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Moderated by: chrisbet,

Printing from LR Files

Author	Post

Posted by Ric: Sat Sep 22nd, 2012 17:24

1^st Post

Greetings,

I have a couple of questions regarding Lightroom 4 (4.1). I exported some pictures of my trip to Alaska and printed some pictures at a local store that has some pretty nice equipment. I discovered that the pictures were underexposed by a lot. I realize that on the computer I am looking at a backlit screen, but I was surprised by the difference. On number of pictures I have the highlight down quite a bit as I like the way cloud cover shows up in the picture, but I do have the exposure up. When you're printing, what setting(s) are you using to get propper exposure?

A week or so ago, when in Lightroom, I must have been in a different area than I thought as I clicked on something and the next thing I know the program is trying to export my photos to Adobe. I tried to cancel the export, but I couldn't get it to cancel, so I just pulled my eithernet cable brom my computer. Not very many went on line, I would think that that is a easy way to lose control over your pictures. That got me to thinking about some sort of on line storage back up such as Carbonite. While not expressly for photos, it's my understanding that the program will download your NEF files. I do have keep a double back up of my photos, but that would be a lot of work.

Lastly,

I would like to express my appreciation for all the help that you all have been on this site. Especially while I was in Alaska. Out of all the sites that I visit, this is the only one that I post to. I don't even mind that the responses get off subject, kind of interesting and I always get the answer that I need. So a big thanks to everyone here.

Ric

Posted by rmoser: Sun Sep 23rd, 2012 07:41

2^nd Post

The problem is probably that your screen hasn't been calibrated. Generally the default settings for screens are far too bright and high contrast. So if you adjust your images so that the look good on the screen they'll look under exposed when printed on calibrated equipment.

It's easy to say that you should just calibrate your screen but you need a device to do it (figure 100-200 dollars or more) and you may find that your screen isn't easy to calibrate since the less expensive screens designed for office use frequently don't have the adjustments necessary to fully calibrate.

Unfortunately it's the only way to get predictable prints.

Rob

Posted by richw: Sun Sep 23rd, 2012 08:21

3^rd Post

Back on my windows set up I had this problem all the time, it's been better on the Mac, however both have been calibrated with a Spyder and that didn't help this problem. It seems to make sure colours are correct but brigtness on a backlit screen is hard to calibrate to a print.

In the end on the Windows PC I just got a feel for what would look right when printed. I'd brighten everything up before printing and I used to print contact sheets of all the selected photos to test the settings before I got the main prints done. A cheap A4 printer that you use yourself is good for doing this before you export files and take them to get high-quality stuff done at a photo developers.

Posted by Robert: Sun Sep 23rd, 2012 15:43

4^th Post

I would suspect the settings at the printers first,

I did some special pix for my daughters 18th birthday earlier this year and the first two places I went that was the result, grossly dark prints and unnatural skin tones. The third place they intervened and adjusted their settings from the auto settings the machine imposed, the prints were perfect.

If there is a light area in the image or a bright background it will throw the machine. An experienced operator will realise this and intervene.

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Robert.

Posted by Ric: Tue Sep 25th, 2012 07:03

5^th Post

Thanks everyone. I should have done this before. I did print from my home printer. It's a cheap printer but the pictures I printed were exposed the way I wanted them, so it must have been the store printer that I was using. I don't know if the person operating the printer would know how to adjust the printer. I'll try a camera shop.

Thanks,

Ric

Posted by Doug: Tue Sep 25th, 2012 07:33

6^th Post

If you don't trust your screen brightness use 'View Clipping' in the Develop module to ensure a peppering of overexposure in the brightest valuable whites (some whites are less valuable - eg. bright skies in a backlit image, specular highlights, white car roofs etc).

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