Aperture 3 prints too dark

Have you gone into your printer driver to make sure that color management is turned off? That's frequently the cause of dark prints.

I've found that I have to do two things to prevent prints that are too dark in Aperture 3. One, click on the "More Options" selection in Aperture 3's print dialog and turn OFF Black Point Compensation. Two, adjust the Brightness slider (in the More Options print dialog) up to 1.10 rather than its default of 1.00.

When I do these two things, my prints are a near perfect match to my display.

FWIW, with Aperture 2, I had to kick up the gamma in the print dialog to 1.04 or 1.05 (from a default of 1.00) to get prints to match the display.

Also, I find it much more difficult to get matched prints in Photoshop. It's much easier to deal with it in Aperture (2 or 3).

Lastly, if I recall correctly, Black Point Compensation was turned off by default in Aperture 2. So that might explain why you are having better luck with Aperture 2 on your laptop. Also, I remember reading something about Snow Leopard having issues with Black Point Compensation. The whole issue with prints that are too dark started for me with the installation of Snow Leopard.

Mark

Do you find you email exports are too dark? I haven't used Aperture to print ever (Photoshop does a far better job IMO) but I do find my exports darker by a full stop.

In the print options, change Rendering Intent from "Relative Colormetric" to "Perceptual"

I've just spent the last hour doing print tests with 3.0.1 using two printers and two papers. My 27 inch iMac is calibrated with a Spyder3Pro and the brightness of the screen is turned down 4 notches from full. I have to say my default prints weren't bad, but here are the tweaks that made a difference:
• Epson R2880 with Ilford Gallery Smooth Pearl: brightness +1.15, contrast +0.03, Relative, black point comp OFF.
• Epson Stylus 1400 with Epson Premium Glossy Photo: brightness +1.10.

These settings give me prints that are pretty bang on. The Ilford paper tends to be a bit bluer than its onscreen profile so I've made a preset that punches the yellow. Works well.

Switching from Relative Colorimetric to Perceptual made little or no difference in these tests so I decided to leave it at default (Relative).

A couple of bugs:
• Print presets don't remember the assigned paper size (but this is also true in Preview).
• Clicking More Options always clears the paper size back to default (US Letter). Annoying.
• The print window won't remember its size and position between launches and moves around erratically when clicking More Options. Also annoying.
• Photo refresh is way too long when switching presets. I get at least 10 seconds of blank preview before the image appears. Refresh when adding adjustments is equally long.

Also, nothing to do with printing but this update hasn't fix my bug with my secondary display going back to Alternate view every time I switch from Browser to Viewer mode. The menu still says Blank but the display is stuck on Alternate. I need to switch between Desktop and Blank for it return to normal.

Printing is certainly different in this version. The fact that the Gamma setting is gone shows how much of a change has been made. And since older presets aren't imported, it's back to the drawing board...

When I upgraded to OS 10.6, my print profiles were screwed up. When I tried to print, the preview print was way off...therefore I went through the process of going back down to 10.5.8 which was a headache. I am using the HP9180...great prints.

I have been doing some extensive testing after I purchased a Spyder3Print calabration, new inks (OEM) and MOAB Lassel paper.

The calibration of the monitor and printer goes smoothly. I then print the test prints from Spyder3Print and they again look perfectly matched to the screen. Then I restart everything (just to be sure) and use the new Print Profiles from Aperture 3, disabling the colour management in the printer. I have tried combinations of Black Point compensation on/off, Relative Colourmetric vs Perceptual etc and each time without fail, they print way too dark.

So I moved to Photoshop - and guess what team - they work 100%. The profiles are a very close match to the monitor.

The problem is definitely Aperture 3 - and I have the latest. Now it could be a combination of Aperture 3 and certain print drivers (I am using the latest Epson R1800 print driver), but the problem is not Mac OS X Snow Leopard, nor the drivers nor the profiles as they are all working in other applications (tested now in Spider and Photoshop).

Apple, please fix this.

I've completely given up on both Snow Leopard and Aperture 3 trying to print on my sp7600, have gone back to Leopard and Ap2 and it's all perfect again. And yes I am calibrated...with munki.

I had to set ColorMunki Photo Prefs "ICC Profile Version" to "Version 2" (the default is "Version 4") in order to get it to work with Snow Leopard and my Canon and Epson printers.

I don't know why this worked, but it completely cured my problems with ColorMunki. The change was suggested by a ColorMunki technician. I was assured that I was losing nothing of ColorMunki functioning.

Thanks I will try that, what epson printer are you using?
I found that it didn't matter what profiles i used, colorMunki or standard epson it was still no good with the 7600. Only work around was from Kevin Doyle on LL forum and involves assigning profiles and convert to profile....easy enough but still shouldn't have to do.