Images print too dark from Photoshop CS2 and CS3

Having used both CS2 and CS3 I now realise that the prints that I work on in either appear much brighter on the screen that they do when printed, as much as 3 stops darker when printed. I have also noticed that in other programs such as Google Picasa that I use as a viewing tool the images appear closer to the images from the printer. I have used various pro-labs that require their profiles to be used and my own epson 3800 printer at home and despite trying lots of different settings I am unable to get prints that look like they do on the screen they are always darker.
I am using windows XP on a dual core 2.4 PC with 2 Gb ram and an ATI Radeon X1600 series grafix card which I have just updated the driver on. The monitor is an LCD type and is calibrated weekly using a spyder 2 express.

First isolate whether your display is too bright or your printer is too
dark. I'd start by printing images from another source and see if they
look as they should. www.drycreekphoto.com has a number of calibration
images that should do for this purpose.
Once you've isolated the problem, we can take it from there.

Similar Messages

Some images printing too dark

I have two cameras that I use with iPhoto 6.0.4. A Canon G4, and a Pentax ist D. In iPhoto both cameras have nice looking images. The images from the Canon make beautiful prints, but the Pentax images print too dark. How can I fix this? Can I set different printing preferences for each camera?

whenever I calibrate my iMac with the Spyder2 hardware, I have to calibrate it twice because I always forget to turn off the Screen Saver and the Energy Saver 'Put Screen to Sleep' option.
another important thing about calibration. where is your 'book located during the calibration? what lights or on or off? is there any direct sunlight shining on the 'book?
personally, I prefer to calibrate at night with all lights turned off. if I calibrate at day, I shut the tinted doors and turn all (fluorescent) lights off. I realise that you are supposed to calibrate under your normal lighting conditions but I prefer this method

CS3 printing too dark - works in CS2

Hi,
I've just upgraded to CS3 and everything seems to work EXCEPT printing. The pictures print but are much much too dark compared to CS2. The CS2 photoshop prints are what I see on the monitor and has worked for a couple of years.
I've tried to make all the CS3 settings the same as CS2 but I must be missing something.
I've set the print setup to:
"Let Printer determine Colors" and "relative colormetric" so that the printer applies the ICC profiles, not Photoshop.
I make sure the printer driver dialog is set to "ICC" and "relative colormetric".
I've set the "color settings" under edit to be the same as my CS2 settings.
In everything I'm using the same color spaces in CS3 that I use in CS2.
So, what have I forgotten?
Thanks

> So, Eric, you are saying we need to Convert to a space (or gamma) in
> Photoshop before Command+P -- because the Epson Adv B&W driver will
> assume a color space/gamma -- what would that assumption be based on
> (gamma of our Mac default MonitorRGB)? Assuming I am not talking
> about feeding the Epson grayscale.
Yes.
The ABW driver wants to be fed gamma 2.2-encoded image data.
This is why my standard recommendation for printing to the ABW driver __ONLY__ is to use:
Color Handling = Photoshop Manages Colors
Printer Profile = Adobe RGB
Rendering Intent = Relative Colorimetric
Black Point Compensation = Enabled
Why does this work? Because no matter what your image working space is (e.g., sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Apple RGB, ColorMatch RGB, etc.), doing this will cause your image data to be encoded in gamma 2.2 before the data gets passed off to the driver. (Adobe RGB has a gamma encoding of 2.2.)
The same workflow will work in Lightroom, too. You just need to check the "Display Profiles" checkbox in Lightroom to access Adobe RGB when selecting a printer profile.
If you are in grayscale mode instead of RGB mode, choose "Gray Gamma 2.2" instead of "Adobe RGB" for the printer profile.
However, the catch is that -- as noted in this thread -- there is currently a glitch, which we (Adobe + Apple + Epson) are investigating. One of the symptoms of that glitch is that the above suggested workflow does not work on Leopard.
> Does this CS4-Apple-Epson issue have anything to do with some users
> reporting dark prints in Photoshop Manage Color - No Color
> Adjustment Epson workflow? -- For example, someone using 1.8 gamma
> Monitor RGB...
Unlikely.

