Corel draw x3- I uploaded a photo and printed a t-shirt. It is an outdoor, daylight shot. The print on the shirt is very dark, too dark to read. I can not find guidance on this on the cafepress site, can someone point me in the right direction

I'm sure others that do photography will be able to help much more, but I think one important aspect to consider is that you're printing on fabric. You're not going to get vibrant colors on shirts like you will on prints or ceramics.

Maybe I am misunderstanding something, but if it is a photo why run it through Corel? It could be your color settings in Corel have output the photo in a way that escaped your eyes looking at the results on your monitor.

I used Corel just to crop and otherwise tweak the photo. It was uploaded as a JPG, which I have since learned is second choice format, after PNG. I think I should try again in PNG format, maybe 200 dpi

Just a quick...

DPI that's to-spec is important, that's true. However, try printing on a sheet of paper - see what that yields.

Fabric, by nature and by process, won't print quite the same way as ceramic or paper (like Jim said). It will also show the difference one might be perceiving between an illuminated display (RGB) and reflected light in the physical world (CMYK). Displays often make things seem brighter than if it were printed.

After that, you might want to provide a link to the product in question... we might see if it's a font issue, color space, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by Hardin:
I used Corel just to crop and otherwise tweak the photo. It was uploaded as a JPG, which I have since learned is second choice format, after PNG. I think I should try again in PNG format, maybe 200 dpi

I usually adjust the levels on my photos when preparing them for print.

Some graphics programs eg. Photoshop have a histogram graph of the tonal range in the Levels control dialogue panel.

Generally digital cameras tend to underexpose slightly so subtle details aren't lost in the highlight areas due to over exposure or tonal clipping. But generally this means most digital photos will be a little subdued and need to be adjusted for printing

You often find the top of the histogram graph will be flatline or at very low levels, actually I have a habit of underexposing slightly any way so this is often the case with many of my pictures and this is intentional because I don't want to lose tonal subtleties in the highlights.

Ideally when you are adjusting the levels you want to pull the slider to around where the histogram starts, you can sometimes go a little beyond that but not too far or you will lose subtle details in the highlight areas.

By doing this you lighten the image and make the tonal range of the photo fit the tonal range of the entire digital tone/color spectrum, and standardize the tonal range independently of monitor variations.

Saying that it does help to have one's monitor Gamma setting fairly accurate as well, because although the histogram is a big help, if your levels control has this feature (some don't) sometimes you need to be able to adjust things by eye as well.

But adjusting the levels should do the trick because the tonal range of your image will then conform with the entire tonal range of the digital spectrum, so you are in effect increasing and standardizing the tonal range, it's similar to what "Normalisation" does to a digital music sample.

Actually you can also use auto-levels, which might be easier, but I prefer to do adjust the levels manually myself because most things that are "automatic" can sometimes get it wrong, but that is an easier method.

Thank you all very much, especially artberry for the taking time required to provide so much information. Once I have learned my photo software well enough to make the types of adjustments suggested I am sure I will get the results I am after. Again, many thanks to all.

quote:

Originally posted by Hardin:
Thank you all very much, especially artberry for the taking time required to provide so much information. Once I have learned my photo software well enough to make the types of adjustments suggested I am sure I will get the results I am after. Again, many thanks to all.

That's OK.

Yes, adjusting the levels should do the trick. Though with digital photos it's usually best to keep a copy of your original image as well, just in case you need to undo things.

Actually I was going to suggest since you are using Coreldraw you probably have Photopaint and you could make adjustments in that. But having just checked this out myself. I can see why I tend to use Photohop or Paintshop Pro to adjust the levels. There doesn't seem to be a standard levels adjustment tool in Photopaint and what they have instead e.g "Historgram Equalisation" doesn't seem very easy to use. So I wouldn't worry too much if you find photopaint a bit difficult to understand, it kind of baffles me to lol

I also find Photopaint confusing. I have a copy of Photoshop Elements that I have never used, that is my next stop.