Recently I taught a couple of sessions in Introduction to Color Management at Pixels Foto & Frame in Sandy, Utah.  I’ve never really worked with a group before but interestingly enough one question I asked at the beginning confirmed that the most common problem for those doing their own printing is dark prints.  The solution to this is pretty simple ... make sure you have the your display set to the correct luminance - turn down the brightness.

On the Mac, F1 and F2 control screen brightness, but using those keys results in pretty large changes.  When trying to fine tune one’s luminance when making a monitor profile, using the f keys results in adjustments which are too coarse.  My typical solution is to open the displays preference pane and use the slider, which works OK.

I ran into this tip the other day involving some keyboard shortcuts which is a nice alternative.  If you hold the shift and option keys down when adjusting the screen brightness with F1 and F2, you will get much finer increments - actually four times as many steps.  Additionally, if you hold just the option key down when adjusting the brightness, it opens directly to the displays preference pane instead.   A nice shortcut. (Option Shift when pressing a sound volume key opens the sound preference pane as well ... a nice quick way to get there).

I have my function keys set to operate as normal function keys, so I have to hold the fn key down when pressing an F key to get the built in OS function.  If your Mac is set up the same way, make sure you are also pressing the fn key when using the other keys.

Just a little tip, not too well documented but very useful when profiling your display.