MacBook Printing too Dark - Not Screen Brightness Problem

[Kelly]

Hi,

For some reason, my MacBook prints things an F-stop or two darker than the file. I know it's not a screen brightness problem because I printed the same exact file (from an external hard drive) on the same exact printer with the same exact ink on the same exact paper about 2 minutes apart from each other on my computer and on someone else's MacBook Pro. My computer also made the image slightly redder. The file looks exactly the same on the screen on both computers, but when I print it, it comes out darker and slightly redder on my computer.

I didn't remember until I was trying this out that I had a similar problem when printing my wedding pictures two years ago. I had to go into each file and increase the exposure so that it would look fine when printed. If it had just been that, I would have bought that my screen brightness was off or I needed to calibrate my screen, but because of the direct comparison I just did with the two computers, I now don't think that's the problem.

Is there any kind of setting I can change in the printer preferences or anything like that so that I can globally change how my computer interfaces with printers? If not, does anyone have any other suggestions on how to solve this problem?

Thanks for your help.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

What make and model printer do you have, and is it running latest software?

Many printers fail to reproduce your image files as you see them on the Mac or windows PC.

 

[Kelly]

I've tried on several different printers and had the same problem on all of them. The printer I'm playing with now is a Canon Pixma MP480 and I just downloaded the newest drivers from the Canon website. The other printer I was using is an EPSON Stylus Photo 1400. I think I just have the drivers installed that came with the printer, but I've had the problem the entire time I had the printer.

 

[Kaveman]

There are lots of printer settings that are in the popup menu half way down the Print sheet. The menu normally has the name of the App but there are other settings down there too.

 

[Morhass]

It sounds like there's something awry with the ICC Colour Profiles on your computer. I don't know a great deal about them, but the print industry professionals I sometimes work with spend a lot of time working with their colour spaces... The App is called ColorSync Utility, you'll find it in your Utilities folder, which is in Applications.

 

[Kelly]

Thanks for the suggestions and sorry for the delayed responses on my end. Is there a way to have the forum send me and email when someone responds to a question I posted? I thought I had it set to do that, but I haven't gotten any. I'll check out the ColorSync Utility, though I'm guessing that will require lots of time with Google figuring out what it is/how to use it to address problems.

 

[Kelly]

OK, I've been playing around some more to see what kind of settings will make it better or worse. Now, Preview is acting funny and printing everything at about 50% saturation (as if I was just trying to proof it or something) . I tried printing a PDF and just opening a jpg file and they both printed this way. I didn't know if I had accidentally done something to the printer itself, so I opened one of the images in MS Word and put some text and printed it, just to see what would happen. That printed fine and the colors on the image actually weren't even that bad.

Does anyone know why Preview would be printing everything way under saturated and how I can change it back? I've looked for some kind of setting I may have hit by accident telling it to print as a proof, but I can't see anything of the sort. Maybe I'm just missing it...?

 

[Kaveman]

Yes, you have setting in your Print sheet set to do this, it is not a problem with Preview it is a problem with the settings in the Print sheet, when you set them correctly the problem will be solved.