Monitor versus Print

I tend to prefer darker imagery with color richness and density, or dark B&W. When I process the pictures for use online they look great, but when I print those same pictures via my Epson printer they look too dark and to an extent the richness is lost. I attribute this to a difference in backlit on screen viewing versus reflective print viewing, among other things. In your workflow, do you process two versions of some pictures, one for online and one for print? I'm beginning to work through how to get in print what I see on screen, and I'll need to keep track of each pair. 

— Andrew

First, are you calibrating your monitor with hardware calibration (e.g., Colorvision Spyder3) or just by guess and by golly? Without a hardware calibrated monitor, you will be fighting a no-win battle. Hardware calibration is the first step and simply cannot be avoided for critical photographic work. Period.

One of the holy grails of digital photography is the so-called "soft proof." We would ideally like to make aesthetic decisions visually based on what we see in the monitor and then have that exactly translated to the print. Boy, would we!

Can't happen. The two media (monitor and print) are simply too different. Electronic versus analog, backlit versus reflectance, contrast ranges, definition of "white" — it goes on and on. You could spend $10,000 on a Barco reference monitor like the most critical prepress and film production houses do, but even then there are so many variables it simply isn't going to match.

Instead, most photographers employ a simpler strategy: Get the monitor and print to come as close to each other as possible, but ultimately judge each medium on its own merits. So, yes, when it is critical to do so, I create a version of an image for on-screen presentations and a different one for print. I always start with a master that is the monitor version.

Specifically, my strategy is to begin by making the best looking, visually judged image on-screen. I consider that my "master." I know my printed photograph will not look like this, but it should come fairly close as a starting point. I then tweak subsequent prints by adding adjustment layers in Photoshop (or additional work in Lightroom) that are intended to compensate for the print's differences and maximize the printed tonalities within that medium.

I work from the monitor master as the starting point because I know the necessary print adjustments will vary depending on the paper choices and printer I use. The adjustment layers, therefore, are specific for a given printing routine. If I change the routine, I can simply turn off the layers for a previous printing routine and apply new layers for the current printing routine. The master image stays the same — sort of a control state, if you will.

In truth, however, I rarely do all this in practice. Most images don't require such fussing. Those with critical deep shadow detail are the most likely to need this level of tweaking, so I can see where your images might need this approach more than mine do.

Comments

[Neil Enns]

While I agree with everything Brooks writes above, the biggest culprit I've found here is less about colour calibration and more about luminance setting of the monitor. You definitely need a colour calibrated monitor if you want accurate colour in your prints, but people often forget about the other part of the equation. Andrew hints at this cause in his question: monitors are backlit. Paper isn't.

I've got a recent blog entry on the subject of monitor luminance for printing, hopefully it's helpful: http://danecreekfolios.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/17/monitor-brightness-and-dark-prints.html.

[Bruce Mensinger]

I had struggles with dark prints and lost shadow detail until I realized that my monitor brightness was far too bright. Editing on an over-bright monitor lead to everything being squashed down to the normally more limited brightness of illuminated paper prints.

Prints viewed in direct sunlight were full of shadow detail but in normal indoor room light or subdued evening lamp light they looked dull and much of the detail in dark areas was gone. Trying to compensate in editing and printing proved frustrating.

The solution was to turn down my monitor brightness to more closely match the normal daytime room light the prints would be viewed in and directing more light on displayed prints in the evening. On my current monitor this meant reducing the factory brightness setting from 90% to 18%.