Why is my print dark? Why are the c

Why is my print dark? Why are the colors off? I believe we all found ourselves asking these questions inside our head (or worse, yelling at our photo printer!) during our first steps into our journey in photography. Monitor calibration is the solution, bad settings and bad color reproduction by the monitor are the culprit. Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite energy drink and read on, I'll tell you everything about it, what you have to do, what you gain, how it's done, and what you need to correctly calibrate your monitors.

Introduction
Alright, so here we go!
Monitor calibration is a process during which our monitor settings are being adjusted properly in order to achieve a true representation of the "image" our computer sends to the monitor.
Unless you configure your monitor correctly, you're not seeing things as they are meant to be displayed!

By monitor settings, we're not just talking about the basics (Brightness, Contrast, Color Temperature), nor exclusively about the settings exposed to us by our monitor's OSD (On Screen Display, a.k.a. menu) and perhaps the hidden "Service Menu." We're also adjusting things via software on a software "layer." Think of it as telling the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), the part of your computer that is in charge of sending the data to be displayed to your monitor, "Hey graphics card, my monitor doesn't show light blue properly, it's off by X amount of red, tell it to show light blue corrected by compensating with X amount of red." Calibrating your monitor is also correcting the Gamma Curve, expanding the color gamut, and enhancing color reproduction, something we tech geeks call "software LUT."
Hope I didn't confuse you already, I'm doing my best to keep things simple and understandable without requiring more than basic technical knowledge/terminology.

What do you get out of calibrating your monitor ?
You get to see the exposure and colors as they are and not as your monitor used to think they are.
You get to send your photos to any printing company out there, and never get them back looking under or over exposed, the colors will be very close to what you saw on your monitor, etc (proper printing requires that you use a printer and paper ICC profile, good printing companies provide you with those).
You know your photos are post-processed properly, your colors are accurate, everyone with a calibrated monitor will get to see the same image as you did when editing it.
No more flat looking photos, no under or over-exposed photos, you see the shadow and highlight details as they are, not darker or brighter making you adjust them while you shouldn't.

The benefits don't stop there, with a calibrated monitor your movies and TV shows will look their best, you'll be seeing what the producers wanted you to see, the skin tones will finally look natural.

With the manufacturer pre-defined settings being, well terrible, calibrating it will get your monitor's power consumption to drop, and your monitor's lifespan will expand. It will live longer because the LED or CCFL lamp is now operating at a lower setting and not at its maximum setting, its lifespan will generally live longer and so will your monitor as a result!.



Take a look at the photos in the gallery below to see how much of a difference monitor calibration can do.







In this case I'm showing you a few photos on a cheap Samsung TFT LCD monitor with a gaming-oriented panel (TN) using the default settings and the calibrated settings.
How far off can a monitor be at its stock settings or the settings you dialed in using your "eyes" as a calibration device? From 15% to 500%. Some monitors come with a reasonable settings preset, others with terrible presets.
In general, with a very few exceptions, all stock monitors will show your images over-exposed and the colors will be clearly off (you can tell just by looking at a photo of yours for less than a second).

How is calibration done?
To calibrate your monitor you need some sort of equipment that captures and analyzes what your display shows and the appropriate software applications.
There are two kinds of calibration devices, colorimeters and spectroradiometers. Without going into technical details and several blocks of text, let's just say that unless the colorimeter comes with your monitor (inside the package, calibrated by the monitor's manufacturer), it isn't accurate enough to get your colors right or near right (if you are interested in a deeply technical article about it, let me know in the comments).
You can get the brightness of your monitor calibrated properly, but the colors will still be off, not as off as prior to the calibration process, but not even remotely close to what your monitor can achieve if calibrated with a high precision instrument like a spectroradiometer.
A brand new decent spectroradiometer will set you back about $1,200, I suggest the X-rite i1Basic Pro 2. There are even more accurate spectroradiometers, expensive and big lab equipment like the CS-2000A by Kodak-Minolta (about $34,000), although the X-rite is more than accurate enough to get the absolute quality your monitor is capable of producing. Otherwise, you can hire a professional calibrator to do the calibration for you ($75-$150).

The calibration process using for example the bundled i1Profiler application from X-rite is pretty straightforward. You warm up your monitor for 30-45 minutes prior to the calibration process, launch the i1Profiler application, hang the spectroradiometer over your monitor, pick your preset (Photography) and click next and follow the 2 step process with the instructions displayed on your monitor. In the end you are given an ICC profile for your setup (unique monitor, monitor settings and graphics card setup dependent).


I say unique monitor, because even if you and I have the same monitor model, our panels and LED (backlight) will not have the exact behavior. The settings and ICC profile that work fine for my monitor WILL NOT WORK for your monitor.


