Is this normal for printing?

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
I had the same photo printed using two different media. One was photo paper (glossy) and one was canvas. The glossy is brilliant with all of the colors (replicates the computer image), but the canvas print is dark. I knew there would be a certain amount of "dulling" on the canvas, but how much is normal? When printing canvas, do you brighten the image beyond normal?
TIA
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
There's a process called "soft proofing"... printing on different papers, and mediums produces different results. Sometimes, dramatically, as you've learned. "Soft Proofing" is a process whereby the image you see on the screen approximates what your results will be. Most software doesn't support this. Lightroom does. It uses the printer's drivers for the selected paper/medium to display the image, and allows you to make adjustments to the output... Printers use different drivers for each of their papers... This is a very brief over-view of a rather complex process...
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Thanks @FredKingston for your reply. The prints were made at Walgreens and believe it or not, in the past I have had good results on canvas prints (from another store in another town). This one, however was darker and had fewer colors than I had expected. The problem with going back to them to see if this is a problem with their printer or just the way it is, is that it is 80 miles one way. I should have looked at the prints while I was there, but being in a hurry to get all of my errands done I waited until I got home to look at them. Big mistake on my part! Hind sight is always 20-20.
 
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