noob question. Urgent, please help.

[Christian Thomas]

Hello everyone. Maybe has been asked before.
Prepare for the noob question:

I´m working on an b&w image in Photoshop in AdobeRGB and CMYK to Coated FOGRA39, with a calibrated monitor in 6500k 2.2 gamma. Now, I want to print it at a thirth party print lab, no icc color profile, nothing. Just one clue, it´ll print darker. How do I avoid printing it darker? Should I lift the overall gamma?

Thank you.

[Manfred M]

The only solution I can think of (and I did the same thing in the colour wet darkroom). Do test prints until you get what you want. You can lighten any way you like. A trick I adopt from one of Scott Kelby's videos is to duplicate the image and set it to "Screen" blending mode. Based on the test prints I did, setting the Screen blending mode layer to 20% transparency gives me the right level on my Epson 3880. Again, this was determined by doinig test prints.

Not sure why you are using CMYK to Coated FOGRA39. Photo printers are designed to use RGB, even though the actual printer uses variants of CMYK inks. CMYK is used for printing presses.

[Polar01]

Christian: if you are taking the file to a third party to print, you will need to give it to them the way they need it. I would say that it will need to be as a jpeg at approx. 240ppi. The printer can not print it in the Adobe RGB colour as the printer can only print from the sRGB colour space. As you monitor is calibrated to give you the correct colour remember your monitor is sRGB, and you have converted the colour image to B&W you should be the correct tones for your print.
Tell me why do you feel that it will print dark? If your monitor is overly bright than yes it may print dark how ever all your images would print dark in this case.

Cheers: Allan

[Christian Thomas]

Hello Grumpy. Thank you for your fast reply. First of al, I´m so novice that I don´t have much experience in the printing field.
I can´t do test prints, because I don´t have a print I´ll try the screen blending mode at 20%. I´m using CMYK to coated FOGRA39 because of some guy who adviced people to do that in a Photoshop tutorial: prepare for printing. What setup do you recommend? Thank you.

[Christian Thomas]

Tell me why do you feel that it will print dark?

Just because two of my last images were printed darker.

[Mike Buckley]

two of my last images were printed darker.

Though I realize that can happen, I also think most people (certainly not Manfred) confuse the difference between viewing an image on a monitor, which involves incident light being projected toward the viewer, and viewing a print, which involves reflective light being reflected from paper.

[Christian Thomas]

Mike, I really appreciate your reply, but trust me, those images were printed darker and wasn´t about perception. I just want to avoid that. Maybe playing with the gamma a little bit ?!?!
Thank you guys for your replies, but can someone guide me... I feel lost here.

[John Morton]

Though I realize that can happen, I also think most people (certainly not Manfred) confuse the difference between viewing an image on a monitor, which involves incident light being projected toward the viewer, and viewing a print, which involves reflective light being reflected from paper.

Mike is absolutely right, and in fact a similar situation has always been see in print production for mass media. Even back in the days of photo-mechanical transfer technology, it was a "given" rule-of-thumb that black and white photographs would print up to about 12% darker on newsprint, just because that grade of paper isn't (well, wasn't) as reflective as the high grade paper photographs are printed upon. This differential decreases substantially with the higher quality glossy paper used in magazines, but it is still something to be taken into account. Perhaps, since the tutorial you viewed recommended using CMYK for black and white printing, he was advising on how to set up for web press production, such as happens with a newspaper. Often, even the people at a newspaper have next to no clue as to what settings their images should be sent to their printer with (newsrooms are often large and chaotic with much division-of-labor), and rely upon "standard settings" suggested through tutorials such as the one you viewed.

For your own use, and for commercial printing, those settings might not be appropriate. In answer to your question, Manfred's suggestion for using the "screen" blend mode to lighten your image before printing might be your best bet. I would suspect that you needn't look much beyond the 8%-12% range for good results, although only testing will determine the best settings for your individual situation.

[Christian Thomas]

Thank you very much, I´ll keep in mind your adivice ... Like John said

only testing will determine the best settings for your individual situation

Let´s test it then.

[chauncey]

This is my go-to guy for all questions about printing http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...too_dark.shtml
Ya might want to check his personal site as well.

[John Morton]

I'm currently re-editing an autobiography for my wife's mother, written by her husband in third draft form before he passed away last year. There are about 100 photographs that I am converting into black and white (with some starting out that way), spanning his long and varied career which began as an Episcopalian priest with an ex-pat parish in Columbia during the early 1960's; continued through a period as a visiting priest in South Africa, leading bi-racial organization and discussion groups during Apartied, in Zululand; and continued on through a Ph.D, a stint as Commissioner of Education for the State of Rhode Island, and on to work with the World Bank setting up general educational programs in Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangledesh.

Needless to say, the quality of the images varies greatly; and the requirements for output are determined by CreateSpace's PDF specifications (CMYK).

My experience with printing black and white through CMYK presses tells me that the main thing to watch out for is having the inevitable darkening of the images "block in" the darker tones ranging just above black. Because of this, I tend to define my blacks very distinctly and to try and separate any dark tones close to black so that they will still be evident even if the image darkens slightly. Whites are not as much of a problem; over compensating for a darkening of tone which doesn't appear can be more of a problem here; so detail must be maintained in highlights. If mid-tones are well defined in a black and white image (through a good contrast range), they are rarely if ever an issue when printing CMYK on a web press.

For a more readily documentable approach to lightening an image for print production, I might put a plain white layer over top of a black and white image; reduce the opacity of that layer down to 2% or 4% (taking notes) and then through a "Levels" adjustment layer on top, where I would JUST move my black point up one or two levels; and I would try various permutations of that until I both had the results I wanted and could predict what results I would achieve, and how to get them, in the future.

To safeguard my highlights when doing this, I would go into "Blending Options" for the white layer and remove it's effect over the highlights / whites of the main image (splitting the slider to make sure the effect was gradual). There are more advanced ways of doing this, using tone masks and feathering.