I'm not sure this is the right forum for this question, but hopefully someone can help me. I have a PowerBook G4. Over the past few months, photos that I have in either iPhoto or Photoshop and send to my long-faithful Epson Stylus Color 740 printer have been coming out too dark. (They used to print beautifully). I also was having the "too dark" problem with other programs such as CardFactory. So I finally decided that the printer was getting old and it was time for a new one. I bought a Canon Pixma 460 and set it up tonight all ready to have beautiful photos again. But, sadly, using the standard settings, the photos are still too dark. Now I am wondering if the computer is sending a "print darker" signal to the printer in every case. Is there a setting on the PowerBook for the darkness of all photos being sent to printers? How do I access that? I do not want to have to "lighten" every photo or card individually that I go to print as I have been for the past few months---it's a real pain. The photos all look beautiful on the computer screen; just don't print that way. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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photos printing out too dark
- Thread starter SusanDiane
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I think you'll have to change your printer settings. Make sure that the settings you choose match the paper you use - often trying to print at high quality (ie lots of dots per inch) on standard laser quality paper will produce a very muddy output.
Try using a greyscale test strip and a colour image ( from here maybe? http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/test_images.html ) and experimenting with the settings until they are right.
A more thorough way is to photograph an image, import it to your mac, then print it out and lay the 2 images out side by side.
With luck, you should be able to save your printer settings so you don't have to set it up every time - but I don't know what the printer driver for your printer will allow you to do.
High quality paper, although expensive, will do a lot to improve quality.
Try using a greyscale test strip and a colour image ( from here maybe? http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/test_images.html ) and experimenting with the settings until they are right.
A more thorough way is to photograph an image, import it to your mac, then print it out and lay the 2 images out side by side.
With luck, you should be able to save your printer settings so you don't have to set it up every time - but I don't know what the printer driver for your printer will allow you to do.
High quality paper, although expensive, will do a lot to improve quality.
a few things to think about....
1) mac monitors: gamma 1.8, PCs gamma 2.2- darker. see if switching your screen to 2.2 or checking your printer is using 1.8 makes them match better
2) check if you can adjust your ink volume? my Epson R2400 needed me to lower volume by almost 15%.
3) calibrated both?
1) mac monitors: gamma 1.8, PCs gamma 2.2- darker. see if switching your screen to 2.2 or checking your printer is using 1.8 makes them match better
2) check if you can adjust your ink volume? my Epson R2400 needed me to lower volume by almost 15%.
3) calibrated both?