Laptop Screen

My laptop screen has very good resolution (it isnt a Mac by the way). however when i print images i tend to find the printed images are darker than the image that is on screen.

On my PU portfolio I have Lulworth Cove In Miniature. The beach, when printed out, looks more red than yellow (as on the screen).

Is this an issue of 'screen viewing angle', screen colour settings, or printer settings?

any advice? (Getting a desktop Mac is not the sort of advice I am looknig for you cheeky lot!!)

cheers

Laptop screens are generally poor for imaging purposes. The basic TN screens offer a poor viewing angle and the brightness changes as you move, even slightly.

The IPS panels are the best so it's worth checking what sort of screen your laptop has.

Our Sony laptop isn't bad, but needs care to centre the viewing angle. Our Toshiba has been a disaster so far, but that's not the fault of Toshiba and is another story! Cheaper laptops are all but useless.

We never use laptops for critical work. How about using your laptop with an external monitor, how is it then? And also, is everything set to the same colour space?

From what I understand, the screen and the printer may need to be calibrated seperately.
Also, the colour gamut of a standard laptop screen is unlikely to be more than 50%. That means you'll end up not being to see all the colours faithfully.
May be worth looking for printer / laptop colour calibration settings. Alternatively, do a search for your specific screen / laptop / printer, to see if someone has already published them.
You might want to have a quick look to see whether colour profiling is supported in your OS. I've got windows 7, and only certain applications adopt the profile I've set for the monitor (Adobe elements, etc.). If I open a slideshow for some pictures, I get the garish defaults.

Cheers Chaps. will check. i may have to plug my machine into my TV to get a better idea ( it is a new LCD one)

I reckpn i 'll need advice on a good plug-in monitor chaps.

Here you go https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/new-monitors-20190

Thanks Stefan, that thread worked for me!

Such a very amazing link!

__________________

Commercial link removed.

Also, don't forget that screens are transmissive (ie emit light) while print is reflective - this means that displays will always appear brighter than print.

Added to that, that most screens have their backlights turned up waaaaay too high. For print-matching the screen has to be very, very dim and your ambient lighting almost non-existent! (Shockingly so if you've been used to normal office or home conditions )

In general, I have found that using a hardware calibration device on the screen is essential (not that expensive: e.g. Pantone Huey entry level, but with the Argyll CMS + dispcal GUI software instead).

With modern photo printers, if you are using the manufacturer's inks, and the recommended settings for the paper you are using then the results are usually pretty close

Hope that helps!
Matt

I printed off one of my shots yesterday eveing and eventually managed to suss out how to change the colour and contrast on my scree via something called NVIDIA (dont ask). So I toned down the screen to match as best as possible what i had printed out. i think this will probably do for the time being, certainly until I'm doing a fair amount of printing for people.

thanks for the link too. i shall check this out

NVIDIA is the manufacturer of your video card.

One thing to watch is how your printer driver is set up. The best thing to do is install the most basic driver you can and let Photoshop do the work.

The problem is (and it's a bit of a complicated business so I'm using my printer as an example) if I have the full photo drivers installed for my printer then print from Photoshop then both Photoshop and the printer are making their own adjustments.

The upshot of this (in a very simple way) is if I were to make the print darker on Photoshop, the printer driver will automatically try to make it lighter, making for very unpredictable results.

(Incidentally, I use a 17" HP Pavilion. The screen is better than most external monitors so it's not out of the question, it's how much money you want to spend.)

What also didnt help was using 'compatible' inks!!! They created a blue tinge

Great help though gents, as always