Artificial light causes printing problem

[JohnR]

Has anyone found a solution to the problem of digital photographs taken entirely under artificial light being incorrectly rendered by the printer, though they look correct on the PC screen? The printer renders correctly daylight pictures.

Here it is as I see it on the screen

IMG_0331edited2.jpg (11.66 KiB) Viewed 397 times

and this is what I get when I print (this image is scanned)

IMG.jpg (10.96 KiB) Viewed 397 times

[Pete Eeles]

Hi John - are you using monitor and printer calibration? I suspect not, otherwise this wouldn't happen.

Cheers,

- Pete

[FISHiEE]

Are you saying that both daylight and artificial light photos look fine on the computer screen but only one prints correctly to match what you see on screen and the other doesn't?

I'd have suggested calibration as Pete has already done so, but if both look fine on screen and only one prints incorrectly (using the exact same process for both I am assuming) that does sound a bit odd. I'd expect both to be awful if it was poor calibration.

Perhaps you could post two examples (actual files you try to print from, but not too large to kill the forum ), one that prints fine and one that does not, and maybe that will give some more clues

[JohnR]

1. I didn't know about calibration, I'll look up how to do that.

2. Yes I am saying that photos taken in artificial light have a colour cast when printed (of varying degrees) but look fine on the screen. Daylight pictures print OK and look just the same on the screen.

The pictures I posted above are the same, the second one simply being the printed image of the first. This was taken using a macro lens and one of those far-eastern circular l.e.d. lights. I have had a similar problem with using my halogen desk lamp, but not with a flash. This made me think that there was a colour temperature layer in the image.

[JKT]

As you have photographed the printed image under some conditions, it is impossible to say anything based on that. Post two pictures as FISHiEE suggested. That would give us a better chance to find the reason.

[GOLDENORFE]

the first shot looks like white ballance is too warm, common with indoor shooting with flash in auto wb mode in cameras menu
if your printer is in auto mode it will be correcting the white ballance automatically .
try manually setting wb to a cooler "k" setting 4500 maybe

phil

[JohnR]

the first shot looks like white ballance is too warm, common with indoor shooting with flash in auto wb mode in cameras menu
if your printer is in auto mode it will be correcting the white ballance automatically .
try manually setting wb to a cooler "k" setting 4500 maybe

phil

I think that you have it. The printer was set to auto (I had never noticed that choice box before!). Setting to normal the colour improved somewhat. I loaded the file into Photoshop elements (a programme that I have avoided using before because it seemed too complicated for my tiny brain) and could clearly see a pale blue cast of almost the same intensity as the background in this forum, across what should be a white background. Fiddling with PSE produced an almost perfect colour balance.
My camera was set to auto white balance, maybe when I next use the same light source I should experiment with a different setting.

Thanks for all your help, you saved me buying a new printer

[FISHiEE]

Never realised printers had an auto-correct setting on them.

Auto-white balance on cameras is generally not that great and sounds like the same is true of printers.

Always best to set the white balance to the correct setting for the conditions, or if not, and shooting RAW, change it to the correct one after the event