Why is my print darker than the screen?
Six causes that add up when you print. Switch each one off and on and watch the screen and the print move closer together.
Checked 12 October 2026. Runs only in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
Kontrola fariebOFOTO / COLOUR CHECK — SCREEN ↔ PRINT — TEACHING SIMULATION
Solved 0 of 6 causes. The print is darker and flatter than the screen.
The simulation is for teaching: shifts in brightness, contrast and colour are exaggerated so you can see what each cause does. It does not replace calibration or soft proofing with a profile for real paper. The 80–120 cd/m² figure is a commonly recommended guide range for editing photographs for print, not a standard.
The six causes in brief
- Screen brightness. Out of the box, a screen is usually far brighter than paper under ordinary light. For editing photographs for print, 80–120 cd/m² is commonly recommended as a guide, depending on how the room is lit.
- Colour space. A file without an embedded profile is usually treated as sRGB. If it was in Adobe RGB, the colours fade when printed.
- Ambient light. Paper is only as bright as the light falling on it. In dim light every print looks dark.
- Paper white. The lightest part of a print is the paper itself, which is warmer and darker than the white of a screen.
- Black point. The darkest black paper can reach (Dmax) is lighter than the black of a screen; more so on matt paper than on glossy.
- ICC profile. Without a profile for the specific paper, the printer has no idea how the ink behaves on it.
The detailed method is in Monitor calibration and soft proofing and ICC profiles and colour spaces.
Sources
- ISO 3664:2025 — Graphic technology and photography — Viewing conditions (page for the previous edition, with a link to the current one)
https://www.iso.org/standard/43234.html - International Color Consortium (ICC)
https://www.color.org/