Printing....

[agaimages]

Ok, so I received a batch from lab and it was terrible. Muddy,

"washed-out" colors and very very flat! I used this lab before and

results were fine, I was happy with them.

 

I called and spoke to a person in the lab, he says the pictures look

like that on his screen (muddy, flat and washed out). The pictures do

not look like what he described on my (calibrated) monitor, nor my

uncalibrated monitor at work, nor on client's screen and few other

photographers.

 

The person at the lab said that it might have been something I did

wrong (re-set my calibration) but how can everybody see the pictures

normally but not the lab? Am I missing something? The pictures were

all shot raw and sent to the lab as jpegs. I did not do much prost

processing except ones that needed to be B&W and some sharpening.

 

 

The lab is willing to work with me, but I'm just wondering maybe some

of the experts here would be able to tell me more about such problems?

[wentzu_chang]

I have the same problem with digital black and white printing from lab, but the color one are beautiful...I didn't calibrate my monitor to fit the lab, I ask them to color correct images to fit their color profil though...

 

but, I'd like to find out more if there is any black and white printing could looks and feel like printed on fiber base paper the true black and white???

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

fancy posting up some samples (do it in your PN folder or on a website, you can't post more than one image to the thread), I'm getting perfect screen to print quality, with 3 labs here in the UK, and I just got 3 test prints from Apollo labs, home of Illuma Memory Books in the US which I'm interested in, the prints were perfect eventhough they are on Kodak Endura as opposed to the Fuji Pro that I'm used to. So post up some samples and see what others have to say.

 

Best likelyhood is a color profile mismatch, are you processing in Adobe '98 and sending to a sRGB lab? Most minilab type machines such as the Fuji Frontier run on sRBG, even in pro labs.

[agaimages]

Sorry, I was at work and did not have any samples to post. Below are two examples of the photos I've sent.

Like I said before, I never had this problem with this or any other lab. The photos were not tampered with a lot so I don't really know where the problem could be that they see it as muddy and print as muddy...

Anybody sees them that way on their screen?<div></div>

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

They look too dark to me, could it be that though calibrated, your screen is too bright? CRT monitors have to be turned down to match print brightness, the only way to truly see print brightness with an LCD is using soft proofing in PS, that's the reason I've gone back to CRT's.

[agaimages]

Ok, so if it's too bright, would that account for washed out colors, flat images?

[lovcom_photo]

Those images look under exposed but about 1/2 to 1 stop. Fill flash issue? Perhaps the lab is responsible for this? Could be more then a few things gone awry here...

[agaimages]

Perhaps I was not clear, those are the oringal files I've sent...of course not the final outcome - the pictures I agree might be on a darker side but that might be just my preference...

1: must be that my monitor is too bright + 2: I like a little dark images = very dark, flat images when PRINTED. However, when I printed samples on my inkjet they came out FINE, color wise, depth wise...

so what could be the actuall problem? Is it sole darkness of the files?

[agaimages]

Oh, I forgot to ask, is the picture on right greenish in tone and the picture on left brownish?

I see not many people answering me. I guess this problem is silly, but I cannot find anything I did different, except my pictures being dark, that would yeld the results I've gotten from lab. I'm first looking into my faults to determine if I can do something better.

Like I've said I've gotten consistent results from this lab in the past, I was happy, everything was fine. I'm frustrated, I see no help or even raising questions that could help me solve this issue here...

Anyway, I would love to show you end results but if I scann them, it will pick up saturation and contrast so there's no point...

Cheers and thanks for the comments and help.

[StuartMoxham]

The images appeared to me to be a too dark and according to the histogram in PS the highlights were not that bright either. The shadows are also rather blocked up. I would guess that while this may still look good on a monitor it does not translate very well in to a print. I have adjusted the image here for you it may well print a bit better.<div></div>

[uk]

IMO you have presented them muddy and dark to a small degree, but after playing around

they are well balanced and will make nice prints as Stuart has showed.

 

The end result need not be muddy at all.

 

Gary<div></div>

[agaimages]

What have you guys used to change them?

[uk]

First of all, do you like what was done?

 

They both needed a levels adjustmnt to lift the light value in the face and on the RH one I

painted a bit of the background back to dull it a little. This may be how I got a bit more

lift than Stuart. His bride is more neutral, but I felt that with her face in a bunch of flowers

the image could stand a bit of reflected colour.

 

I balanced the colour of the brides faces to a degree which lifted the LH picture.

 

Curved the both to the right brightness level independantly. Finally, a tiny USM.

 

IMO, most of the progress was in a simple curves and levels adjustment.

 

You may be wise to keep another well balanced image from a stock library open whilst you

work for reference. I don't myself, but it's not a bad idea if you're having trouble.

 

Gary

[agaimages]

Thanks,

That's what I thought, like mentioned earlier I have not done anything to the images except wb in capture one and saving those as jpegs. But what you have done definately works better...tnx!