Screen color vs Printed color

[Connie]

I am trying to understand why my prints look so dark. I use Elements 6
and Photoshop CS2. On my screen, I like the skin tones, but when my
prints come out, the skin tones are so much darker. I do not remember
my old Canon i850 being so different. I now print wirelessly to a
Canon Pixma MX860. I am sure it is a settings thing, but cannot figure
what and where.

[Paul Coones]

Connie

I had the same trouble.
I'm sure it's because the Mac's overall display is so much brighter
than PC screens.
And if your printer is basically a PC printer, it's set up to print a
certain way.

There are two solutions to these dark printouts.

1. You can set the Mac screen darker in preferences. That way you'll
have to lighten up the screen view of the photos to make it appear
perfect. Then it will print out lighter.

2. In Photoshop edit the photos to as light as you can get it, then
only darken till the details show up on white parts of the photo.
Lighten the dark areas until you can just the texture of the dark
part. Too much and the black areas will appear blotchy in printouts.
Also Saturation needs to be lightened until the color is almost none.
Over Saturation is very bad for dark printouts.

Make test prints to see how you're doing.
Write down the settings IE: lightness = -5 or darkness = -2 or
saturation = - 20 etc. ( not real settings )

Some printer drivers have an adjustment for color adjustments.

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[Rory Bowman]

Color management is a huge issue and there are a variety of ways it
can be addressed. The simplest and least expensive is to play with a
few things and get a "feel" for the difference between your printer
and the screen. One can also adjust screen color to match the page
more closely, and higher-end printers have built in color profiles
using standards such as ICC and ColorSync profiles.

It would surprise me if the Canon Pixma MX860 had a lot of these
options available to it, so I would begin by identifying a few key
pictures to use as models and borrowing a few different pages of photo
paper (from different manufacturers) to see if that makes a
difference. Results are usually better when printer and inks and paper
are all from the same manufacturer, generally speaking. The quickest
solution for casual home users is usually to work with the specific
program you are using and the Display preferences for Color (Advanced).

It will help in any learning/adjustment phase to select a few
characteristic photos to work with, and to methodically approach
those. Sometimes the answer is as simple as adjusting contrast or
brightness on the Mac display.

On Feb 7, 2010, at 7:15 AM, Connie wrote: