control color casts and non linear neutrality.

You can use the manual color correction within the driver and hope for the best but it will never be perfect.

Joe

Gosh I hope you are right. Here is a screen shot of Photoshop 7, I have it and Elements. Is this the right setup if I am printing from there and then choose OFF in my Epson, don't color manage?

Marni said:

Gosh I hope you are right. Here is a screen shot of Photoshop 7, I have it and Elements. Is this the right setup if I am printing from there and then choose OFF in my Epson, don't color manage?

Click to expand...

It is a document, not a proof.

Brian A