Do we need a printer at all?

[roger_smith4]

Scott, thanks for your posts. From what I gather of your workflow you capture files with a 10D or a high-quality desktop scanner, edit, convert to SRGB and then print at your local lab without corrections.

My question is what have you done to calibrate your monitor? Do you use any software program (Adobe Gamma...), do you used canned .icm profiles, did you do soft proofs like the last poster? This is the part I'm having trouble with so any ideas would be appreciated. The colors in my prints are slightly off from the monitor and lose a lot of shadow detail printed to a Frontier Pro with no corrections.

[robert goldstein]

Whoa, wait a second! Where did Scott say that he converts to sRGB before sending his file to the lab for printing? And if so, is that only necessary when transmitting a file over the internet, but not when saving a it to a CD?

[roger_smith4]

Why would sending the identical data over the net be different than a CD? Scott said in previous posts that he doesn't bother with printer-specific profiles for Frontiers.

 

Further dredging through the archives produced this interesting post by Scott Eaton (anything you'd like to change?):

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=008i28

 

"My method is to fix the biggest problem first by making my monitor match the dynamics of the final print medium vs the illogic of thinking a data table (profile) is going ot magically alter the laws of physics. I make a single test print containing a 24step greyscale and a few human subjects with all my system profiling turned off with the Frontier making a 'direct print'. I then look at the resulting print, and use my video card properties to match the contrast and brightness of that test print. I can guarantee you if you do this honestly, you'll find yourself seriously reducing the brightness and contrast of your tube/CRT to match that print. Enough so that your monitor will look outright dim and dull if viewed in a brightly lit room. This is because your fancy new monitor was designed to display 'Lord of the Rings' in a showroom vs matching a reflective print. If I want to watch DVDs or play Halo, I just revert back to the stock profile. Once you get your display under control, and it's not a complete peice of junk, you should find further profling for a Frontier to not be required and all further printing to be really close to what you see."

[Jochen_S]

I have no serious homeprinter. There is a Deskjet 670C but I'd also use the old 500. I wouldn't like to go into colorprinting at home. From work I know the great struggle to reproduce the output of Xeroxs color lasers and when we had a Heidelberg Quickmaster DI, there was no real colormanagement too. I doubt myself being able to beat this with a cheap inkjet. I know damn well what a usable set of densitometers or spectral photometers would cost even used and confess I'm not even willing to afford a good light to match colors. So I rather cope with labs and am willing to tip the operator if necessary.

[david-nicolas]

Many thanks to all for your varied, detailed and informative answers. I won't try to summarize, but one can sees clearly the pros and cons of personal printers and of Fuji labs. In response to Robert, yes, it's important to convert to sRGB, as their machines assume that your pictures are in this color space. Also important is to ask for no correction: otherwise, you are left to the technician's tastes about come basic color and contrast correction (he will do some before printing). It happened to me once. My own feeling was that the technician was more often wrong, than correct, and in any case, it's only with no correction that the print will match most closely what you yourself have made in Photoshop and what you have on your screen.

[david-nicolas]

Can one profile for the printing made by Fuji? Of course, one can, though a technician told me they don't themselves use printing profiles when looking pictures on their screens, as this varies in time depending on paper and ink. (This may be this specific lab policy, though.) He told me that using sRGB as a profile would match best what I would get. Still, would anyone have such a profile available, so that I / we can test it?

[david-nicolas]

One problem I have with Fuji labs where I live (in France), is that I haven't yet found any that will print 30 x 45 cm. Their biggest format is 20 x 30. The best I found is, in one lab, 30 x 40, and always with a 10% white margin.

[david-nicolas]

Otherwise, have you tried matte on a Fuji lab (compared to on an Epson 2200)? Are you as happy as with glossy ? (I guess I should just do the test myself, on a Fuji. On an Epson, which I don't own, it's also not so easy, in France, to find a retailer that will show you examples of you get on various papers.)

[vitoa]

David, a profile will not help you much. They should be build on the specific lab, with their paper and their chemistry. There is a difference output with Fuji, Kodak, Tetenal, ... and some of them even use combinations (i.e. Kodak paper and Tetenal chemistry).

[oskar_ojala]

On Fuji Finland's site, they list the best Frontiers as capable of a print of max. 25x38 cm. That's one reason to look for other printing means beside the Frontier (unless you intend to carefully mount several prints next to each other as in a jigsaw puzzle...)

[brandonhamilton]

Let me chime in here as a guy who had an epson 7600 wide format printer (not anymore, because it was my roommates who moved out) who had to start using a fuji lab.

 

First off, if you don't calculate the cost of the printer intself, it is much cheaper to print on the 7600. It is roughly calculated to 1.25$ / square foot.

 

Of course there are more costs, like the printer itself, plus maintanance should something break post-warranty.

 

The visual quality of the prints put out by my fuji lab are definitly better then that of the 7600, but for one reason only. The prints have absolutly zero bronzing, where as the 7600 does. Other then THAT fact, the quality appear very very similar.

 

The two advantages I liked having the 7600 in the next room, was A)I could have my prints NOW... and B) I could make any size print I want, even a custom size with no problems.

 

But all said and done, I find very little inconvenience with my lab as I am able to FTP all the files directly to them, and they print them all in under a day. I just have to go pick them up.

[vitoa]

Brandon, can you tell more about that price? Was it with original inks, 110 or 220ml, which paper? Thanks.

[brandonhamilton]

That figure was a rough recall from memory, which was with the 110mls, and with the epson Premium Luster Photo Paper.

 

I went and refound the page:

 

http://www.inkjetart.com/pro/7600_9600/cost_page.html