You have to add some brightness and add some sharpening for prints. Usually for prints people do a special PP, different from digital publishing. There are some print studios where I go to print my photos, not all of them, where my photos would look a lot darker compared to what I see on my own screen inside photoshop.This is fairly normal just because your computer screen is literally a shining light, while a print is just ink on paper, reflecting ambient light. In this case I think its mostly camera color profiles and possible color space that are the main coulprits Just another thing to keep in mind, though it might not be the problem here. This can be great and save time, but it can also confuse you if you don't expect it.
#Better than picasa photo viewer software
Some software will automatically apply some corrections as soon as you open a raw. I'd recommend you find a good color profile for your camera online, one that is from the same Brand but can be used in various softwares.įinally, make sure you don't have automatic PP. You can usually make your own or find them online.
In some software this is easy to change and you even have different profiles available. Raw is not yet an image, so the software has to interpret the raw. When you open a raw photo (dng, pef) the software uses a certain profile to draw the colors. This one rarely affects the image, but you should be mindful of how much you switch between 24bit, 16bit, 8bit.Īnd then there is the Camera color profile.
sRGB is the one that is best for internet and easiest to work with, though some people claim AdobeRGB and ProRGB have a little more nuances in the gamut. You can convert the colour space as one of the last steps, but try to keep it the same throughout. The first thing you can do is make sure that color space in-camera is the same as all the software you will be using.