lightening a photo

[Edwa]

My Canon Pro 100 prints darker than monitor image and a photographer who uses the same printer told me she uses Photoshop to lighten all her photos 20%.

How does that translate to Affinity?  In the Adjustment / Level filter do I just move the white level slider to left to the desired % ?  The lighter thumbnail adjusts to 80%.but 85% is a good print.

 

[firstdefence]

Why not ask her how she does this in Photoshop to get a better understanding of what she means by 'Lighten'

Printing is not all about the printer, the paper you use to print onto can come into play, the inks used are also a big factor and even the batches can vary. I'd make a test strip print with various 'lightening' settings.

In Levels, moving the White slider to the left will make the image brighter, not necessarily lighter. You could use the HSL adjustment  filter to make the image lighter by moving the Luminosity slider to the right until you feel it looks lighter.

Another angle is does your monitor need calibrating?

[Dan C]

Hi Edwa  

There are a few ways this can be done, specific choices including which one to use and what percentages to set are all personal preference, you may find 20% in one image is way too much for the next.

The easiest method would be Brightness and Contrast Adjustment, see:
https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/index.html?page=/Adjustments/adjustment_levels.html?title=Levels adjustment

You can increase the overall brightness of the image, and if you find that most images need brightening by the same amount, you could create a Macro, see:

 

[carl123]

Having to adjust perfectly good on screen images so they print the same will get boring after a while.

You should be able to calibrate printer and screen so what you see is what you print

The first thing to check is if it is just Affinity apps that prints darker or do all apps do it?

[walt.farrell]

Does Canon provide a color profile for the printer? If so, specifying it in the Print dialog may help.

If you've discussed the profile and it still prints too dark, you could use Soft Proofing to provide an on-screen view that will better match what will be printed. You can then provide appropriate adjustments to improve the printing.

[smadell]

This is almost certainly NOT a problem with Affinity Photo, nor with your printer, nor with your edits. Chances are overwhelmingly high that your monitor is too bright.

The "proper" answer is to profile your monitor, but sometimes the simplest solution is just to lower the brightness on your monitor (a lot). If you have a way to measure the luminance of your monitor, aim for about 100-120 cd/m2. If you can lower the brightness of your monitor, your pictures will look darker on screen (but of course they will match what comes out of your printer). If you want lighter prints, a darker monitor will let you get a better approximation of the correct amount of lightness in your edits, without fudging things with a "Brightness" or "Levels" adjustment.

Also, remember that your monitor is light-based, and this is additive; printers are ink-based, and this is subtractive. Printers will always tend to be darker than monitors, since that's simply the nature of ink vs light.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, smadell said:

Also, remember that your monitor is light-based, and this is additive; printers are ink-based, and this is subtractive. Printers will always tend to be darker than monitors, since that's simply the nature of ink vs light.

I have read dozens of articles & posts that explain this, but none as clear or to the point as this one. Well done!  

[smadell]

Thanks, friend!