Printer prints photos too dark

[user7483]

Can someone please help me??? My Designjet 500 prints photos much darker than what's on the screen. I am at a loss as to what settings I should be using to get good prints. I changed the color management to almost every profile available and nothing seems to work. If anyone can give me some advise it would be so greatly appreciated. I am wasting paper trying to get this thing to print decent prints.

[DixonMarshall]

This is normal. Your screen uses RGB to display against a backlight, but the printer uses CYMK on paper with no backlight-- or in the case of photo paper, the black ink is turned off so only CYM is used. It is an easy fix.

1- increase the brightness in your photo app (in Paintshop pro, I increase the brightness by 28%), and reduce the contrast by about 5%. This will indeed look terrible on your display, but ignore that. I actually save some photos twice, once for viewing on the screen, and again lightened for printing if I think I will print it at some time. It is not necessary to save the lightened photo, you can print without saving from most editors like PaintShop, GIMP, or PhotoShop.

2- make sure you are using enhanced color mode (which requires the latest firmware for your printer). To access ehanced color mode, go to the paper menu on your 500, scroll all the way to the bottom, and press enter on enhanced colors. Pick the paper you are using, hit enter, then hit the back button until you get to the main menu.

3- I would higly recommend that you color calibrate for your paper. You will find this in the ink menu on your printer.

4- Make a small print to test your settings. If still too dark, increase the brightness in your photo editor; decrease if the photo is too dark.

There are intermediate programs, called "RIPs," that will take care of this for you, but they are VERY expensive.

Hope this helps!