To start, I'm mostly just a hobbyist (I mean I have a website with a store but no traffic and I don't really bother to advertise, but that's not the topic for today), so I don't print often and mostly share my photos online. I use my laptop, which like most devices has a pretty bright screen. I usually then double-check images on my phone screen, which is a little darker and shows colors a little differently so that I can have an idea of how my images look on two different screens.
But anyways, I'm planning to print a few calendars soon and recently got a stack of 4x6s printed off just for fun. I noticed that most of my images were darker in print than online. I've now read that this is common and makes sense, as the screens are backlit to be very bright. But I guess I'm wondering about the best way to "fix" images for print, and if there's any good way to know that they'll look right before actually printing. I know about calibrators, probably should get one, etc etc but honestly was hoping to print the calendars with a black Friday deal so I'm not going to have a calibrator before then.
Should I simply just up the exposure settings? Any tips on what's a good amount? Do other settings need to be adjusted for print, too?
Also just wondering how other people manage this in general. I'd probably still prefer to edit for screens in the future, as that is primarily how I share my photos. So should I just keep two versions of photos that I want to print? Or adjust my whole editing style to be a bit brighter (which tbh I didn't think it was very dark to begin with) in case I print something?
As I said, I don't print often, so this is a new issue for me that I hadn't thought much about before. I'd like to print more in the future and am just curious about others' thoughts, editing processes, and any tips on not running into this issue next time.
Two main things to consider here.
As you seem to already know, most screens are way too bright for photo editing, which becomes a bigger problem when printing. Some are even so bright they are impossible to calibrate as the minimum level of their backlighting is too high. You want to be editing around 100-120 cd/m2 (nits) in most situations. Given that you are pressed for time and won't be able to do a proper calibration, you can get light meter phone apps to help you approximate nits to set your monitor brightness manually. If you understand how histograms work, you can also use that as a rough guide.
Prints are meant to be lit, so the environment you view them in can have a huge impact on how bright/dark they look. This is why when you go to an actual gallery, they will have lighting strategically aimed at the prints. If you think they are too dark, make sure that is still the case under proper lighting. A lot of prints look too dark because of where they are viewed even if the source file is perfectly exposed. The print medium (paper type, canvas, metal, etc.) also matters, some reflect more light than others.
As others have mentioned, test prints are the surefire way to check the results. There isn't going to be a huge difference between print shops if you're just worried about brightness, so you could for example edit one photo with 5 different levels of brightness, take it to a 1hr photo printer, and then note the settings used on the one that looks best to your eye. Reputable print shops will actually provide you with an ICC profile to match their printers which might help you as well. If you send them your photos they might also be able to tell you if they are too dark, and some print shops offer auto-correction/image enhancement if you opt for it. Depends on the shop.
If you're so inclined, it probably wouldn't be very hard to just do it properly and buy a colorimeter (X-Rite, Sypder, etc.) from Amazon with 1-day/same day shipping and the calibration process itself is not very time consuming. That's what I would do assuming you have more than a day or so of time and if its something you plan on doing in the future anyway.
Once you have a properly calibrated setup, to the extent to which that is possible on a display that does not support hardware calibration with a proper LUT, then you're all set. Everything will look about as it should on a monitor or in print. Calibration also has to be re-done on a regular basis, especially if only being done via software (which is your situation). What you can't control is other people viewing your images on uncalibrated displays, but that will be a variable no matter what you do on your end.