So, a quick difference between screen and print that no one’s mentioned yet, specifically about how the images end up looking darker in print. Its not necessarily a solution, just something to keep in mind:
Screens produce color in RGB color space with light. Printers use CMYK color space and use pigments to produce the colors. That’s already a huge translation that needs to happen. I personally found that sRGB will always end up looking darker when printed out without calibration on both end. Without the option to fully convert GIMP files to CMYK profiles, you’re gonna be fighting with hardware.
I am not a developer and I don’t know any software language, but have you tried color calibrating your printer to your monitor to your camera and back again? Something something drivers?
FWIW, I work for a commercial printer and I just hand my native files to the production team with a ‘plzkthx’, but I’ve had to repeatedly ask them to lighten images with sRGB profiles for print after proof rounds, no matter how they look on any monitor. Often I’ve had to specifically reduce yellows too, which could account for your green problem if your browns are cool toned. (which would include the cyans during printing)
Adobe RGB does a bit better, but its not the same as being able to work in CMYK.
Additionally, paper brands dont matter as much as paper coating. Gloss vs semi gloss vs matte vs lustre vs uncoated will all produce slightly different colors, but overall it comes down to how your printer reads the color profiles being sent to it.
I don’t mean to comment spam, so I’m just gonna edit this one. I had two beers and then another questions.
What file type are you sending to your printer? What settings are you exporting it with?
I have calibrated my monitor but I haven’t made a custom profile for the printer/paper.
I’ve pretty well figured out that printers are quite different from monitors. It would also be fair to say that both printers and monitors can be quite different from other devices of the same type.
Given that so much picture viewing is done on monitors that very wildly in characteristic it seems that there exists some futility when it comes to trying to develop an image for such an audience. At least prints end up in a final form that is the same for everyone. Of course it would also be fair to say that human vision varies a fair amount as well but as best I can tell nobody is yet trying to factor this into the formula.
I’m still struggling with workflow but presently I’m creating both a tif and a jpg for finished product. Intention being that the jpg is good enough for those using unknown electronic devices to view an image whereas the tif is intended preserve as much quality as possible for archiving. The tif would also be the one selected for printing.
Your comment about coating being what matters fits well with my own findings. With some experimentation, I’ve been able to identify Canon supplied profiles that work well with my HP paper but this entailed using the profiles designated for Canon paper and not the generic ones.
Seriously, what I wonder is how to go about it when producing for display somewhere you don’t have control over it. I recently had to produce both digital and scanned photographs for my son to construct a video slide show to be displayed at our local church. I studiously made sure all my exports were converted to sRGB with a corresponding embedded ICC profile (although i was pretty sure that wouldn’t be used), but thinking sRGB gamut would be handled okay by the church projectors. Alas, it was not to be, the vivid colors, particularly reds, were posterized and crushed at the vivid extremes.
I’ve considered playing around with xyY values to make a sort of ‘subset’ sRGB profile that I could use for export in these situations, but I’m not sure how well that’d work without multiple trips to church to play my latest iterations. i wrote a C program to read a text file profile definition and use LittleCMS to construct the ICC file, so I can crank 'em out, but it may really require a LUT profile to be able to use the better rendering intents. Or something else my little brain can’t comprehend…
Son and I went to a seminar recently conducted by a well-known landscape photographer. He brought his own projector, thank you, images displayed quite nicely. I can’t afford that…
David, are you still struggling with this problem?
I just noticed this thread, and I believe that I will be quite able to complicate matters even more – this really is a quagmire!
a) Have you google’d for “why are my prints too dark”?
b) Paper qualities matter a great deal. There is an enormous difference between printing on a “photo glossy paper” and printing on a piece of newsprint (but the latter can be done!).
c) Are you on Linux, Win or what? What print manager are you using? What applications do you print from?
d) Do you own (or can borrow) a spectrophotometer?
e) What are your color management settings in Firefox?
