Why do prints seem too dark compared with screen?

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2022-02-09 10:31:40

I've been tinkering with an existing photo using Pixelmator Pro. The result is an improvement, but the overall brightness or density (I don't know what to call it, but I'm talking about lightness v darkness of the whole picture) seems approximately the same as the original. However when I print the original it looks pretty much the same overall density as the screen version, but the version that's been through Pixelmator Pro prints massively darker, so that the print is unusable. This is true both if I print the Pixelmator file or the same file exported to a high quality JPEG.

Do other people experience this, and is there a workaround? My current printer (Canon) doesn't have a native driver that could change the print density as used to be possible years ago.
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2022-02-11 14:08:51

Hi livfoss. One thing I'd try would be soft-proofing the document using a CMYK profile. This will let you simulate how the image will look like when printed and you'll be able to adjust the colors accordingly.
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2022-02-11 16:00:59

Thanks, I will try that but I first need a bit more help.

I have been researching the subject a bit and I think the issue is partly that I'm only using a consumer-level printer. This has printed excellent colour pictures in the past, but I guess the saturation and dynamic range of a typical photo has been limited. Using a more complex and wider-ranging set of colours and tones seems to have caused me a problem.

Looking at the soft-proofing options on my copy of Pixelmator Pro, the profiles there already are all RGB, and I don't see any appropriate profiles for my printer, or indeed any printer - actually mine is a Canon TS5300. I think Canon only supply profiles for professional-level printers, but maybe there is another source. Sorry to be so confused.
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2022-02-15 13:07:52

Ideally, you'd want to soft proof the document with a profile of your specific printer, but if that profile is not available, Generic CMYK (but you can also try other CMYK profiles) should be the closest alternative, since all printers use a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (or CMYK) to mix up every other color. You can convert your image from RGB (the color space Pixelmator Pro operates in) to CMYK when exporting from Pixelmator Pro, in the Export dialog settings. Finally, besides the settings offered by the software you're printing from, be it Pixelmator Pro or some other app, your screen calibration, ink, and paper type (how absorbent, matte, or reflective it is) are also worth keeping in mind.
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2022-03-30 13:19:06

Hi,
I hope this is connected to the above issue but apologies if it's not.

I'm quite new to Pixelmator Pro and have been using it for a while as a hobby but have recently decided to try and sell some designs to a website and make a little cash on the side. I've never used Photoshop before but I believe a lot of the instructions provided on there are Photoshop specific so I'm struggling to replicate exactly using Pixelmator Pro.

Guidance on the site states:
'Designs that are uploaded incorrectly and are either just CMYK or created using RGB colours will now be rejected and deleted.
A correct setup is created using CMYK colours and then converted to RGB.'

Any ideas on what I would need to do to meet these criteria?
When exporting as CMYK the JPEG is much darker than it should be, so although that would fail the criteria, that's why I thought this may related to the issue above.

Thanks in advance, Gav :smile:
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2022-03-31 13:32:21

Hi Gavin! Unfortunately there's no way to natively work in CMYK in Pixelmator Pro so I'm afraid it's already impossible to stick to the guidelines on this one. The best I could suggest here would be to work in Soft Proof Colors mode with a CMYK profile enabled, get it as close as possible to your desired result, then export the final image in RGB. Hopefully your submission will go through!
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2022-03-31 13:55:09

So for my understanding, I'm guessing as it is, they're probably seeing a much darker version of my designs and hopefully, this will let them view a design far closer to what the RGB colours are showing? The fact they need it in RGB makes it sound like this should work to me.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.
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2022-03-31 14:16:18

by Gavin Joseph 2022-03-31 10:55:45 So for my understanding, I'm guessing as it is, they're probably seeing a much darker version of my designs and hopefully, this will let them view a design far closer to what the RGB colours are showing? The fact they need it in RGB makes it sound like this should work to me.
Hey there Gav, unfortunately, not quite... The color differences are actually due to fundamental differences in how color is created on screens and in print. On a screen, you're starting with black pixels that emit light and these can get brighter and brighter depending on how much light the actual pixels can emit. The color model used for these is RGB and screens contain individual red, green, and blue pixels. This is referred to as additive color and when these colors are combined (/added together), you get pure white.

