Adobe lightroom

[Poorey]

I am in love with adobe lightroom. I have just upgraded to lightroom 3. But my problem is this. I have always used lightroom to edit my photos and post them online, be it eithe red bubble or facebook, However, when it comes to print which i have recently started to do, the prins come out nothing like they looked on my screen, after i had saved the finished product. To be honest, a beautiful vibrant shot that looks unreal on the pc, is printed out and looks like complete rubbish. Is there a way around this, or do i have to callibrate my monitor with the photo developer?

[TassieSnapper]

Nah. Just turn your brightness down?

Are you prints coming out too dark?

Most people have their LCD monitors way too bright and as a result prints come out way too dark.

[ricktas]

Calibrating your monitor is always a good idea. It then sets your monitor to a known standard and you can be sure that everyone who uses a calibrated monitor will see the same as you have seen. Yes there are other methods of doing this, but monitor calibration is the most accurate and best.

Note that monitor calibration will not fix your prints, that is another issue again, but by calibrating your monitor first, you can then work to get prints that match the screen result. There will always be differences between screen and print as one is a transmitted light (screen) and one is a reflected light (print).

[kiwi]

I can pretty much guarantee that you are using the wrong colour profile on printing - you must match it to your printer/paper

[wattsgallery]

Had the same prob using lr3 last week. The prob was that he export was default set to ProPhoto colour space not srgb - re export using that colour profile and it fixes it. May also need calibration but colour space was the main issue for me. Cheers Josh

[elrobbo]

As the others have said, getting the monitor right is probably the first and most reliable step.
I've spent countless sheets of photo paper trying to achieve the ideal print, however I found that using the printer profile provided by Canon (BTW I have a Canon printer), and using the video card calibration software to get best contrast and colour settings (I can't afford a pro-level calibration device) that I get reasonable results.

As Rick mentioned, don't expect the whites to glow, or the reds, as your perception of the transmitted light from your monitor's phosphors will almost certainly differ from the reflectance from the absorbed inks in your photo paper.

Depending on what colour gamut your camera is shooting in, you'll see a difference between the results of shooting sRGB to Adobe 1998 to ProPhoto. I use a Canon 400D which gives the option of shooting in either Adobe 1998 or in sRGB. I was a little disappointed with the results of shooting in Adobe 1998 at first as I thought the results looked muddier and less bright than shooting in sRGB, however, I have come to realise that this is a better choice in the long run (in particular for printing) as you have better post-production control in LR2. Likewise, ProPhoto has a larger colour gamut again, so if you can shoot with the greatest colour range possible, you can always work backwards. If you shoot in a limited colour spectrum (e.g. sRGB) then your output possibilities are very limited.

What you really need to understand is that your monitor has a limited ability to display the absolute full range of colours that can be recorded digitally. As long as you can look at your prints and find an acceptable, natural-looking result, you should be happy!

[arthurking83]

.... If you shoot in a limited colour spectrum (e.g. sRGB) then your output possibilities are very limited.

....

This is only true if you shoot in jpg mode on the camera. RAW is not colour space aware. The colour space is set by your raw converter.

@ the OP(Pooery). When you say 'your printer developer' do you mean a pro printing shop? or your own personal printing device at home?

if you're using the services of a print shop, you could ask them for a print/screen calibration image.. something that's supplied both as a physical print and a digital file for you to reference on your screen.
I remember DigitalWorks, whom Andrew(I@M) uses almost exclusively provide this.

The idea is that these two images will then calibrate your screen to their printing devices.

[clickclick]

Interesting about the screen calibration. Do you pay someone to do it or do you do the calibration yourself with software? Just wondering too.. is lightroom 3 the best program behind the scenes doing photography.. sorting & comparing pics, common editing, viewing raw files & converting etc. Atm ive got photoshop.. but will need something a bit more specific to photos once I am dealing with so many & larger files!

[kiwi]

I bought a spyder2 pro calibration device (2nd hand about $100) that is a combination of hardware and software....the spyder3 pro is probably what I would have bought now, primarily as it supports multiple monitors - so yeah - do it yourself as you need to do it regularly (I find once a month is fine)

LR is the best image processing software on the market today I think.

[maccaroneski]

I have just made the switch to LR3 and I am in lurve. I have spent so long just playing with the library filters - by aperture, focal lenght, ISO, etc etc... very interesting.

I signed up to lynda.com for a month and there is a fantastic 13 hour or so tutorial that I am about half way through - highly recommended.

[Mircula]

Hey,

I have the same problem with the much much less saturated print then i see it on my screen. I will try out the suggestions mentioned above with the example print and asing the print shop as well as playing around with the colour space.

Thanks for the good comments

[clickclick]

Well will have to get this LR3 to trial to have a play with it while i wait for this gear. Will see how the prints come out and if needed will look into spyder3! Cheers for the help