Why can't I get a print I'm happy with??

<p>Hi, <br>

I've been having trouble getting satisfactory prints from images I'm perfectly happy with. I'd really appreciate any guidance you can give me on this. </p>

<p>I shoot with a Nikon D700. I shoot RAW, and use Lightroom for post processing, and have been very happy with the on-screen results I get for my shots. I have an iMac, and I understand the screens on these are generally well calibrated to start with (?)</p>

<p>Somehow, I'm just totally unable to translate these results onto paper. I print at a local photo lab, and inevitably, an image that looks rich, detailed, colourful, and bright, comes out of the lab looking drab, black, over-contrasty, and generally awful. And this is after weeding out the useless other labs which produce blues that look green and blacks that look purple. </p>

<p>I've been using the "printing stations" where you insert your flashdrive, pick the pictures you want, specify the sizes/gloss/matte/etc, hit the button and come back a couple of hours later for the prints. I usually print 8x12s, from full res JPEGs exported from Lightroom. </p>

<p>I've tried with images that are predominantly dark, predominantly light, multi-coloured, mostly one or two colours, and B+W, and I have the same trouble with all of them. </p>

<p>The only way I've found to get something even remotely like what I'm after, is to post-process the image to make it look really low-contrast, flat, under-saturated, and generally unappealing, in the hope that the mystical printing transformations it will undergo will make it look acceptable. But this is a total shot-in-the-dark, and I never know what I'm going to get. </p>

<p>Surely this isn't normal? Surely I should be able to produce an image that looks just right on my computer screen, and in the age of digital wizardry, I should be able to get a similar looking image on paper? I realise Dynamic Range may be lower on paper than on-screen, but surely the idiosyncrasies of printers are well enough known that gamma corrections etc will be automatically made in the labs?</p>

<p>Or - is there some kind of automatic "Process for Print" function I can use in Lightroom (or other software) which will take care of this for me?</p>

<p>I must confess, though I'm well and truly a child of the digital generation, I've never had much patience for poking around in a computer. Having spent hours out in the field taking the picture, and hours at home post-processing it to look just right, surely it's reasonable to expect decent prints?</p>

<p>Any advice/thoughts/opinions?</p>

<p>Thanks very much everyone, <br>

Vineet</p>

<p>Hi Vineet... I usually do most of my printing at a pro lab, however, there are times when I need to print snapshots of my daughter for relatives and I go to the grocery story across the street. The lab guy is really nice, and he even turns off the automatic processing for me. That's right: most people don't have Lightroom... so most of these plug-in and print kiosks will screw around with your carefully touched up pictures.<br>

My advice is find a real lab that will help calibrate your screen to their printer (they usually have a bunch of profiles you can select). And if there are none in your area, try an online solution. I know mpix.com is well respected here in North America. I have a friend from Auckland... I can ask him about NZ options.</p>

<p>Marlon, </p>

<p>Thanks for the response. I did select the "no extra editing" option - but I like your point about calibrating my screen for the printer - might have to look into that. </p>

<p>Cheers, </p>

<p>Vineet</p>

<p>1. You may have to calibrate your screen with a hardware calibration tool (a device that checks the colors of your screen and then calibrates your screen to a standard).<br>

2. Make sure that the color space (e.g. sRGB) you use while you adjust the colors on your screen is saved with your image, and that the color space you use is accepted by your photo lab. sRGB is your safest bet.<br>

If you go this route, there should be no need to calibrate your screen to a specific printer for general purpose prints. Professional on-line labs provide instructions on how to calibrate your monitor to get good results with their service.</p>

The screens on the iMac are nice, but almost certainly way too bright out of the box. If the luminosity of

the screen is too high, you will adjust the files to print too dark—muddy.There isn't a really good way to

calibrate a screen without a measuring device of some sort. Without confidence in your monitor, you're

kind of screwed because it's really hard to know where to start to find the problem. People aren't spending

money on pucks and photospectrometers because the have nothing better to do with the money—they

serve a vital purpose.

 

If you are confident the lab is using a good workflow you could send them a reference target like those

found here: http://www.gballard.net/photoshop/pdi_download/ The print should look pretty good if their

workflow is on. Once you have the print, you could open the file and try adjusting the brightness of the

monitor to match print—it will get you closer, but only barely in the ballpark.

<p>After pulling out a lot of my hair I found out the following:<br>

A lot of the pro labs convert to srgb, period. There is a lot of misinformation on the web, what you are shooting in and saving has a lot to do with outcome.<br>

Monitors, especially laptops are deceiving when it comes to final print, throw in paper ink, etc and as you found out they don't play well together. <br>

I would recomend to calibrate your monitor, at least set gamma, record the viewing angle of your screen, distance, room brightness. "Brightness" is in the eyes of the viewer.<br>

Then talk to a local shop and explain to them your problem and ask them to print a test photo for you, use a color chart or even a box of crayons as your subject.Tell then "NO corrections" a lot of these stores "train" their employees and have no idea what they are doing until you show them a photo from there competitor down the street and they to have there rep come in to calibrate their monitor and machine. Then as Mark stated compare the print under the same starting conditions.<br>

