9 replies to this topic

[Mr_Leeman]

Hi All

 

Recently did a shoot of some friend's kids. I did a few prints large format off a cannon ifp8100, which looked fine. They had a disk with all images on, which they've taken to a high-street photo printers, and they've turned out horrible. She has tried two different stores and the result the same.

 

The best way I can describe it is they look muddy. The colours are out, skin tones are grey, shadows have lost all detail and filled in.

 

I know screen and print are different, but I cant think why they'd be so bad compared to the other prints.

 

Any thoughts? Is it that the high street is really unadvised, or is it something I've done saving the jpgs?

 

I'm doing a test at home tonight on my own photo printer to see if the results differ, but wanted some expert opinion, as this may become a regular occurance.

 

The pics look great on screen and it's disapointing to see them look so bad.

 

I've added an example of the two pics together, the smaller being the one that isn't looking right. The larger looks red in this photo, whichisn't accurate to how it looks in person... if that makes sense. Camera phone I guess.

 

Thanks in advance!

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[Merco_61]

Looks like a calibration and colourspace issue. What colourspace is the jpg in? Most high-street print-shops can't handle anything except sRGB, if that. Those sooty shadows and desaturated colours look like a ProPhoto RGB printed with a colour profile optimised for the oversaturated, oversharpened sRGB files from most point- and shoots. 

 

Friends in the UK say to avoid Jessops, Boots and the like and use outfits like photobox.co.uk or proamimaging.com instead for much more predictable results.

[Mr_Leeman]

Thanks Peter, that would make sense as they are ProPhoto RGB. I will re-save and re-supply and adivse to try somehwere more reliable. They used Boots and a supermarket, which I did suggest wouldn't give best results. I've used photobox, so shall recmomend that too.

 

Thanks very much!

[nbanjogal]

It wouldn't hurt to calibrate your monitor either. I'm sometimes surprised by how different my images look on other screens or when printed. (Yes, I also need to calibrate. )

[Mr_Leeman]

My Epson xp-750 does a pretty good job and resembles whats on screen rather well. I am looking at the spider calibration, a must now I think.

[Merco_61]

What calibration tool are you looking at? I like my Colormunki Photo as it is so easy to use, even if I need to use my MBP with a projector when showing either a slideshow or a keynote somewhere. It is worthwhile to get a full-on spectrophotometer rather than just a screen calibration tool if you do your own prints. The colormunki can even be used with a colorchecker chart to profile your camera so that your full workflow is calibrated. I haven't used any of the other solutions since I got my unit in 2008.

[Mr_Leeman]

Hi Peter, I have heard good things about Welcome to Spyder - Datacolor Spyder although I have some research to do as it's a lot deeper than I thought. I like the idea of profiling the camera. Hmmm, I've opened pandoras box!

[Merco_61]

An i1 or Colormunki are expensive tools and I am not sure if Datacolor has caught up to the pro-level X-rite software yet but if they are caught up, SpyderSTUDIO is quite a bit cheaper than Colormunki Photo. Both solutions have the same capabilities so it is not an easy choice. You will probably have to find a dealer who can demo both to see which works better *for you*. One thing to remember when reading about the colormunkis on the web is that the cheaper versions are bundled with far inferior software than the Photo.

[deano]

I'm using the Colormunki | display on my apple desk top.  My Canon Pixma printer prints pretty much what I see on the screen, if not a bit more saturated.

[Dvfvfshh]

Thanks Peter, that would make sense as they are ProPhoto RGB.