Giclee: Allpconline Company Blog
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Will my Giclee look exactly as the image on my screen?
This is probably the most asked question regarding giclee printing: we have a page dedicated to soft proofing your giclee. If you follow the directions and have a good monitor which is hardware calibrated, you will be able to get a good handle on how the prints will come out. This said, there are a few factors that can throw a curve against an accurate preview:
First, a monitor uses transmissive light. In other words, the image you see on the screen is illuminated from behind, just like a slide. This can cause the image on the screen to look like it is brighter than it actually is. What can you do? Always check the histogram to see if there is any clipping in the shadows and also where the bulk of the histogram information resides. If you have a normal density image and you see most of the information in the left half, then this is a good indication that the brightness is not correct. On the other hand a low key image is expected to show what I just described and it is just fine. A high key image should instead have most of the information on the right half. If this is a little confusing and you do not know how to read an histogram in Photoshop, please read the help file. Histograms are not monitor dependent and can provide very valuable information to set up an image for giclee printing.
Second, make sure your ambient lighting in the room where you have your calibrated monitor must be constant. If you color correct and adjust brightness in a sunny room, do not expect to see the same results when it is dark or artificial lights are on. If you cannot control ambient lighting, try to calibrated and edit images for example in the evening with the same type of illumination.
Finally, even with all these variables under control, it is still not a precise science; we offer a low cost giclee proofing service where you can receive proofs of your images on the same materials as the final output.
First, a monitor uses transmissive light. In other words, the image you see on the screen is illuminated from behind, just like a slide. This can cause the image on the screen to look like it is brighter than it actually is. What can you do? Always check the histogram to see if there is any clipping in the shadows and also where the bulk of the histogram information resides. If you have a normal density image and you see most of the information in the left half, then this is a good indication that the brightness is not correct. On the other hand a low key image is expected to show what I just described and it is just fine. A high key image should instead have most of the information on the right half. If this is a little confusing and you do not know how to read an histogram in Photoshop, please read the help file. Histograms are not monitor dependent and can provide very valuable information to set up an image for giclee printing.
Second, make sure your ambient lighting in the room where you have your calibrated monitor must be constant. If you color correct and adjust brightness in a sunny room, do not expect to see the same results when it is dark or artificial lights are on. If you cannot control ambient lighting, try to calibrated and edit images for example in the evening with the same type of illumination.
Finally, even with all these variables under control, it is still not a precise science; we offer a low cost giclee proofing service where you can receive proofs of your images on the same materials as the final output.
Labels: giclee