Using my settings might get you closer to real color and exposure than the monitor's defaults, sometimes though, it might make things worse.
I'm not saying this to make you spend money on equipment or hiring a professional, I'm not affiliated to any calibration hardware/software manufacturer, nor friends with a calibrator. I will soon be releasing a video showing you exactly why you need your own settings and others settings won't work.

To get the very best, you usually have to make some manual tweaks (manually adjust the black and white levels to prevent any of the primary colors from crashing, see if your monitor suffers from gamut reduction when using low levels of backlight, tweak the grayscale, color temp, etc). That's tweaking the monitor to go from about 98% to 100% of its capabilities.


The calibration process should be done under the viewing conditions that you work under when post-processing.
Changing ambient light conditions and temperature changes the way our eyes perceive the displayed colors and exposure. Ideally, you should be viewing and working on your photos under zero artificial lighting, just the light that comes out of your monitor. No window light or room lamps, desk lamps, etc. If you can't, at least make sure your room is dim, and don't have any source of light shining directly upon your monitor or within your sight.

After calibrating your monitor, you can use the ColorChecker feature of SpectraCal's CalMAN Ultimate application to check your monitor's color accuracy for a decent variety of color tones.

In the photos below you can see the results of the ColorChecker workflow with the cheap Samsung monitor pre-calibration (top image) and post-calibration (bottom image).

Samsung TN Monitor Pre-Calibration Results
Samsung TN Monitor Post-Calibration Results

The lower the deltaE number (dE) the more accurate your color reproduction is.
Under 2 you've got decent accuracy, under 1 you've got near perfect color accuracy.
Generally from a dE of 3 and higher you have severe color inaccuracies, you can see the difference clearly without paying attention.
A very good monitor can achieve average dE's of 0.3 to 0.5 with the max dE under 1.
A decent monitor will give you an average dE around 0.8 - 1.2, max around dE 2-3.
An average/ good monitor will give you an average dE around 1.3 - 1.8, max around dE 6-7.

Limitations, Tips and Recommendations
Assuming that you, or the professional you hired to do the calibration for you, have the appropriate knowledge, experience, and a precision spectroradiometer, the limiting factor will be your monitor. The monitor's capabilities will set the "ballpark" in terms of the color accuracy you'll achieve. There's also another factor, aging. As your monitor ages, its performance will drop. You don't need to go crazy over this, but a pretty solid monitor will still be pretty solid after 4-6 years of good use. Chances are, by the time your monitor's performance drops significantly, you'll already be tempted to get a newer model. Since every new generation of monitors expands their horizons, we now have monitors capable of producing very wide color gamuts, more accurate color reproduction, and more.

What should you be looking for when buying a monitor for graphics work ?
100% or near 100% coverage of your target color gamut (sRGB for photography on the web, AdobeRGB or ProPhoto RGB for prints, Rec. 2020 for 4k video material post-production). A panel type that is known for good color reproduction like IPS (In-Plane Switching), VA as a second choice. TN panels should be avoided unless you have a very very low budget. Apart from the monitor, your viewing conditions matter a whole lot. Just like I said before, try to work in a dark room (yes, we're back to the film days in the dark chambers!) or if a completely dark room is impossible, at least under dim lighting conditions.

Let's take a look at some interesting monitors (with decent performance out of the bo

結果 (中文) 1:

