Lighten up image before printing with Pro-100

[Damodix]

Hello,
As of what I read quite a few people prefer and make the photos a bit brighter before printing with Pro-100. Mine too could be a little bit lighter. How do you best do that (exposure up? brightness up / contrast down ?...) Since I cannot always work with the RAW files I would like to avoid to deteriorate the image too much before printing... Any thoughts/hints?

[jrhoffman75]

http://community.usa.canon.com/t5/Professional-Photo-Printers/how-do-I-calibrate-my-canon-pixma-pro-...

[Damodix]

Thanks, even though the article refers to monitor calibration (except the part "setting one stop brighter" -> this is ecactly my question, does that mean via exposure or by brightness/contrast adjustment). How do you adjust the picture (not the monitor)? Many thanks in advance for your help

[jrhoffman75]

Are you using Mac or PC? What photo software do you use? Can you post an example of an image you would want to have print a little brighter?

[Damodix]

Thanks for your Quick reply. Using Photoshop CC on Mac, printing with Canon Print Studio. Ok, will load a sample pic when at home.

[tmorell]

Based on my experience, even on a well calibrated monitor, prints will always be darker compared to the screen. My monitors are set to 80 cd/m2. Monitors are calibrated using i1Profiler and print colors are very precise. Before printing a full 13x19, I always print a 4x7 sample to assess brightness.

On Photoshop I add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer and set its brightness to around 20. This value will vary on your cd/m2. If I set my monitors to 100 or 120 cd/m2, I would have to use a higher brightness value.

I have read that others use curves, but it is easier to set the same value over and over using brightness.

[jrhoffman75]

This website: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi...

has a good article on printing and provides a link to a test image that looks like this:

My suggestion is to download the test image, open it in PS and print it without making any adjustments.

Use the test image to judge how the printer is doing; there is good guidance in the article.

If the test image is too dark you can adjust the printer output in PSP.

You can save the adjustments as a preset for each paper if you wish.

[Damodix]

Dear jrhoffmann and tmorrell,

Many thanks for your great help.

Using the test image is very interesting indeed.

Actually it looks quite good. Enclosed my print on glossy II (profile and paper accordingly)... well, it does not mean much here since photo taken with iPhone... but just for illustration purposes. Eventually, I will end up doing very little tweaks on brightness... maybe just 10% in Canon PSP directly... very helpful as well by the way, thank you).  

Just out of curiosity, the blacks on the bottom left, can you distinguish number 2 and 4 on your print or screen? (both, on my Printer AND on my screen I cannot make the difference... at least both are aligned *lol*... on my screen the difference between 2 and 4 only comes up when I increase the exposure by 2(!)...

Greetings from Paris

[jrhoffman75]

Hello. Glad I could be of help. That print looks great to me. I cannot see blacks below about 8 on my prints or screen. That's a tough part of the range. You have good differentiation between the blocks in the 12 step region and more important to me for detail is the whites. You can see 252 and maybe 253 out of 255 max.

I have used this test image with a number of folks when I have been helping them. It removes one of the variables - it's tough to judge the monitor and printer when the image itself may not be correct.

Enjoy your new printer.