Epson prints too dark from LR on color managed MacBook Pro?

Hi all,
I have a newish MacBook Pro, calibrated with Spyder2, and printing to an Epson 2200. The prints are too dark, and don't really come close to matching the screen in LR. I've brought the images into PS2 for soft proofing, but the prints are still far too dark. It's not just out of LR, but DPP as well. I found this topic:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc44027/28
Tthat seems to describe my problem, but it seems to be Adobe-specific. Doug doesn't say if he's tried printing from other apps. I use Epson's custom profiles, which actually seem to be worse than the standard profiles that come with the driver.
A new twist seems to be that profiled jpg images with sRGB profiles exported from LR also print too dark when I had them sent out for printing, which leads me to think that my screen is not profiled correctly, or there's some weird flaw in the Mac's color management engine that skews everything.
My first question: When I profile my screen using Spyder2, I have the brightness set at maximum. Should I bring it down, and if so, how far? The Spyder2 help says use "Factory Defaults", but the MBP ships with brightness set on auto-adjust based on ambient light levels.
My second question: Are there others who have this issue? Have any of you resolved them successfully, and if so, how?
Thanks!
Timmy

Time for a reality/sanity check for those who complain that "the "prints are too dark from my Epson printer"!
If you will just reduce your monitor's white-point luminance to the range of 80-90 cd/m2 when you edit your images, it's almost certain that the problem will be solved (assuming you're not making some other error in color management setup). Many people conclude that their problem must be a generic failure or defect of Epson printers (i.e., compared to HP, etc)-- or that the Epson paper profiles are defective. Well, perhaps there's some element of truth to that conclusion--to the extent that Epson printers have evidently been designed with typical professional editing environments in mind (i.e., the low brightness levels to which "serious" printers adjust their monitors and ambient lighting). Why would they do that: Well, who wants to spend many hours each day looking at the glare of a 200 cd/m2 monitor screen (and the reflections from a brighly lighted room)?
So, for getting "monitor-matching" prints from printers such as the SP 2200, you simply need to work (edit) with your images in a more-or-less "dimly lit" room using a monitor that is properly adjusted for such a low-light environment--(i.e., the screen luminance not higher than 90-100 cd/m2). Of course even with such a reduced screen luminance, the light used for print-viewing must be sufficiently bright(**)
It's possible that your monitor cannot be adjusted to the necessary (low) luminance level--or that you haven't any means to measure the luminance level. Those are correctable hardware issues, although may require $$.
(**)please note that a fairly bright viewing light is needed for prints (made as suggested above) to appear to be a reasonably close "match" to the monitor image.
Phil

Illustrator PDFs print correctly from PC, but print too dark from Macs

Photoshop and Illustrator PDF files (CS5 & 6) print correctly from my work PC, but not either of my Macs. See below:
At work, I have a Dell PC and an iMac, at home I have a MacBook Pro.
At work there is a big office color Ricoh printer for the Dell and iMac, at home I have a Epson 3-in-one laserjet for the MacBook Pro.
Both the work and home Macs will print Illustrator/Photoshop PDFs very dark/undersaturated/off color on their relative printers, but the work PC prints them correctly.
At work, If you hold up a print of a PDF file printed from the Dell PC, and one printed from the iMac, they are completely different looking - the Dell print matches the Dell and iMac screens, but the iMac print is very dark and dull.
At work, when I open a Illustrator or Photoshop PDF on the work PC and send it to the Richo printer, it comes out perfectly matching the screen, but, if I open it on the iMac and send it to the Richo printer, it prints too dark/off color.
These are the *exact* same PDF files I am opening on both the PC and the iMac - our files are saved on a server so I'm accessing the same documents on both machines.
Also, I create the files on the iMac and save them to the server on the iMac, but if I open them on the iMac it prints too dark, and if I open them on the PC, it prints correctly.
At home on the MacBook Pro, the prints are also much darker than the screen (despite color calibration with a ColorMunki as well as following all Epson's color calibration steps) and I see a similar color problem as printing to the work printer from the work iMac.
Someone please tell me this is just a printer profile thing and I can go in somewhere on my Macs and switch something so they print the same as the PC does!
Thank you in advance for explaining why my Macs are making me pull out my hair!

