Ubuntu

photographs come out printed quite a lot darker, are there any adjustments I can make?

Asked by brian

My HP Color Laser Jet CP1215 has been performing beautifully, except when it comes to printing photographs... Is there any way to reduce the darkness or lighten the intensity of the toner applied in the print? The camera I use is a pocket Nikon coolpix-s3 which works OK in an inkjet/windows environment... I use Linux Mint and appreciate the excellence in performance of the HP printer in every other task...

The out-of-the-box 'default' via the HP Device Manager seems to be:-
Saturation is set at 100%
Hue (color shift/rotation is 0
Brightness is 100%
Gamma is 1000

I do not know what these mean? and could adjustment somewhere there resolve the viewability somewhat? or should I reconfigure my Nikon and my Canon PowerShot SX1 IS to overexpose a bit? The Canon gives similar results when printing via the HP laser Jet - Quite dark and lacking definition in darker areas even with flash on dark skinned faces (almost a silhouette) or definition is 'lost' if the background is also dark even a different colour...

or should I reconfigure my cameras to some level of 'over-exposure' for images I wish to print as gifts to islanders during my sailing cruise of PNG? I will be printing single images to A4 size, and some special ones I may laminate...

I do not expect high quality but something nearer 'poster' finish would be appreciated if possible... I normally use "GThumb" as it is quick and convenient as well as being quite intuitive to use... but have Gimp and F-spot available

Thanks,
Brian

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marcus aurelius
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Best marcus aurelius (adbiz) said : 		#1

you can use any graphics program to lighten and adjust the image.
gimp is way to hard to use.

if you're using 10.10, there's the program shotwell. i haven't used it but you might want to give it a try. looks for things under the edit or image menu. there should be something called color adjustment or brightness/contrast.

instead of trying to fiddle with brightness, i always increase the gamma to something like 1.25.

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brian (bsballard) said : 		#2

I presume 10.10 refers to linux edition, - sorry if I did not make myself clear - I am using Linux Mint 9 'isadora'... I will look up "shotwell' and also try adjusting gamma to 1.25? from the present setting of 1000? maybe that is why the darkness? I will try both in the next couple of days and post back with results...

Thanks

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marcus aurelius (adbiz) said : 		#3

linux mint has their own forum. please address issues on that forum. thanks.