[Mag]

I finally got around to making my own large prints for hanging on the wall. I found a place that sells frames at reasonable costs so I got two 11"x 14", to start.

The problem is the photo prints much darker than what I see in the editor, losing detail in the darker shadows. Do I compensate for this in editing by adding brightness, thus losing accuracy in how the final result should look.

What color scheme should I use on printer, Adobe RGB, Epson RGB, Vivid, enhanced, or no color adjustment?

[Mag]

Okay, after wasting more expensive ink & paper, (I'm still un-employed) I have found the printer settings that give the desired results from CS6 editing, using Epson Stylus R2000 printer.

Printer Settings:
Media Type: Premium Presentation Paper Matte
Print Quality Level: Level 5
Print Quality: SuperPhoto/Microweave: On
High Speed: Off
Gloss Optimizer: Off
Color: Color/Color Adjustment: ICM/Mode: Driver ICM(Basic) Image
Input Profile: ProPhoto RGB
Intent: Relative Colorimetric
Printer Profile: SPR 2000 Matte Paper-HW

Thanks 

[SET Man]

Hey!

   Personally I still prefer printing my photos at the photo lab. Somehow I can't seems to get good result from ink jet printer, even with a good printer. Printing at a good lab save me time and in someway money also... think of how many paper and inks wasted.

    If you ever going to print at a photo lab do look for one that use real photo paper, not one of those quick print photo kiosk. I'm a fan of Fuji "Crystal Archives" paper.

Take care,
Buddy

[navi]

I finally got around to making my own large prints for hanging on the wall. I found a place that sells frames at reasonable costs so I got two 11"x 14", to start.

The problem is the photo prints much darker than what I see in the editor, losing detail in the darker shadows. Do I compensate for this in editing by adding brightness, thus losing accuracy in how the final result should look.

What color scheme should I use on printer, Adobe RGB, Epson RGB, Vivid, enhanced, or no color adjustment?

Get your monitor properly calibrated.

If you just want to edit the image in Photoshop and bring out the shadow detail- using curves or levels is your best option. if you want to be precise and just adjust the shadow detail you will need to create an adjustment layer - do your curves adjustment and brush back your high lights

[Mag]

Thanks,

I had CS6 in sRGB mode, which I understand is also the color mode of my Canon T2i. I switched to Prophoto working mode for both printer & CS6 and I got an exact color match & details of display on monitor and color print.

This is a revelation, which in future I have to work from RAW first converting to Prophoto whereas using Jpeg first would be embedded with sRGB.

Prophoto gives a wider gamut of color options over Adobe & sRGB.

[nathanm]

Seeing the word "unemployed" within the same context of inkjet printing gives me the willies!  If anything you'll need TWO full-time jobs to feed the ink hunger! Ha!

The number of ways you can screw up pritining digital photos is amazing.  There are so many adjustments, so many inter-dependent dialog boxes, it blows my mind.  Printing and computers is still a dark art in my view, it has not yet been streamlined and simplified by any company, it's still a colossal mess.  Don't get me started on RIPs… fuuuuuuuu…

The one revelation that made the most difference in my mind is that you either need your application to control color, OR the printer, but NOT both!  Turn OFF color management on the printer side and let Photoshop dictate the printer profile.  I also try to avoid tweaking the image itself in order to satisfy what I want to see on paper.  If you're confident with the on-screen image and your monitor is reasonably neutral then it should be a question of profiles and paper types.  Luckily your brain can make up for fairly significant differences.  It's only when you wanna slap the print next to the monitor and see the same thing that you start your journey into color management Hell.  Once you factor in all the different ambient light that your image may be seen in, it all sort of cancels out anyway.

[Mag]

I should be back to work this week driving courier. It's not what I wanted but it's work!. I think I am done with buying big ticket items so should be abel to manage buying ink once I get back on my feet.

With this printer I can save the settings, as long as I keep in mind what paper, size I'm using and make the print adjustment. I was not able to find the setting on printer that lets application control the color. So I save the edited photo and then use the printer settings. My monitor is HD so I know the print quality is good when the print matches the monitor.

Now that I know what I'm doing I could leave photoshop at sRGB and use sRGB on printer. But I can see from using Prophoto there is finer color detail so I've decided to work in Prophoto mode.