true color

[his4ever]

I want to print pictures i make, but latley i have been having problems where they come out differntly when printed by other companies. Any suggestions so that i can save money by not printing over and over again till i get it right?
Thanks

[TPF Sponsor]

[Digital Matt]

You'll have to provide lots more info. What kind of camera are you using? Film or digital? What software do you use to prepare your files? What labs are you using to print your photos? What color profiles are they using? There are a lot of variables.

[his4ever]

i am using a digital camera (Cannon EOS 300D). I use Gimp to prepare my file. (I GIMP). (I do everything as a .jpg). I use a local store (pro photography shop). They adjust thing automaticly for me if thing are a little off... but i would rather it be perfect before emailing it in. I am also looking at dotphoto.com for printing my pictures because they can do 3 x 5 for a great price.
Its not only color pictures, but also B&W as well.

[Alpha]

That would be a profiling issue.
First question: do the photos coming out of your own printer match the image on your screen?

[summers_enemy]

I used dotphoto when they first started out a couple years back. Nasty, nasty prints. Everything had gross pink overtones, almost as if they hadn't ever bothered to balance the papers. Plus, they used a very thin Agfa paper that was not nice to the touch.

[Digital Matt]

Find out from the lab what color space they are using, (ex; Adobe RGB, Srgb, etc..), and then, if they have it, you can also get their printer profile, which should be a .icc file, and you can use that if you wish. Be sure and tell them not to color correct. Just have them print as is, and see what you get.

[his4ever]

thanks

[JamesD]

Gimp users unite!

I've had pretty good results with, of all places, Wal Mart. I use TIFF files, although I'm not sure that makes a difference.

Note that these results apply ONLY to their printing digital files. Film, they never can get right.

Still, I'm sure you'll get better results by working with a pro lab. Also, if you can figure out what changes you would have to make to get their basic printing right, then save them to an action you can automatically apply to every image you send them, that could help as well, although Matt's suggestion of the .icc file may be better... I don't know, because it's the first I've heard of it.

Matt: This .icc printer profile... what exactly is it, and what do you do with it once you have it?

[ksmattfish]

Shoot slide film. Just kidding, sort of. If you want your prints to match (as much as possible), you will need to provide the printer with a guide print or some other positive to match.

I was having big problems with my prints from digital. They needed a lot of color correcting at the lab, and they were still out of wack. I had a friend bring over his monitor calibration kit, and now my files rarely need any correction.

[Digital Matt]

Matt: This .icc printer profile... what exactly is it, and what do you do with it once you have it?

The printer profile is a custom color space that will simulate for you, the colors you will get on a certain printer, or paper. It's basically a color space, akin to Adobe RGB or sRGB.

Not all printers and papers are created the same.

Once you have it, you can load it into photoshop through the color settings menu, and convert the colors of your document to that space. If you notice a color shift, you can correct it yourself before sending to the lab. I highly recommend what ksmattfish said though, about calibrating your monitor.

[kacelle]

I recommend that you calibrate your monitor's settings to the photo lab that you will use most often. I have found Adorama (www.adorama.com) to do a great job printing the pictures for a very reasonable price and they will even do slight corrections to the photograph in-lab for no extra cost (if you prefer).