Point is if you go to 5 stores you'll probably get 5 different results. But don't let a monitor be your only tool. You would think that is would be easy, but with all the different monitors, printers, inks, papers it should be easy.<br>

If you want high end, use a pro lab and set up an account with them. You'll pay more but the client will see better results.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>My advice is find a real lab that will help calibrate your screen to their printer (they usually have a bunch of profiles you can select). And if there are none in your area, try an online solution.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>LR doesn't do soft-proofing so profiles are useless. I also feel that if one has a D700, an iMac with Lightroom and can't get good results at Costco, the solution is to get set up at home so you are close to perfect without loading any profiles or go to a pro lab. There's kazillions of people with $300 point and shoot camera's adjusted on a cheap PC LCD that do get great results back from Costco. I'd then expect with $5K in cameras and computers, one should be able to get in the ball park at Costco alongside my mother and her $500 coolpix.</p>

<p>The first thing I'd do is look at your images on a few different computer/monitor set ups. Friends, neighbours etc and see how much of a difference there is. iMac's are notoriously bad for being too bright out f the box. I'd look for spyder3 calibrator for rent or purchase and do a bit of google for instructions.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>If you want high end, use a pro lab and set up an account with them. You'll pay more but the client will see better results.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Once you are dialed in at home with your system and then ask for "no corrections" at either a pro lab or Costco, you shouldn't see a difference at all.</p>

<p>Hi Folks, </p>

<p>Thanks for all the responses, clearly there's a whole world of stuff out there I never knew existed - Clearly I need to do some reading before I can get decent prints... <br>

Coming from a fairly small town, in fairly small New Zealand, I don't think the local labs quite cut it as far as profiles/calibration etc. goes. I'll need to see what the local pros do for prints, and try and afford the same. <br>

What are your thoughts on getting a basic home printer set up, can I get the same quality of results as a pro lab? I'm not looking to get massive prints, just good ones I can put up on the walls, give as gifts, etc. <br>

Cheers, </p>

<p>Vineet</p>

<blockquote>

<p>My advice is find a real lab that will help calibrate your screen to their printer (they usually have a bunch of profiles you can select). And if there are none in your area, try an online solution.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, what I meant was most labs in my city allow you to send them a print and they'll print 50 copies for you using their own different profiles and you can select the one that fits your photo as you see it on your screen the best.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"why can i get a print im happy with?"... heres the reasons;</p>

</blockquote>

<p>1_theres no such thing as a *real lab that calibrate your screen*.... YOU need to calibrate your own monitor with a hardware device to a standard, not a particular lab.</p>

<p>2_Imac monitor or any monitor that exist today are not good out of the box, they all need to be calibrated.</p>

<p>3_forget the *use the icc profile from a lab to get good result" ... the only reason why you *could* need a lab profile is to softproof (witch i dont do regularly) IF you have a calibrated monitor, then when you send the file you use sRGB as your color space, period.</p>

<p>4_ask the lab not to color corrected your image and print it as is.</p>

<p>5_make a 4x6 test to many lab you know, on monday, wednesday and friday.. compare the same 3 print from the same labrom there, use the lab that make the best print, and the one that is the most consistent day after day.</p>

<p> </p>

<h1></h1>

<blockquote>

<p>1_theres no such thing as a *real lab that calibrate your screen*.... YOU need to calibrate your own monitor with a hardware device to a standard, not a particular lab.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>J'ai dit pas que le lab vous aider calibrer votre screen... I meant labs like Provisia (I know they're your 'competitor') have a process where you send them a print (supposing your screen is already calibrated with a Spyder etc.) and they send you back 50 prints with different printer profiles... maybe you like the blacks in one more than the other etc... and that can help a lot. </p>

<p>How do they know that you have a calibrated monitor? So you tell me that they send you 50 prints so you can choose the one you like, and from there apply this *correction* before sending all the future file to them... mmmmmm are they gonna be open next month if they do this for a 1000 customer?! First time i heard that, but if its the way they work.. good for you ; )</p>

<p>lol, they don't know you have a calibrated monitor, that's up to you to do. These are for little variations. And after I checked the site it's 125 different variations on 5 sheets (5x5 per page). And I don't think it's a free service.<br>

And the correction is apparently after you send them the file.<br>

Here check out the site: http://www.provisia.ca/profile_mngmnt_en.html</p>

<p>now it make sense ; )</p>

<p>so basically what they are doing is a kind of contact sheet with +1+2+3 density, +1+2+3 red etc... make total sense to refine the adjustment, but is that good for all the future images you will send? .. dont think so.. i think it is a old way of doing things (but still work) remind me of a old Photoshop plugin that use to do this automaticaly.. dotn recall the name, but that was like 16years ago or so..</p>

<p>:) <br>

I'm not here to tell the guy who retouches for Leda & St. Jacques and every other photographer I love in Montreal how to calibrate properly for a print... lol, just trying to offer suggestions to the original poster.</p>

<p>; )</p>