On paper, color essentially works in the opposite way. Rather than adding colors together to get white, you start with a white piece of paper (well, most of the time) and subtract certain wavelengths from the light that is reflected from the paper using a mix of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks (CMYK). This is referred to as subtractive color. If you look at any printed materials, these will always have "duller" colors than what a screen can produce due to fundamental physical differences in the way those colors are created.

That's the reason why all this RGB/CMYK stuff and soft proofing exists in image editing – when creating images for display on digital screens and for print, you effectively have different color palettes to work with.

Hope that sheds some light on the issue!
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2022-04-01 14:21:55

I think there is something unacknowledged in all this.

What I find is that if I take a photo (say an outdoor scene, with or without people) with my iPhone and print it without modification, or if I only edit it lightly in Apple Photos on the Mac (say brighten it up a bit, or make the shadows lighter etc), when I print it on my consumer-level printer it's of acceptable tonal quality, i.e. it looks pretty much like the screen version in terms of overall brightness etc.

Of course technically it may not be exactly the same, since no end of calibration could be done, but it looks OK and one can give the print to one's friends etc or even frame it without concerns. BUT when the editing has been done in Pixelmator Pro, the print tends to be so much darker that it isn't acceptable even in this undemanding way.

That's my experience, but am I wrong? Is it just something that happens to me and not other users? I am confused.
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2022-04-01 14:40:56

by livfoss 2022-04-01 11:23:01 I think there is something unacknowledged in all this.

What I find is that if I take a photo (say an outdoor scene, with or without people) with my iPhone and print it without modification, or if I only edit it lightly in Apple Photos on the Mac (say brighten it up a bit, or make the shadows lighter etc), when I print it on my consumer-level printer it's of acceptable tonal quality, i.e. it looks pretty much like the screen version in terms of overall brightness etc.

Of course technically it may not be exactly the same, since no end of calibration could be done, but it looks OK and one can give the print to one's friends etc or even frame it without concerns. BUT when the editing has been done in Pixelmator Pro, the print tends to be so much darker that it isn't acceptable even in this undemanding way.

That's my experience, but am I wrong? Is it just something that happens to me and not other users? I am confused.
From what you've described, it does sound like it could be a bug of some kind – especially if some light editing gives you vastly different printed results. Although if that light editing involves making the entire image brighter and more vibrant, then maybe the results aren't too unexpected. There are quite a few variables here... Did you try soft proofing with the Generic CMYK profile? It's a little further down, in the CMYK profiles section of the Soft Proof Colors submenu. It'd be interesting to hear how different the soft-proofed version looks from the printed version.

If the soft proofed version is not as dark as the printed version, then this might be a lot to ask, but could you share with us the image edited in Photos and Pixelmator Pro? And if you have any photos of what the images look like when printed, that would be pretty interesting to see, too. Of course, I understand if the last request seems like a bit much. :sweat_smile: But feel free to send over the images, if possible, to support@pixelmator.com and we'll take a closer look. It might have something to do with how the images are exported, for example. Also, it would be great if you could let us know how you print them – i.e. which apps you use, the printer model, etc. Thanks in advance!
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2022-04-04 14:08:35

Hi again,
Hopefully, the last question from me. Is there a way to set the CMYK sliders to the default colour picker when choosing a colour to use the fill/pen/paint etc. tools? Or maybe to pin the colour selection pop-out to the sidebar somewhere?
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2022-04-07 17:51:18

Hi again,
Hopefully, the last question from me. Is there a way to set the CMYK sliders to the default colour picker when choosing a colour to use the fill/pen/paint etc. tools? Or maybe to pin the colour selection pop-out to the sidebar somewhere?
Unfortunately that's not possible with the default Color Picker, but you can use the Apple Colors window for this - it stays on top of your Pixelmator Pro window and has a CMYK slider mode. To enable it, press Command + Shift + C on your keyboard or go to View > Show Colors.