the iMac it prints too dark
your print space is off on the Mac
or you are applying the wrong source profile or both
on the MacBook Pro, the prints are also much darker than the screen (despite color calibration
EDIT: sorry i misread that as your monitor was also dark, if the mac displays the problem doc proper, you are targeting a bad print space, that's where i would look...
you app is apply the wrong source profile (or your monitor profile is off)
basing the source>print space conversion on the wrong source profile could account for your printing woes
be sure you are embedding an ICC profile in your doc, are opening it in a color-managed app, and it should display properly
be sure your workflow uses the embedded profile and your printer is setup to convert to the proper printer profile
color management theory
epson workflow

Prints too dark with Photoshop Elements 10

My photos are printing out much darker than what is on the monitor display. I have calibrated the monitor and changed the color profile, color management & color space numerous times and they I cannot see any difference in the prints. I've changed the printer settings, still too dark. I have edited the photos and brightened them, still much darker than on the display. I'm using Photoshop Elements 10 with a new monitor and computer. My old computer and Adobe Photoshop CS2 program did not have this problem. Any suggestions?

Check to be sure that color is not managed both by PSE and by the printer. In editor, go to Edit>color settings and check "always manage color for computer screens." Then, go to File>print>more options (lower left in the dialog)>Color Management tab>Color handling: "Printer Manages Color."
Are drivers and firmware for your printer up to date?
Do pictures print well via other applications with your equipment?
Have you printed a file, processed in Elements, at a kiosk, such as at CVS? How does that look?
I assume that you are printing from Editor, not from Organizer. It is said that the print engines are not the same.

Print Too Small from Photoshop CS4 with HP 8500 All In One Printer

I'm running Windows XP with CS4 and latest patches and drivers. When I print an image to my HP 8500 All in one printer, the printout is too small. Instead of a centered 4 x 6 image on the page I get a 1 x 1-1/4 inch small print of the image in the upper left hand corner.
I re-installed CS3 and it works perfectly as do any other print options, such as word, etc. But from Photoshop CS4 I can find no way to print to this printer without the image shrinking in size. If I print to another printer at the same sitting, the image is fine. So it's a PS CS4 vs. HP 8500 unique problem I guess.
I've see this post in other forms and no help as yet. Does anyone have this one on their radar. I really like this printer, but it's quite annoying.
By the way, If I print to a PDF from PS CS4, the pdf file image is fine. That's another end around for printing also. HMMMM.
I did contact HP and they put the problem squarely back on Adobe. No partnership there.
Thanks,
Glen

Will the printer print from any app?
I know it sounds like a dumb question, but you didn't actually say... And I admit to looking for software problems on an occasion or two when I had forgotten to plug in cables.
-Noel

Prints too dark from Native IPad Apps

Printer : HP- Deskjet- Ink Advantage -3545
Printer Condition: Brand new : 2 days old with original cartridges
Paper : Kodak Photo paper
Device with problem : iPad 2 with iOS 7
Printing option used : AirPrint and HP-ePrint. Both options reproduced the same problems
Power Supply: Raw power
Connectivity: wireless only
Problem: Prints color photos too dark when printed from any iPad app other than Google Chrome
Investigations done by printing the very same picture from different devices
1. Printing from Computer/laptop/Pc - Color reproductions were fine
2. Printing from iPad2 - Google Chrome - Color reproductions were fine
3. Printing from iPad2- photos app - Too dark + edges get cutoff
4. Copy function from Printer - Color reproductions were fine
5. Printing from iPad2 - Photoshop Express App - Too dark + edges get cutoff
-No Paper Jams, ink bleeding/smearing , toner level issues were observed
Please provide suggestions on how this problem can be resolved.

