Advice on Settings, workflow etc to use a commerical printing service.

[headworx]

Hi All,

This is probably an age old question so forgive me if its already been covered.

Recently I had some 12x10" prints done at one of the popular online services and when they came back, they were darker than I expected.

My fault - I'd bought a new monitor and the brightness was at 100%.

So now, I've dropped the brightness down of the digital picture to what it looks like in the print (or as close as). It would have been below 0% but I've now set the monitor brightness to 15% just so Windows etc looks acceptable, so I'm aware there will be a slight difference but I'm more at the starting our end for printing so willing to allow for a bit of tolerance.

Obviously before I do any more printing I just wanted to list what I've done so far to see if I'm missing out on anything:

Monitor (Dell S2721DS) is set to 8 bit RGB, profile as standard, and is running at its native resolution at 75hz.

Colour Profile for monitor added in Windows and monitor Driver also added.

Now I don't want to go down the extreme route as they will just be family pics hanging on the wall but just wondering what else I can do that's reasonable.

I'm not really in a position to get the monitor properly calibrated just yet, so would my next task be to get a test print done and see if that comes closer to the monitor pic I'm seeing?

I use Lightroom and RAW files from my Canon 90D. I usually export to jpeg for printing and the colour space is set to SRGB in Lightroom to export with Resolution set as 240PPI (should this be changed to 300PPI?) and I set the image size to not go over 10MB.

I know I really need to look into adjusting Raw files as they are literally what the sensor sees, so I need to sharpen etc. But I will worry about that part a bit more when I progress. This particular print in question was a picture that was provided to me after a photo session, so should have most of the Post Processing done.

The other thing I've considered is the place I'm printing them at, some will make changes that they see fit (brightness/colour) etc. and others make no changes and expect you to have done all of that. So perhaps an auto enhance may have messed this up a little? I'm also aware, some of the more in depth places will ask for their printer profile to be added before you upload the picture, I presume this is for colour accuracy.

Thanks for reading and especially if you can take the time to reply. I have tried to provide enough info without waffling too much but happy to provide more if required.

I do have access to Photoshop too so if I'd get better results from that, please let me know, but I find Lightroom a very good photo organiser with ability to do subtle changes without having to fully learn Photoshop as that is a beast.

 

[the-ninth]

So now, I've dropped the brightness down of the digital picture to what it looks like in the print (or as close as). It would have been below 0% but I've now set the monitor brightness to 15% just so Windows etc looks acceptable, so I'm aware there will be a slight difference but I'm more at the starting our end for printing so willing to allow for a bit of tolerance.

That is already a very good first step to get what you see on screen closer to the monitor. 80-100 cd/m2 is what is generally recommended. Some monitors can also set the color temperature, where 5000K is the standard for printing versus the 6500K most monitors use as standard. In theory you could also set the monitor color temperature to the temperature of the light the print will be viewed under, but in practice that is rarely feasible.

I'm not really in a position to get the monitor properly calibrated just yet, so would my next task be to get a test print done and see if that comes closer to the monitor pic I'm seeing?

Your next task should really be to get you in the position to properly profile and calibrate your monitor. Unless you do that, everything you'll edit for print will be guesswork. If you don't want to spend the money for a profiling device, see if there is a local camera club that might lend you one - you only need it once every few months.

I use Lightroom and RAW files from my Canon 90D. I usually export to jpeg for printing and the colour space is set to SRGB in Lightroom to export with Resolution set as 240PPI (should this be changed to 300PPI?) and I set the image size to not go over 10MB.

Sounds good, except the limit to 10 MB. Why do that?

The other thing I've considered is the place I'm printing them at, some will make changes that they see fit (brightness/colour) etc. and others make no changes and expect you to have done all of that. So perhaps an auto enhance may have messed this up a little? I'm also aware, some of the more in depth places will ask for their printer profile to be added before you upload the picture, I presume this is for colour accuracy.

Installing their printer's ICC profile will do nothing by itself, but you can then use Lightroom's soft proof function to get a view on your image that is closer to how it will look in print .

I do have access to Photoshop too so if I'd get better results from that, please let me know, but I find Lightroom a very good photo organiser with ability to do subtle changes without having to fully learn Photoshop as that is a beast.

Lightroom has everything you need at this point for good prints, don't worry about Photoshop.

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

Recently I had some 12x10" prints done at one of the popular online services and when they came back, they were darker than I expected.

My fault - I'd bought a new monitor and the brightness was at 100%.

So now, I've dropped the brightness down of the digital picture to what it looks like in the print (or as close as).

I realize you probably don't have the hardware, but most of us who calibrate and profile our monitors and print or have prints made find that the monitor needs to be set to somewhere in the 80 to 120 cd/m^2 range, which is fairly dim in an age when typical new monitors are specified as having maximum brightnesses in the 300 to 400 cd/m^2 range. FWIW, on my monitors the calibration system typically ends up with brightness around 20 to 30% of maximum and contrast at 70 to 90% of maximum.

I use Lightroom and RAW files from my Canon 90D. I usually export to jpeg for printing and the colour space is set to SRGB in Lightroom to export with Resolution set as 240PPI (should this be changed to 300PPI?) and I set the image size to not go over 10MB.

The website of the popular online service you used will almost surely have specific guidelines, and following them is likely your best bet. Matters more than the ppi setting is having the right pixel dimensions, to a degree. If you're getting an 8x10" print and the service's printer is 300 ppi, then the need roughly (it's actually a bit more) 2400 x 3000 pixels. I'd send them that. But if you're ordering a print needing more pixels than your 90D supplies, then typically I think you'll get as good or better results if you let the service do the upsampling--just export from Lightroom with no resampling.

However, having the right ppi setting does affect Lightroom's output sharpening, if you use that. I'd be surprised if 240 ppi is optimal, with 300 ppi being more common, although I think Mpix uses 250 ppi printers. Most require sRGB but some will accept Adobe RGB or even others--again, check the website.