A print noob question

[james_kim6]

<p>So I've decided to print out my photos recently for the first time and for convenience sake I've printed test shots at Teds (HP) / Paxtons (Kodak) / Big W (Fuji). They are auto-labs if you haven't heard of them.<br>

Paxtons had the best richness in colour but had a weird orange/yellowish tinge on one of my green fruit shots and a yellow flower came out over saturated. In terms of colour alone they were the most vibrant but they charged the most.<br>

Big W had weak colours.<br>

So did Teds and they seem to have a slight greenish tinge.<br>

But they all seem slightly dark and colours not as vibrant as what I see on my monitor.<br>

I've calibrated my screen based on online materials and I haven't touched the profiles for my photoshop.<br>

So what should I do to get as close as possible to what I see on my machine?<br>

Print from Pixel Perfect? (They are print specialists that a lot of professionals use)<br />Invest in Spyder ¾? (Does it really make that much of a difference?)<br />Get ICC profile from the print service providers?<br />Other???</p>

 

[mattb1]

Are you giving the labs a sRGB file with a ICC profile? Some print services have color management options, so pay

attention to that as well. IMO experiment and find a work flow that you like. Getting a Spyder is most likely not what you

need right now.

 

Finding a good print service is not trivial, in film days I gave up and went to slides.

[aqualarue]

<p>...............So what should I do to get as close as possible to what I see on my machine?<br /> Hi James, I do not know what an auto lab is, but I have used outside printers a couple of times. The two most important things for you: Ask the printer for an ICC profile that you can then put into photoshop. Second, it is highly likely that these people are using s'RGB as their standard. Therefore make sure your images actually have the s"RGB attached to them, and I am presuming that they were imported with that profile. Investing in a monitor calibrator is only worth your while if you will be doing a lot of photography, printing. On the other hand, do you have your own printer? A good middle of the range product is a six ink printer, these are quite good actually, and not at all expensive; a four ink can be good enough if you are not doing a lot of printing yourself. You then have the obvious advantage of at least being able to establish a satisfactory consistency with your photo printing, without necessarily investing in a monitor calibrator. BUt I suppose it all depends on how much printing you see yourself wanting to do in the future. Lab printing services are definitely not the way to go if you want control over colours and predictable output, and especially if this is going to be a repeated situation, ie, lots of photography. At least if you do it yourself you will be able to compensate for differences between printer and screen and thereby know how it will come out each time with just some tests first. Hope something here helps. I should really add that a monitor profiler/calibrator will not be of any use if the printer you use does not provide you with an ICC profile. Simply put you can not control their output, you can only adjust your image to THEIR profile, and you need their profile first. Otherwise it will always be a second guess as to what to expect, especially since you mention colour casts and over saturation, there are too many variable here to try and control without having their profile.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Based on the labs you listed, you're in Australia. There are labs with accessible profiles, look at <a href="http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/Profiles/Australia_profiles.htm">this page.</a> If you can use one of these labs and properly use the profile, you will probably get better results. However, you sill need to have a properly calibrated monitor to get the right results, so the Spyder or equivalent product (hard to know from the US what is available there) will make a big difference.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Paxtons had the best richness in colour but had a <strong>weird orange/yellowish tinge on <em>ONE</em> of my green fruit shots</strong> and a yellow flower came out over saturated.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'll second what Jeff said about the Spyder calibration. You may think going by visual inspection examining before and after results hardware calibration doesn't make that much of a difference, but what it will guarantee and reassure with color managed software is that every color your display is capable of reproducing, like the green fruit shot, REALLY ISN'T orange/yellowish tinged.</p>

<p>You have to have an objective third party in the form of hardware and software to define exactly the look of every possible color your display is capable of showing which is by and large much more than what a lab printer will offer or interpret even for an sRGB image.</p>

<p>Here's a thread that illustrates how some colors will come out unexpected sending sRGB data to labs which is similar to your experience with the orange/yellow tinge green...</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00akjt</p>

<p>The DryCreekPhoto link Jeff posted is a very useful ICC profile database of print labs from around the world and the downloads are free.</p>

 

[james_kim6]

<p>Thanks all for the responses.<br>

I've realized I have been processing my images in photoshop using Adobe RGB so I've reprocessed them using sRgb and bumped up the exposure and saturation by a tenth and reprinted it to get a close representation of what I see on the monitor.<br>

Thank you for the help!</p>

[mattb1]

Processing in adobe is good, just prepare the final in sRGB. Do get their ICC profile and use soft prof to visualize the

final print.