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Participant
February 15, 2023
Question

Dark, flat prints under Lightroom classic with Ventura under Studio

  • February 15, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 346 views

 

Adobe chat was not heklful.

 

I have owned two iMac 27" 5K computers (calibrated) that worked in sync with Lightroom Classic and my Epson SureColor P800.  I printed beautiful color and black and white photographs that were consistent from print job to job.  I used and still use ICC files and Epson's Advanced Black and White function.

 

My current Studio and studio display do not work well with lightroom and the P800.  It could be the M1 chip and or Ventura causing issues. Currently my prints are too dark, flat, muddy looking, soft, have minimal saturation (increase saturation makes thing worst), and have odd looking color/tint. Warm colors are the most pathetic.  Black and white prints (ABW) look almost normal but a cooler looking that past prints.  The color prints look much better when printed with Epson Photo Lay, Preview and iPad airprint.  I do not use airprint with lightroom.

 

Currently my print don't come close to the screen display.  All app and drivers are current.  I also used soft proofing in many cases.  My old print presets do not work with Ventura.  I use both matte and glossy papers from several paper companies.  I compared my current print with prior prints.  The studio prints are inferior to the original iMac prints.  I used different display presets such as Apple(P3-600nits), design and print (P3-D50) and Photo (P3-D65).  I tested my own display presets with different color gamuts, white points, gamma and luminance settings.  I use x-rite i1 display to calibrate the monitor using both X-rite and the new calibrate profiler software.  I used Apple's ColorSync utility to confirm settings.  I use Lightroom print photo information option to detail paper, display, print, ink, development adjustment and room lighting settings.  No setting produced acceptable prints.  

 

I used Adobe online chat to describe the problems I was having.  I followed a recommendation an saved a new catalog for a few images. These printed images were much better, but several color prints were flat, muddy and terrible looking like the older prints.  Black and white (ABW) prints were acceptable, but still cool.  It seems a new catalog was the answer.  

 

Yesterday I saved my current 30,000 images (stored in pictures/Nikon folder) as a new catalog, but only 27,000 images were categorized. The new catalog lost the lightroom folder structure, collections, development and print presets.  My lightroom settings folder has all my images (600 GB) locked.  These locked images are outside for my pictures/Nikon folder which contain the same unlocked images.  My hard drive is twice as large.  Under the new catalog my prints are now much better but still dark and muddy looking.  When I am using lightroom the desktop keeps appearing and Lightroom is reduced to the docket.  I tried to close lightroom but "not responding" shows.  I force quit Lightroom.  I need help.   

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1 reply

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
February 15, 2023

Why are my prints too dark?
Why doesn’t my display match my prints?
A video update to a written piece on subject from 2013
In this 24 minute video, I'll cover:

Are your prints really too dark?
Display calibration and WYSIWYG
Proper print viewing conditions
Trouble shooting to get a match
Avoiding kludges that don't solve the problem

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/Why_are_my_prints_too_dark.mp4
Low resolution: https://youtu.be/iS6sjZmxjY4

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"