When images print darker than expected these are the most likely reasons why:

The screen is too bright (How are you viewing your prints?): If images are viewed on a screen that is turned up too bright it will not give a true representation of the image. Don’t forget that the screen is just a representation of the image and not the actual image. Moving brightness up and down on the screen does not change the image, it just makes a difference to how it looks on screen. A simple way of correcting the brightness of your screen is to make the brightest white of the screen no brighter than the paper you have selected to print to (Whitepoint). Alternatively, turn down the brightness of the screen so it matches the sample print you have had printed as it will give you an approximation of what the image looks like.

Viewing conditions: How are the prints viewed? In professional printing prints are always viewed in a simulated daylight environment . That is approximately 5000 degrees of Kelvin and close as possible to 100 CRI (Colour Rendition index). This viewing area is much brighter than an average living room. Please take your display conditions into consideration when editing an image for print.

Under exposed captures: Cameras are so much better these days that this is less of a problem than it used to be. Learn how to read a histogram and check your images in levels or curves in Photoshop or your preferred image editing program. An under exposed image can most of the times be adjusted to print just fine.

Black point compensation: A screen has approximately 10x the contrast ratio of a print. That difference is most noticeable in dark areas where you can see many more “shades” on your screen than you can in print. A print does not represent the same dynamics in tones/shades as a screen. For this we need to compensate prior to going to print. This used to be called “darkroom skills” prior to digital printing. Dodging and burning is art form that still can be practised in Photoshop or by carefully working with HDR filters. Black point compensation is another an effective way of dealing with this issue. Below is a link to a great video showing how that works. If an image has a lot of information on the left hand side of the histogram the video will show how you can stop those shaded areas becoming too dark or defaulting to black. How much of this work that has to be done depends on the paper. A Matt or textured paper (light absorbing) will require a greater adjustment then a light reflective paper (Gloss). Learn more here.

In short, if images are printing too dark it is unlikely that it is a paper or a printing issue. All papers at PosterFactory are scientifically calibrated to represent each colour value as accurately as possible on any given paper (ICC profiles). We use the latest Barbieri technology and sophisticated calibration colour software and a dedicated RIP (Raster Interpolating Process) to make sure that every pixel are represented in print as accurate as is technically possible. It makes sure that colour values stay true when a paper has been profiled. Yes, the paper selection will impact on how an image will look but these differences are much smaller than the impacts of some selective edits prior to going to print. Yes, textured or a Matt paper will have less of a dynamic rage than a more gloss stock but regardless of paper selection, an image that is too dark will print dark on all papers.

If the above has left you with some question please feel free to make contact so we can help. Printing should always be fun and rewarding.

There are a number of things that you can do to prevent this happening even when working with an uncalibrated screen. First, lower the brightness of your screen so that brightest part of your screen (white) has the same level of brightness as a white piece of paper. Once you have done this have a look at your image on a white, grey and black background. Reduce the image size on screen and review the image at a matchbox size (app 30x 40 mm ). Now adjust your image until you are happy with it whilst viewing it in each of the above scenarios and be assured that your printed result will not be too dark.

16-bit files are for editing only as there is really no print process that can do anything useful with all the extra data.

RAW files are for editing only so please export as Tiff or Jpeg prior to placing your order.

We print onto rolls of paper so the orientation of your image does not matter. We will never crop a landscape image to portrait unless specifically instructed to do so which would incur an extra charge.

Yes, as long as you have used a high resolution setting on your phone when you took the photo. There is more information on our help page.

Yes, we can cut shapes, but we will need a cut path from you and an instruction in notes in the checkout. A cut path is a layer in your vector program that will instruct our cutting process (Zund Pro-Cut) to cut the shape.

Once you have added an image to the cart you need to repeat the process for the next image so we know what paper and size you want us to print. Once you have all your images in the cart you can then go ahead and place your order.

If you have a scan file that is larger than 100Mb (maximum single file upload) instead of uploading the image you can upload a txt file (or a Word document) with the link to your image when making an order. We recommend using ‘WeTransfer’ or ‘Google Drive’ or ‘Dropbox’ for your links but please make sure that we will not require permissions to download the file so we can get on with printing your work.

We allow a maximum of 200Mb per file as it would be rare for an original capture to be larger than that. Please make sure that your file is flattened and ideally RGB for maximum colour space.

Tiff, Jpeg, jpg or png or PDF, they will all work just make sure they are the right resolution and proportions for the size you want to order. You can check this on our help page.

Technically you can, but it does not necessarily make it a better quality print file. Please watch our video about resolution here for a greater understanding.

To the right-hand size of your image there is a small x, click that to delete the item from your cart.

Yes, you can order images from your phone by WiFi or over a 4G or faster internet connection.

Yes all recent phones prints very good images up to A0 size. More details on our help page.