Monitor versus prints

[jettlich]

I've been using a Nikon D70 for nearly 4 years now. I've never been totally

satisfied w/ the color saturation, hues, etc. from my prints. Most of my work

is amateur; lots of my prints are 4x6 color, matte for photo albums, scrapbooks

& framing. A little professional work on/off.

 

I recently ordered a stack from shutterfly.com - UGH! They all looked so

bad . . . hints of orange/yellow in all the pictures. I then ordered the same

pics from Costo, which looked a lot better, but not the greatest.

 

I've now received a calibration kit from mpix.com, so that I can try to set-up

my monitor to look like the print they provide. But now I'm starting to wonder,

is all this happening b/c my Adobe PS CS is set-up w/ Adobe RGB (1998) [i shoot

in NEF but open my pics in Adobe RGB], but most every place you/I get printed

at (including mpix) use the sRGB color space? Ideally, I think I'd like to

color correct on my own, after my monitor's calibrated to whatever printing co.

I use, and they ask for "no auto correct."

 

I'm so frustrated. I just want my pics to look as decent in print as they do on

the monitor! Is it all a color space problem? And, if so, where in the world

can I actually PRINT at a place that uses Adobe RGB?!

 

Lastly - anyone know of a good BASIC, BEGINNER's book for color space info &

managemnt? Thanks SO much for any help/encouragement. Jenna (P.S. I've perused

the photo.net discussions on related topics, but didn't find the answers, thx)

[garydem]

if you have never calibrated your monitor then you should do so at once. the purpose of calibration is so that a certain color red appears on the monitor as THAT color red. you are calibrating the monitor to a known standard. if the monitor is not calibrated then you have no idea of what the colors really look like ever. no adjustment you make in pp has any known bearing on the real world because you do not have no idea of what when you make an adjustment as to what the final real looking result is.

 

i shoot jpeg all the way. my camera and pp software and printer are all setup for adobe RGB. i have absolutely no problems with real colors. what i see on my monitor is exactly what i get when i print. i shoot jpeg but when they get to pc i do any editing and save as a tiff. the original jpeg is not touched in any way, all work is done off the tiff. if i need a sRGB i simply make one from the tiff and use save as again.

if you check cs(i have cs2) you will find that the colors can be adjusted and set to a standard. do so.

also before any calibration get the adobe gamma loader out of its startup folder. if left there it will override the calibration. to get to the loader right click on the startup button and click on explore then after it opens documentsandsetting/(pick a user name on my pc there are 4 possible, you have to check them all since you do not know where the loader is)startmenu/programs/startup. left click once on the startup folder what is inside will appear on the right half of the screen. if the loader is there rightclickholdanddragitout to the desktop. the most likely startup folder is the all users folder.

the above is for windows xp. if vista you will have to ask someone else.

the following i wrote some time ago. they may be of interest.

1.

i shoot RGB from the camera to the other end. the colors are fine. you should know that sRGB is a subset of RGB. that is, if you shoot RGB you can get sRGB at time you wish in photoshop, but if you shoot sRGB you really cannot get a true RGB later, the colors are just not there, and they were not there to begin with. there is also a slight increase in the camera's headroom if it is set to RGB; the storage tank, as it were, is bigger.

i send my 16x 20 and 20x30 to kodakgallery.com and my panoramas to jumbogiant.com they bothuse photographic techs to work on prints and image files. so for them it doesn't matter if they get a RGB they adjust it themselves. i print my own if 8x10 and smaller but the printer is set to RGB. that is what i meant earlier when i said i use RGB beginning to end.

2.

i have been sending my finished edited but not upsized images to kodakgallery.com and jumbogiant.com for awhile. kodak makes my 16x20 and 20x30 in matte. while jumbogiant makes my glossies and panoramas. i have been printing to 36inch wide(you can get 40x60) with jumbogiant. you also have several choices of paper with jumbogiant.com. they seem to be using Epson paper.

 

i send my jpeg and they do any upsizing needed. you cannot send raw(which require converting and pp) or tiff(file size is too big).i also have been sending them the image in adobeRGB, they either change them or use them as is. the colors from either company come out great.