Hello Life_Refactored,
Welcome to the HP Support Forums. I understand that when printing from two different apps on your iPad that the color is not printing correctly.
We know the printer is working fine as you are able to successfully print the same photo from your computer and from Google Chrome on your iPad and the colors are correct. You didn’t mention where in your testing that you used the HP ePrint app. I would recommend contacting the app developers (Apple for the Photo app, and Adobe for the Photoshop Express App) about why the information being sent to the printer is not sending the correct color information and cutting off the borders.
I have included the iPad Contact Support page and the Photoshop Family Community page.
Regards,
Happytohelp01
Please click on the Thumbs Up on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!
Please click “Accept as Solution ” on the post that solves your issue to help others find the solution.
I work on behalf of HP

Images printing too dark

Hello all...I'm using FrameMaker 7 to produce a .ps file, then creating a PDF with Acrobat Distiller v8. The newsletter we're printing has images that are darker than the jpeg's used, they're displaying fine in Frame and the PDF. This process had been working fine until I upgraded to Distiller v8. I'm trying various different settings, inc Optimise for Portability in Frame, nothing's worked so far to improve the situation. What about RGB and CYMK settings in Distiller. Using Press Quality.

It is the same AI/PDF file.
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 11:01:23 -0800
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Problems printing from iMac
    Re: Problems printing from iMac
    created by Jacob Bugge in Illustrator - View the full discussion
Sudzy,
Is it the same AI/PDF file or are there two, created on either computer?
In the latter case, there may be different Color Settings/calibration/something of the kind.
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           Start a new discussion in Illustrator at Adobe Community
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How to overcome prints too dark from iMac

I calibrate my iMac 24 with a spyder and use a stylus Photo R1800 but still have prints that are much darker than what appears on monitor. What do others do about this.
Bob

Bob,
It's a very common problem (Google "My prints are too dark". BTW, both North Light Images and Luminous Landscape are superb resources). The first places to consult are Datacolor and Epson.
Things to look into and perhaps change:
- Are you using the most recent printer drivers?
- is your OS and Aperture up-to-date?
- What luminance is your iMac calibrated to?
- Have you confirmed your screen brightness setting?
- How are you viewing your prints?
- Have you (can you) calibrate your printer/paper as well?
- Have you controlled for your environment?
- Have you used any on-screen proofing?
- Have you turned off dynamic screen brightness?
Robert Coder wrote:
What do others do about this.
You'll not likely be pleased to hear that my solution was to purchase much more expensive monitors (NEC), hardware calibrator (Munki), software (NEC SpectraView II), and printer (Epson Stylus Pro 3880).

Images printing very dark from PDF

Hi there
Really hope someone will be able to help me. I have designed a cd cover that needs to go off to print on Monday. Everything looks fine on screen in Illustrator cs5 and when i print from illustrator it looks fine. When i save it to pdf it still looks fine on screen but when i print it the colours are so dark the images are unrecognisable. The company im printing to want the pdf preset as Press Quality, it looks awful but i have tried all the presets and they all look as bad. Everything is in CYMK. I really cant understand what is going on! I have two deskjet printers and they both look terrible (one slightly worse though). I would really appreciate some advice, im totally stuck.
Thanks
Lisa

Thanks Monika
I have tried ticking and unticking all kinds of boxes in the presets but i still cant get it to look even vaguely like the screen. I know a desktop printers not great but printing straight from Illustrator was exactly like the screen view. Any other ideas? Im getting in a panic now!

