Monitors, lighting and prints - settings and getting photo & art prints right first time, more often

Room lighting and monitor settings, what makes it easier to make better quality prints. Colour management choices and getting the prints you want. Overview and links to more detailed resources.
Looking at the PDV-3e/D desktop viewing stand
• Secrets of great photo...
Ilfolux viewing light
• Review: Ilford Ilfolux...
Editing photos for prints - What monitor settings do I choose and why?
• Editing photos for pri...
This video is part of Keith's collection of print related articles, videos and reviews covering printing, colour management and photography at:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/ph...
Free downloadable test images, with usage notes are at:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/p...
The book I suggest is: 'Real World Color Management' [Fraser et al.]
Widely available from used book stores.
Martin Evening's Photoshop chapter on colour management - very well written:
www.photoshopforphotographers....
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"Buy me a coffee" ko-fi.com/keithcooper
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Any help with running this channel is gratefully received.
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US Amazon photo/print gear: amzn.to/3l9vJC6
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[@sanaru02]

Your knowledge in this field is absolutely remarkable. I am not a professional photographer myself, but do a fair bit of digital work in gimp. Watching some of these is introducing me to ideas and concepts I wouldn't have stumbled on otherwise, and it's great.

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks

[@ColdCoffeePhotography]

Excellent stuff as always Keith, many thanks!

[@KeithCooper]

Many thanks!

[@paulbenson3441]

Thanks Keith for your great video, it covered an area I'm concerned about - mainly why my prints are too dark, and why the colour isn't quite how it appeared on the monitor. I saw your video yesterday (Friday, 4th) and I watched it again the next day. I've managed to buy a copy of the Real World Color Management book off EBay for £11.49, inc postage, and that'll be here mid-September; it's pre-owned. I don't have my own printer, Keith, and use print shops. The quality of the prints are very good, but them being too dark and the colour not being right has caused me a lot of concern. After watching your video a wee bell rang that perhaps my monitor is too bright and possibly the colour balance isn't right either. I've been using the factory settings of the printer and they seemed to be okay, until I started having my images printed. I think I will invest in a calibrator to at least give me a better starting point. At the moment I don't know what the colour temperature my monitor is set to so that I hope I will be to do something about with calibration. Your test print is very useful and I've downloaded it. Have a good day.

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks - glad it's of help!

[@black-and-light]

Very, very helpful! Thanks a lot

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks!

[@michaelwilliamsalisbury]

Thanks for identifying the requirements for accurate print production and viewing. You mention monitor brightness of 90 to 120 candelas. How, without spending £’100’s, would I measure and set that?

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks Unfortunately you need a hardware calibrator to measure the brightness - You can use an older one with software like displaycal [I've not tried this though] displaycal.net

[@markjames5423]

Great video Keith , great explanation of how to get set up , I’m just starting to print more black and white images and this is the issue that keeps happening for me , the prints are coming out dark even though they look ok on the screen , I’m using a Canon Pixma Pro 200 and I know it’s not as good for printing black n white but I’ve watched your other videos about profiles and choice of paper , so I’m just gonna keep experimenting and I’m sure I will get there , keep the great videos coming as they’re a massive help , thank you

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks - glad it was helpful

[@stroiman.development]

Hi Keith, I recently discovered your channel - about a week ago, and I've watched quite a few of your videos already. As someone who sells framed fine art prints, I get a lot of information and inspiration from your videos. I now realise that maybe I should have had adjustable temperature lights in my gallery so customers could simulate their own viewing conditions :D They are now 4000K LEDs. Anyway, one question. You said that you calibrated your monitor to 4000K - was that ONLY for the purpose of creating the video? So if you would be using it for normal editing in a 4000K lit room, you would have set it to D65? That's how I understood it from your video.

[@KeithCooper]

Glad it's of interest! For normal editing, yes D65 it's mainly about getting the brightnesses OK. I'm using a D65 monitor whilst the rest of the room is currently lit for a video - makes no difference, since the two 32" displays are the brightest part of what's in front of me. My feeling is that the proportion of buyers who understood differences in room lighting would be tiny - most would just be confused ;-) Of course if you have customers who really understand colour management, consider your self very lucky ;-) Were I setting up a gallery I'd make sure the prints were [slightly] more brightly lit than the surrounds - this gives the images more punch and increases perceived contrast. Effectively, light your prints to sell them ;-)

[@stroiman.development]

@@KeithCooper Thanks a lot for the clarification and tip :D

[@farrowmascoe1012]

thank you for this very informative video! I've watched a lot of your videos and read the articles on your site.... to the point of information overload I think! I have purchased a new monitor (Asus PA279CV), a new computer, and the Spyder Studio to try to get accurate prints on my Epson XP-15000 for art cards and smallish art prints. My workspace has a very large north facing window right behind my monitor. Assuming I need to black out that whole window... what would be the best way to light the space and then calibrate everything to that? I own multiple Ott lamps and also have bulbs I could use in the rooms overhead lighting that can be set to different K. I know this is all likely overkill for art cards and prints... I just found everything I heard started me down a different rabbit hole of how to do this all properly. Thank you so much for any help!

