How to correct print scans for interior viewing

I am experimenting with scanning printed images. Since prints usually look different from the original screen image I am looking for a way to create an image that looks like the print.

I have created a color profile for the scanner and now the images are almost OK, but they are too light and washed out. I suppose that the cause is that the scanner light is very strong: if I look at my prints in sunlight they look that way.

My purpose is to make the scans look like the prints when viewed in interior light that is much weaker: the print looks darker and with more contrast. I create my prints for those viewing conditions.

I am using RawTherapee 5.11 and I suppose that the correct tool is Color Appearance & Lightning in the Advanced tab, but I don’t know how to use it.

It looks like the Lightness slider under Image Adjustments is a good candidate. Lowering the lightness makes the image look like I want it to be.

There is also the Mean luminance slider (Yb%) that produces similar results, but is not so strong as the above one.

May somebody help me in finding the best tool for my purpose?

Thanks in advance.

Fulvio Senore

I use DT mostly but the dehaze tool in RT is a pretty good contrast and saturation boost…what do they look like with that…you can also choose I think a version that will impact more the contrast and not so strong on the color as it can be a pretty strong effect… I think though mastering the tool you are talking about would also help…

And make sure your screen brightness isn’t too high. That will help your editing. I keep mine at 110 cd/m2, less than half of full brightness. Adjusting L in Lab may help as well.

My scanner (a cheap Canon office scanner) uses linear light (gamma = 1) in 16-bit mode, so I use linear Rec709 as the input profile to fix the contrast issue. In 8-bit mode, it uses sRGB with the TRC applied.