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.