Oh man - this is an entirely new can of worms (do you target fluorescent? tungsten? LED? incandescent? direct? diffuse? or, God forbid, have it hanging near a window and have a bulb focused on it?).
This post originated because of what I’d call gross difference in the color of a (singular) print. I was especially annoyed having just obtained a new printer to use exclusively for photos and using what I thought was high quality photo paper along with having calibrated my monitor. I’d obtained a better result using my old all-in-one office printer.
This problem was basically resolved by learning, what I’d call the hard way, what I think Brianna said. At this point, I’d offer that the profiles Canon supplies and specifies for various types of Canon photo paper work pretty well. A big part of my problem was thinking they should only be used with Canon’s paper brands. I can now say that some HP paper I’d previously obtained is indistinguishable from comparable Canon types. It now looks to me like the other profiles supplied for my printer by Canon, presumably, for use with other other brands of paper are pretty worthless. I suppose it is possible that they work with some kind of paper but how one might figure that out comes down to plain blind luck for something that might be very unlikely.
There are many other worthy ideas presented herein, which have more or less caused me to stop struggling with this problem and accept the reality that even when we go to a great deal of trouble to try and optimize the color there is still no certainty that an image is going to look the way we want when viewed by others. Even if we figured out how to accommodate that wide variety of viewing devices and conditions we then have to deal with the reality that different eyeballs perceive color differently. In this case I use the term “eyeballs” recognizing that human color perception is probably even more complicated than the technical things we’re dealing with referred to as color management.
While all of the electronics we’ve come to depend on has many advantages, reliable color rendering is not among them. It is a little disconcerting to know that I have no control over what equipment might be used to view the images I’m diligently, even if incompetently, developing. While paper prints get rid of the electronic variation it also has a very limiting effect on audience.
When it comes to the electronics problem I’ve had another experience which I think demonstrates the extent of the problem and for which I foresee no solution. If interested, *** here is a link to an issue that I posted on Microsoft’s forum that, I think, demonstrates the severity of this problem. This involves the difference in appearance associated with side by side display of the exact same image (file) on the same electronic equipment. The only thing that is different is the software used for viewing. Take a look.
Sorry about the verbosity but have enjoyed it.
*** Note: Microsoft seems to have a problem supporting some Windows versions of the Firefox browser.
Regarding your questions -
a.) I have done lots of web searches. Whether or not I’ve used that exact phrase I couldn’t say but it certainly is possible. The article you reference has been added to my reading list but I must admit I haven’t yet completed it.
b.) No doubt! I think I’ve covered some of my experience with that.
c.) I use both Linux and Windows but, at present, depend primarily on Windows 7 for my image editing. However, the idea that Rawtherapee as well as GIMP are available on both is something I especially like.
d.) No! I did buy an X-rite i1 Display Pro for calibrating my monitor. I’ve also considered buying a comparable device for printer profiling. Open to suggestions.
e.) The default. I do use Firefox (a lot) but its’ color management is not something I’ve either messed with or learned about. Maybe I need a lesson?
I do have both Rawtherapee and GIMP set up for Soft Proofing!
I think I now grasp the significance of printer profiles but for the moment I have found a combination of printer profiles and paper that seem to be delivering satisfactory, but probably not perfect, results.
David …
Oops! Overlooked the question of print managers. Not sure how you differentiate between print manager and application used for printing. I’m very dependent on the driver for my Canon Pro-100. In addition, I’ve experimented with various software for invoking that driver but find that Google Picasa has the interface I like best.
If you’re going that route, better to buy used, those instruments are expensive new. Though since I’ve purchased my colormunki photo, all my prints have been spot on. Totally worth the $500 USD to avoid that frustration.
I think Colormunki is the X-rite product. The price did add some resistance. Datacolor sells something called SpyderPrint which I can find for under $300. Any idea how they compare?
A few years back I used the Spyder family, but I consider ColorMunki Photo more in line with what I need/want. If you are lucky to find one bundled with a Graflite, go for it!
– this really is a quagmire!