为什么是我打印的黑暗?为什么颜色是关闭?我相信我们都发现自己在我们进入我们的旅程中摄影的第一步问这些问题在我们的头 (或变得更糟，我们的照片打印机大吼!)。显示器校准是解决方案、 坏设置和坏彩色复制监视器所是的罪魁祸首。喝杯咖啡或你最喜欢的饮料和读下去，我会告诉你一切关于它、 你所要做，你得到什么，它是如何做，和你需要正确校准你的显示器。介绍好吧，让我们开始吧!显示器校准是一个过程期间，正在调整我们的显示器设置正确以实现真实的"形象"我们的电脑发送到监视器。除非你正确地配置您的显示器，你不看事情，他们为了显示!通过显示器设置，我们不只谈论有关基础知识 (亮度、 对比度、 色温)，也不是完全关于暴露在我们面前，由我们的班长 OSD (屏幕显示，又称菜单) 和可能的设置隐藏的"服务菜单"。我们也正在调整通过软件的软件"层"。把它想象成告诉 GPU (图形处理单元)，您是负责发送至您的显示器，显示的数据的计算机的部分"嘿图形卡，我的显示器不显示光蓝正确，它是关闭的 X 的红色，量告诉它显示出光蓝色纠正补偿与 X 的红色量。"校准您的显示器也纠正伽玛曲线，扩大色域，和加强色彩再现，我们的科技怪才称"软件 LUT"。我已经没有混淆你的希望，我正尽我最大保持事情简单易懂无需更多基本词汇技术知识。从校准您的显示器，你得到什么?你可以看到曝光和颜色，他们是，他们是不是用来想你显示器。你可以将你的照片发送到任何印刷的公司，和永远不会得到他们回来看之下或之上暴露，颜色将会非常接近你所看到的你的显示器，等等 (正确打印需要您使用一台打印机和纸张的 ICC 配置文件，好印刷公司为您提供那些)。你知道你的颜色是准确的每个人都与校准的显示器，会看到相同的图像，像你那样编辑它时，您的照片都能被正确，后处理。没更平整下不看照片，或过度曝光的照片，你看到的阴影和高光细节，正如他们，是不变暗或更亮制作您调整他们，而你不应该。好处不停止那里，与校准的显示器，你的电影和电视节目会看他们的最好，你就会看到生产商想让你看，皮肤色调将最后看起来更自然。与制造商预定义的设置，好可怕，校准它会得到你的显示器功耗下降，和你的显示器的寿命将会扩大。因为 LED 或 CCFL 灯现在运行在较低的设置和不在其最大的设置，它会活得更长，其寿命将一般活更长的时间，所以将您的显示器作为结果!。下面来看看多少画廊看照片的差异监视器校准可以做。 在这种情况下，我正展示了几张照片与使用默认设置和校准的设置面向游戏面板 (TN) 的廉价三星 TFT 液晶显示器上。如何远离显示器可以在其股票的设置或您拨打中使用你的"眼睛"的设置作为校准装置?从 15%到 500%。某些显示器配备合理设置预设，他人与可怕的预设。一般情况下，用极少的例外，所有股票监视器将显示您过度暴露的图像和颜色将是清楚了 (你可以告诉少于一秒一张你的照片看的)。校准是怎么做到的?要校准您的显示器需要某种设备捕获和分析您的显示器的显示和相应的软件应用程序。有两种校准设备、 色度测量仪、 光谱仪。无需深入技术细节和数个文字块，让我们只是说除非比色计配备显示器 (封装内，校准由监视器的制造商)，它不是不够准确，要获取颜色右边或近的右边 (如果你有兴趣在一篇关于它的深深地技术文章，让我知道在评论中)。你可以得到正确，校准您的显示器的亮度，但颜色仍将关闭，不作为关闭作为前校准过程中，但不是甚至远程接近您的监视器可以实现如果用像光谱仪的高精度仪器标定。全新的体面光谱仪将设置你回 1200 左右，我建议 X 礼 i1Basic Pro 2。有更精确的光谱仪，昂贵和大实验室设备像 CS-2000A 由柯达-美能达 (约合 34,000 美元)，虽然 X 礼是超过不够准确，要绝对保证质量您的显示器是能够生产。否则，你可以雇佣一个专业的校准器，做为你 ($75-150 美元) 校准。例如使用捆绑的 i1Profiler 应用程序从 X 仪式校准过程还是非常简单。你前校准过程的 30-45 分钟热身监视器、 启动 i1Profiler 应用程序、 光谱仪笼罩你的显示器，挑选你的预设 (摄影) 和单击下一步和 2 步的过程跟在你的显示器上显示的说明。最后你给出的 ICC 配置文件设置 (独特的显示器，显示器设置和图形卡安装依赖)。 我说唯一的监视器，因为即使你有相同的监视器模型，我们的面板和 LED (背光) 不会有确切的行为。设置和 ICC 配置文件好存在为我的显示器不会为您的显示器的工作的这项工作。使用我的设置可能会让你更接近真实的颜色和曝光度比监视器的默认值，有时虽然它可能会使事情更糟。我不说这些是为了让你把钱花在设备或聘请专业，我不隶属于任何校准硬件/软件的制造商，也不与校准器的朋友。我很快将发布一个视频，你到底为什么你需要您自己的设置和其他设置不会工作。为得到最好的你通常要做一些手工的小改动 (手动调整的黑色和白色的水平，以防止任何原色崩溃，看看是否你的显示器患色域减少使用低水平的背光时，调整灰度、 色温等)。这调整显示器去从约 98%至 100%的能力。校准过程应在后期处理的时候，你在下工作查看条件下完成。不断变化的环境光条件和温度改变我们眼睛看到的显示的颜色和曝光的方式。理想情况下，您应该查看并处理你的照片下零人工照明，只是来自你的显示器的灯。没有窗口光或房灯、 台灯等。如果你不能至少确保你的房间太暗，而且没有任何来源的光芒直接在您的显示器或在你的视线之内。经过校准您的显示器，可以使用 SpectraCal 的卡尔曼最终应用的 ColorChecker 功能来检查您的显示器的颜色准确度为体面各种色调。在下面的照片你可以看到便宜的三星显示器前校准 (上图) 与后校准 (底部图像) ColorChecker 工作流的结果。三星 TN 显示器前校准结果三星 TN 显示器后校准结果越低 deltaE 数 (dE) 更准确你色彩再现是。下 2 你得体面的准确性下, 1 你得接近完美的色彩准确性。一般从德 3 和更高的你有严重的颜色不准确之处，你可以清楚地看到差异无需理会。一个很好的显示器可以达到平均德 0.3 ~ 0.5 与最大的德下 1。体面的监视器会给你平均德周围 0.8-1.2，周围德 2-3 最大。平均 / 好的显示器会给你平均德周围围绕德 6 7 1.3-1.8，马克斯。限制、 提示和建议假设你，或你雇来做为你，校准的专业有适当的知识、 经验和精度光谱仪，限制因素将是您的监视器。监视器的功能将设置"棒球场"在颜色准确性会实现。此外，还有另一个因素，老化。随着你的显示器老化，其性能将下降。你不需要去疯狂的但相当坚实的监视器好使用 4-6 年后，仍将相当稳固。机会是，你的显示器性能明显下降的时候，你就已经会得到一个新的模式。因为每个新一代的显示器扩展他们的视野，我们现在有监视器能够产生很宽色域、 更精确的色彩再现，和更多。什么应该您寻找购买显示器图形工作时?100%或接近你目标的色域 (摄影网上，AdobeRGB 或进行打印，4 k 视频材料后生产的宣叙调 2020 ProPhoto RGB sRGB) 覆盖率 100%。已知良好的色彩再现像 IPS (在平面切换)，作为第二选择 VA 的面板类型。除非你有一个非常非常低的预算，应避免 TN 面板。除了显示器，您查看条件问题一大堆。就像我说过，试着在一个黑暗的房间里工作 (是的我们回到影片天在黑暗的房间里!) 或者如果一个完全黑暗的房间是不可能的至少在昏暗的照明条件。让我们看看一些有趣的显示器 (与体面的表现，从博

