Printing Color Problem

[SCoombs]

My monitor is calibrated. I have calibrated it using the latest Calibrite Display Pro. I've run it through both Calibrite's own software, which actually seemed buggy and was hard to get to finish, as well as DisplayCal, which worked well. Because Calibrite's software really didn't work (on my Windows 10 computer) I am using DisplayCal's.

Now working in Lightroom and Photoshop, things looks good. When opening exported photos in Windows or other photo viewers, they don't look the same, about which Calibrite's FAQs says:

"Windows picture viewer and some web applications do not fully support Color Management systems. Some of the applications do not support the latest ICC profiling corrections and due to this the images appear darker than normal."

Of course I am not using Calibrite's profile and DisplayCal gives me a file that is .icm, not .icc, but truly I don't really care if Windows Photo viewer is displaying my photos according to my monitor's calibration,so I haven't worried about it.

The problem is that when I am printing to the print lab, I am getting results that look a lot more similar to what Windows photo viewer shows than what I see in Lightroom or Photoshop. Everything is printing really a lot greener than it looks in PS/LR with my calibrated monitor. This is true even for very "controlled" photos where I haven't done any color editing but have simply taken what the camera gave, like photos lit with flash, white balanced to that. and then not doing much more to it.

What can I do to fix this problem?

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

My monitor is calibrated. I have calibrated it using the latest Calibrite Display Pro. I've run it through both Calibrite's own software, which actually seemed buggy and was hard to get to finish, as well as DisplayCal, which worked well. Because Calibrite's software really didn't work (on my Windows 10 computer) I am using DisplayCal's.

Now working in Lightroom and Photoshop, things looks good. When opening exported photos in Windows or other photo viewers, they don't look the same, about which Calibrite's FAQs says:

"Windows picture viewer and some web applications do not fully support Color Management systems. Some of the applications do not support the latest ICC profiling corrections and due to this the images appear darker than normal."
Of course I am not using Calibrite's profile and DisplayCal gives me a file that is .icm, not .icc, but truly I don't really care if Windows Photo viewer is displaying my photos according to my monitor's calibration,so I haven't worried about it.

The problem is that when I am printing to the print lab, I am getting results that look a lot more similar to what Windows photo viewer shows than what I see in Lightroom or Photoshop. Everything is printing really a lot greener than it looks in PS/LR with my calibrated monitor. This is true even for very "controlled" photos where I haven't done any color editing but have simply taken what the camera gave, like photos lit with flash, white balanced to that. and then not doing much more to it.

What can I do to fix this problem?

The Windows 10 - 11 Photos app is not color-managed, even though e.g. the older Windows Photo Viewer from Windows 7 was / is. Shame on Microsoft (for that and 17,284 other things).

But I suspect that one root cause of all your problems may be that you're exporting the files encoded in some color working space other than sRGB, or at least you're not getting the space embedded or at least tagged. If you export a file encoded in ProPhoto RGB or even Adobe RGB and display it in software that does not handle that properly, then it will look bad. If you get prints of a file encoded in ProPhoto RGB or even Adobe RGB from a service that requires everything to be in sRGB and/or simply assumes that it is, then it will look bad.

Now this last part is trickier: even software that is color-managed and correctly handles files encoded in different color spaces can do different things when exporting such files, and some of them can cause trouble. The software can (1) not even tag the image in metadata to identify the color working space in which it's encoded, (2) correctly tag the working space but not embed it, or (3) both tag and embed it (which increases file size a bit). Suppose you export an image encoded in ProPhoto RGB, and then try to use that exported image file in software that is color-managed. In situation (1), the next software will have no way to tell that it's in ProPhoto RGB, probably assume it's in sRGB, and interpret in incorrectly. In situation (2), the next software will know it's in ProPhoto RGB but only be able to interpret it incorrectly if it has, or has access to, a ProPhoto RGB file (.icc or .icm). In situation (3), everything should be fine. I've encountered this issue with software that should 'know better'. And FWIW, of the software I've used regularly, Affinity Photo is the best about explicitly raising this issue and giving you appropriate options.

 

[SCoombs]

My monitor is calibrated. I have calibrated it using the latest Calibrite Display Pro. I've run it through both Calibrite's own software, which actually seemed buggy and was hard to get to finish, as well as DisplayCal, which worked well. Because Calibrite's software really didn't work (on my Windows 10 computer) I am using DisplayCal's.

Now working in Lightroom and Photoshop, things looks good. When opening exported photos in Windows or other photo viewers, they don't look the same, about which Calibrite's FAQs says:

"Windows picture viewer and some web applications do not fully support Color Management systems. Some of the applications do not support the latest ICC profiling corrections and due to this the images appear darker than normal."
Of course I am not using Calibrite's profile and DisplayCal gives me a file that is .icm, not .icc, but truly I don't really care if Windows Photo viewer is displaying my photos according to my monitor's calibration,so I haven't worried about it.

The problem is that when I am printing to the print lab, I am getting results that look a lot more similar to what Windows photo viewer shows than what I see in Lightroom or Photoshop. Everything is printing really a lot greener than it looks in PS/LR with my calibrated monitor. This is true even for very "controlled" photos where I haven't done any color editing but have simply taken what the camera gave, like photos lit with flash, white balanced to that. and then not doing much more to it.

What can I do to fix this problem?

The Windows 10 - 11 Photos app is not color-managed, even though e.g. the older Windows Photo Viewer from Windows 7 was / is. Shame on Microsoft (for that and 17,284 other things).

But I suspect that one root cause of all your problems may be that you're exporting the files encoded in some color working space other than sRGB, or at least you're not getting the space embedded or at least tagged. If you export a file encoded in ProPhoto RGB or even Adobe RGB and display it in software that does not handle that properly, then it will look bad. If you get prints of a file encoded in ProPhoto RGB or even Adobe RGB from a service that requires everything to be in sRGB and/or simply assumes that it is, then it will look bad.

Now this last part is trickier: even software that is color-managed and correctly handles files encoded in different color spaces can do different things when exporting such files, and some of them can cause trouble. The software can (1) not even tag the image in metadata to identify the color working space in which it's encoded, (2) correctly tag the working space but not embed it, or (3) both tag and embed it (which increases file size a bit). Suppose you export an image encoded in ProPhoto RGB, and then try to use that exported image file in software that is color-managed. In situation (1), the next software will have no way to tell that it's in ProPhoto RGB, probably assume it's in sRGB, and interpret in incorrectly. In situation (2), the next software will know it's in ProPhoto RGB but only be able to interpret it incorrectly if it has, or has access to, a ProPhoto RGB file (.icc or .icm). In situation (3), everything should be fine. I've encountered this issue with software that should 'know better'. And FWIW, of the software I've used regularly, Affinity Photo is the best about explicitly raising this issue and giving you appropriate options.

I always export from Lightroom with sRGB. I just double checked several files and they are in fact sRGB.