[@KeithCooper]

Not having a window behind the monitor would be my best suggestion - it will throw off visual perception. I do, but have thick curtains ;-) Taking some care in the general lighting levels is the most useful - easier than trying to match colour temperatures. The only reason I do this matching is to make the monitor look good in the videos - that and match the prints I hold up. It's really not that vital for most people - I don't do it for my actual editing [The monitor you see in the videos is a spare one, set up just for the videos]

[@farrowmascoe1012]

thank you for the reply... I put thick black out curtains on the windows behind my monitor and I am using the spyderx studio to calibrate my new monitor (asus PA279CV)and even with all the lights off in the room it says my room lighting is Very Bright and wants me to put the brightness of the monitor over 200.... I have the spyderx elite on my desk as instructed to measure room lighting... do I have it too close to the monitor? How can the room still be too bright with no lights, no windows and just the monitor on? I know I'm over thinking all this. I just want consistent prints. Haven't even started on printer profiles till I get the room lighting right lol Thanks!@@KeithCooper

[@farrowmascoe1012]

I wonder if a video on starting from a dark room and what the setup/workflow should be from monitor to printer to evaluating print would be helpful?

[@KeithCooper]

@@farrowmascoe1012 Personally I ignore any measurement features of calibrators Room lighting measurement is something I put squarely in the list of features aimed at pleasing the marketing department ;-)

[@KeithCooper]

@@farrowmascoe1012 I cover aspects of this in many videos - there is no 'process' as such though.

[@johnpollock6996]

I thoroughly enjoyed this video Keith. I got and read the book a year or so ago and coupled with your channel and ample experimentation (read failures) have made progress. Regarding monitor settings, do you know of any way to make the settings you mentioned in an iMac? We all know how shut-mouth Apple is about almost everything. I use a Datacolor Spyder X, but am not confident that it makes much difference, so I would like to go back to factory settings without taking the entire computer there too. Thanks for all. Keep up the good work.

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks The Spyder X calibrated this iMac perfectly fine. Use the more advanced mode to specify setting in more detail

[@thomaseriksson6256]

I will get a viewing lamp when I get an Epson P900 printer in a few years. The colour handling will take time to learn. I will start with BW. I probably have to upgrade my Eizo monitor when I get a new Computer. I got a colour management book a few years ago when I tried to print couloir but there will always be better books. My teachers always said that if you do not print your pictures then you have not learn photography yet. What may be the problem if my pictures are to saturated after printing the picture compared to the screen? I did not use a calibrated monitor at the time.

[@KeithCooper]

I always take what teachers say under advisement ;-)

[@joshnnik]

Keith, I dearly hope that you won’t feel insulted by my ignorance, but I’m very much an amateur and in my seventies. Perhaps you can explain why my photos that I see displayed on the screen of my MacBook Pro look so good but when I print them, they never seem to “pop” with colour in the same way and leave me feeling disappointed. My printer is a basic Canon Pixma MG2550 which is our general purpose machine. Would I notice a big difference in colour rendition if I splashed out on the Canon Pixma 200 Pro, which presumably has better inks etc, or is the trouble just my lack of understanding of how to boost the image prior to clicking print!

[@KeithCooper]

Ah screens and prints are two very different things - there may be no way of 'duplicating' the screen save printing on transparencies and using a lightbox. The key is probably in the editing of your image and the correct use of colour management to get better prints [with profiles and optimal paper choices]. I don't know that printer though. Have a look at my Canon G550 review - this is about the most basic printer I've tested for a while www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-g550-printer-review/

[@joshnnik]

@@KeithCooper Thank you for the reply Keith, the model number of my printer was a typing error by me, it’s the MG 7550. Apologies.

[@KeithCooper]

Ah - still don't know it ;-)

[@PeeGeeTips]

Take into consideration the types of paper and its Dmax (dmax, effectively, is print media or paper’s way of reproducing wider contrast and colour gamut) glossy paper has a much wider colour gamut that matte papers and often allows prints to resemble a lot closer to what’s seen on a display. However if your images don’t have a large amount of contrast in them initially then high quality archival matte papers will do an excellent job in reproducing what you see on screen. Obviously screens are emissive technology so it’s easier for light to create the illusion of ‘pop’ compared to passive papers.

[@joshnnik]

@@PeeGeeTips Thanks for that info PGT, appreciated.