結果 (中文) 3:

为什么我的打印黑？为什么会有颜色？我相信我们都发现自己在我们的头上问这些问题（或更糟，在我们的照片打印机大喊！）在我们的旅程中第一步摄影。监控定标是解决方案，坏的设置和不好的颜色再现由监视器是罪魁祸首。抢一杯咖啡或你喜欢的能量饮料，并阅读，我会告诉你关于它的一切，你所做的，你所获得的，它是如何做的，你需要正确校准你的显示器！监测校准是一个过程，在我们的监控设置进行调整，以实现真正的“图像”，我们的计算机发送到显示器。除非你正确配置你的显示器，否则你就没有看到他们想要显示的东西！

的显示器设置，我们不只是在谈论基础（亮度、对比、颜色温度），也不是完全暴露给我们设置显示器的OSD（屏幕显示，又名菜单）或许隐藏着“服务菜单。“我们还通过调整的事情在软件层软件。“把它在GPU（图形处理单元），你的电脑的一部分，在发送的数据被显示到显示器电荷，“嘿，显卡，我的显示器不显示蓝灯正常，这是由红色X量，告诉它显示淡蓝色的校正补偿金额的红色X。“你的显示器也校准校正伽马曲线，扩大色域，提高色彩再现，我们的一些科技爱好者称之为“软件”
LUT。希望我没有把你弄糊涂了，我尽我最大的努力让事情变得简单易懂，不要求更多的基本技术知识和术语。

得到从校准你的显示器是什么？
你可以看到曝光和颜色，因为它们不是你的显示器使用，你可以把你的照片发送到任何印刷公司，并没有得到他们回来看或过曝光，颜色将非常接近你看到在你的显示器等（正确的印刷要求你使用打印机和纸国际刑事法院，好的印刷公司为您提供这些）。你知道你的照片是正确的，你的颜色是准确的，每个人都有一个校准的显示器会看到你在编辑时的相同的图像，不黑暗或更明亮的使你调整他们，而你不应该。的好处不要停止那里，与校准监视器你的电影和电视节目将看他们最好的，你会看到什么生产商希望你看到，皮肤色调将终于期待自然，校准它将让你的显示器的功耗下降，你的显示器的寿命将扩大。它会活得更长，因为LED或冷阴极荧光灯现在是在一个较低的设置操作，不在其最大的设置，其寿命一般会活得更长，所以将你的监测结果！，，。