 

you have to read the information of the printing website and see what they want and will accept.

 

i would not resize or change the color gamut till you KNOW that the printing online outfit will not accept what you are using. if you have to change only change the copy to the specs you need to send them never the original image.

i have been using adobeRGB and not resizing AT ALL to either outfit with no problems. and by not resizing i mean that i have been sending them every size imaginable and the print are all great from either place. sizes range from 6mp digital shots to unresized 4000dpi digital scans of slides which are still the original scan size(1.4inches X .9inches).

i would not create a problem of your own till you have to.

[sknowles]

Jenna, I've been doing the same thing and feeling equally frustrated. After hours seaching

the Internet and books, there is a dearth of a basic description and overview, but I've found

"Mastering Digital Printing, second edition" by Harald Johnson is a decent book.

 

I'm more curious why the different images from the same source, either film/scan or digital,

don't produce the same between monitor and print using the same settings in Photoshop

and paper. It seems to be image independent, so I'm, as usual, missing something in the

workflow or understanding.

[douglas_white1]

Yes, if your pictures are in Adobe RGB and you use one of the online printers that use sRGB (almost all of them use sRGB) then your photographs are going to look like crap.

 

As part of your post processing you need to convert your photographs to the sRGB colorspace, it should be one of the last things you do, right along with sharpening and going to 8 bit mode.

[douglas_white1]

Yes, if your pictures are in Adobe RGB and you use one of the online printers that use sRGB (almost all of them use sRGB) then your photographs are going to look like crap.

 

As part of your post processing you need to convert your photographs to the sRGB colorspace, it should be one of the last things you do, right along with sharpening and going to 8 bit mode.

 

I believe if you look in Shutterfly's FAQ you'll find pretty much the same information that I have just given you.

[robert_martin5]

The monitor calibration listed in Gary's message above requires monitor calibration software/hardware. If your monitor is not calibrated, then the color you see on the monitor is probably not the actual color in the image. This calibrates your monitor to a standard. Monitor characteristics change with time and you have to recalibrate it on a regular basis - most professionals do this about every 4 weeks. I use GregTag Macbeth Eye One Display to calibrate my monitor. As Gary said you do not want Adobe Gamma in the start up.

[robert_fisher4]

Yes, you should profile and calibrate your display.

 

Yes, if you're using a third party printer they probably want files tagged with sRGB so if you send them something with AdobeRGB there can be a colour difference but how big a difference will depend on the individual picture and the colours it contains. In some cases there may be no difference if there are no colours in the image outside the sRGB space.

 

A good book on colour management is "Color Confidence" by Tim Grey. It's not a "simple" book but it does start with the basics.

[Ed_Ingold]

The basic problem comparing a print with the monitor is that the monitor is self-lighted (emissive), whereas a print is viewed by reflected light. It can be no brighter than the underlying paper and no darker than the light reflected from the surface itself. The image in a monitor consists of red, green and blue "dots", whereas a print is a mixture of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Hence color matching is always a compromise.

 

If you print from a color-managed (CMS) program like Photoshop, it does not matter which color space you use for the image. Photoshop will correctly interpret the color space for the printer. If you have images printed by a lab, which may or may not be CMS compliant, then you tend to get better results using the sRGB color space.

 

The correct way to print consistently and accurately is to calibrate you monitor and to use a print profile for your particular printer and the paper used. Calibration requires software and a light measuring device (colorimeter or spectrophotometer). Good print profiles for popular printers can be downloaded from most paper manufacturers.

[jerryjohnson]

I also print my own, monitor calibration is a must! I use Spyder 3 pro. The only problem I've run into is the difference between my laptop's monitor and the large 22in monitor, my prints seem to match my laptop and what I want, the 22inch monitor seems too bright even after calibration. If anyone can help I would welcome it.

 

As far as printing though, I get my printers profiled, at least in the past, still working on the settings for the newest one. If you don't want to get the hardware and software to profile your own printer you can go thru outside parties to it for you. This company seems to do that well

 

http://www.inkjetart.com/cart/color-management-custom-profiles-c-1018_1024_1025.html

 

they have a deal that will let you get several icm profiles to different papers for $25, something to consider..