Problem upgrading from Photoshop CS2 to CS4 Extended

I purchased the retail box Photoshop CS4 Extended Upgrade (Windows) from a retail store ($349.99 + tax). I am upgrading from Photoshop CS2 and this is the version that the Adobe website says to purchase for this upgrade path. The problem is that CS4 doesn't see my installed, working, activated, and registered CS2 installation so it brings up the next screen offering to allow me to install it as a trial version OR list my qualifying product and serial number. The way that it offers to let me enter my qualifying product is via a drop down box with a single entry of CS3 Extended. No way of entering my CS2 there and it doesn't like my CS2 serial number entered with a CS3 product being shown there (says it isn't a valid CS3 serial number...of course it isn't). Does anyone know how to get this thing to install? Adobe tech support is gone until Monday and then I'll be at work, unable to try anything they might suggest.
Why does Adobe make upgrades so painful? I remember CS2 was a PITA and took Adobe tech support a week to figure out how to get it to install.

No, this shouldn't be extended to extended (I wouldn't expect to shell out $350 twice for extended). This is Adobe P/N 65015396 which their website says is for PhotoShop CS, CS2, CS3, and CS3 upgrades and retails for $350. The face of the box is identified as Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended Windows and the side of the box only says that I must have an "eligible older version of Adobe or Macromedia software." It also says to check the website, which says this P/N is what to buy for my upgrade path. A mess? YES!!!

Images appear fine in Photoshop cs6 and cc, but print too dark, and also show too dark in Windows picture viewer. How can I correct this? Is this a Photoshop setting issue or what?

Images appear fine in Photoshop cs6 and cc, but print too dark, and also show too dark in Windows picture viewer. How can I correct this? Is this a Photoshop setting issue or what?

Ok, look at your files in Photoshop. What is the profile assigned to them? You can find this out by going to the Status bar at the bottom, clicking on the right-pointing triangle and choosing document Profile from the list.
Then in Windows, go to your Control Panel > Color Management and add sRGB (if it isn't there) and select it as your default profile.
I hope that will work.

Prints too dark and contrasty when printing from IDCS3 to Canon IP4000 inkjet printer

I have a problem with colours when printing from IDCS3 onto a Canon IP4000 inkjet printer and Ilford Galarie smooth pearl paper. I cannot find a solution to it or maybe I am not looking for the right search terms. Maybe someone can help me here.
I am using IDCS3 on a Mac G5 PPC with 2Ghz dual processors running OS 10.4.11. I have an Eizo ColorEdge CE210w monitor which I profile regularly with a Gretag Macbeth eye-one device.
I have designed a 50 page document with about 200 images. Now when I print from IDCS3 the images are too dark and very contrasty. But when I print the same image from Photoshop CS3 the print is fine.
I have been using the canned ICC profile from Ilfords website.
The one difference was that in Photoshop I had a choice of rendering intent in the print dialogue which I set to relative colorimetric. (I have subsequently found that I have the choice of rendering intents in ID if I select each image and change the RI before I get to the print stage which can be a pain)
I would appreciate your help with this as I do not really want to redesign the layout in Photoshop all over again.
Thank you in advance.

>The one difference was that in Photoshop I had a choice of rendering intent in the print dialogue which I set to relative colorimetric. (I have subsequently found that I have the choice of rendering intents in ID if I select each image and change the RI before I get to the print stage which can be a pain)
You can change overall rendering intents for each document under Edit/Assign Profiles.

Photos from Lightroom print too dark

I have saved my photos in RAW format and imported them into Lightroom. I have then made changes to them and exported them from Lightroom as JPEG files. However, when I go to a printing kiosk and get the photos printed, they are all darker than what they displayed in Lightroom. What do I need to do to be able to print accepable photos?

It really isn't that difficult to print and get good results. But the key is to make sure the monitor is set properly. Those who are really into printing strongly advocate using a hardware monitor calibration device. I agree, but haven't invested in one. Over the years I have worked with the controls on my monitor and software tools to match the monitor to my printer. And having done so I have found that images that I send to a lab match very well, too.
Since you have never printed before, or are just getting started, you really need to take time to get that monitor adjusted to match the results you are getting. Photolabs are pretty consistent. And if your images are too dark you must at the very least reduce the brightness of your monitor. Color matching can be a whole additional challenge. If you want to print, whether on your own printer or through a lab, getting your monitor set up properly is critical.

Images print too dark from Photoshop CS2 and CS3

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