Printing Digital art

[Hudd]

I recently tried printing a painting on canvas and it came out a little dark. Is there a brightness that is typically used to make it come out similar to what's on the screen.

Any techniques for adjustment to brightness for printing would be very helpful thanks.

[Two Listen]

Are you talking professional printing, or at home type of stuff?

Digital work for print can get a little complicated. I've only dabbled in it a little bit, but here's what I've learned about it so far as I can tell:

Monitor calibration is very important. You'll want to calibrate your monitor according to what your intended audience is supposed to see. Which means if you're looking to do print work, it needs to be calibrated to get as close to print color as you can.

Resolution. I believe standard printing resolution is 300 dpi for most standard size images, though this can vary depending on the size of the image and the distance it's supposed to be viewed from. Billboards for example don't need to be near that high, they're meant to be viewed from very far away. I've seen some want it up to 600dpi, but 300dpi seems to be a good standard for maintaining quality at most standard sizes.

Color profiles. What type of color are you printing it off in? CMYK or RGB? Most digital painters and the like paint in RGB color, and then the printer people convert it to CMYK and do their best to match it up with the printer's color profile. Occasionally you'll have a company ask for the CMYK version from you, in which case you'll want to try and get the color profile they'll be printing it in and make sure that you've got a program that accurately displays CMYK color. From there, you can tweak the color in something like photoshop and try and get it to match up as close to your RGB as possible.

If you're just doing printing at home, and you're printing it in RGB, you'll probably just want to try and calibrate your monitor for future paintings to match what you get from the printer. Otherwise the only thing you can really do is learn your printer, and tweak the brightness and colors beforehand.

Please note, I have not done a large amount of print work. It's just something I've looked into and seen some info on here and there. I could be wrong on a few things, but in the event I am, someone will correct me. And then we both will have learned something.

[Sascha Thau]

Good post, Two Listen!

Please bear in mind that most (cheaper) LCD Monitors can't display the full color range. This means: no matter how good you calibrate your monitor, you'll never see all colors in your piece.

A good LCD monitor with a big enough gamut costs around 1,000 $ / 700 Euro. The cheap option is to buy one of those old monster tube monitors, if you can get one. Tubes have no limitations colorwise, but you have to calibrate them more often.


and then the printer people convert it to CMYK and do their best to match it up with the printer's color profile

In an ideal world - yes. Some of the printers just convert and print your piece - they don't care much about anything, they just let it run through their machines. Because of well versed "Desktop Publishing Software" it is most often expected from you to deliver the files in perfect printing condition.

A printer will always print in CMYK. But you can order proofs before they print. There you will see how the final priece will look like color wise - and then you can order corrections. Or give them a print and say they have to match those colors.

For a good product try to find a printer in your area and work together with them. If you want to save money and order from a cheap online printing service, you'll have to expect unpleasent surprises.

I'll strongly advise to get a proof beforehand.

Colormanagement in and of itself is no easy thing to learn, but when you keep some basic principles in mind, you'll get what you expect.

[Wollstonecraft]

Along these same lines I'm looking for the answer how to get something professionally printed.... I've read that Glicee ? prints are the way to go but:

what resolution should i make my artwork at if i want to have it pro printed and sell it?


(sorry if I'm hijacking, it seems to be along the same lines or same subject....)

[Sascha Thau]

300 dpi is the way to go. If you want to know more about certain materials go to a printer in your area and ask.

[George Abraham]

Whatch out for monitor's that's been brightened up a little for comfortable viewing(Normal home behaviour)

Keep the Contrast and the brightness even, also look at temperature. If it's just that the screen has a built in backlight and a canvas doesn't then you simply have to adapt your prints for the final viewing environment.

Take ImagineFX magazine as an example. Alot of the works in general digital art can only really be appreciated in full when you switch on that brighter bedlamp. That's just because of monitorbacklightabsencealightus symptoms.