Adorama pix lab ??

[dannylightning]

I had some pics printed up by them. the colors are off a bit, I am sure my monitor is not perfectly calibrated though so I am not sure how much of that is them or my monitor. I

the main issue I see here is the prints came back darker than the photos on my monitor, I just turned down the brightness on my monitor all the way and the prints are still darker than the photos on my screen.

I also had the change the gamma setting on my monitor to gamma 2 instead of gamma1 where i origionally had it set which also made my screen darker. according the the gamma chart I have the gamma still looks correct but the photos on my monitor are still a bit brighter than the prints.

my friend uses these guys to print her photos and she has been happy with them. just wondering how other peoples experience with this lab is.

also to get the colors to match pretty well I just cranked the red up on my monitor from 50% to 80% and now the colors are very close on my monitor and my prints, however all the tex i am typing right now is red instead of black on my screen so I am guessing it is their colors that are off more than mine are.

the prints look nice over all, I am happy with most of them overall but a few of them are a bit on the dark side fro my liking.

 

[Overread]

What you need is a monitor calibrator such as a Spyder brand option (eg Spyder 4). With that you can use the sensor to read the light from your computer and then let it set a proper balanced output.

Note that a few things come into play here:

1) Monitors drift so you can't use it just once - you've got to use it every few weeks to keep the monitor calibration at a fixed standard.

2) You can't eyeball it with your own eyes - our vision system is far too adaptive and thus won't give you the same results each and every time, like a machine can.

3) Ambient light around you will affect your vision (most modern calibrators have functions to read ambient light and compensate for it).

4) Prints nearly always look "darker" because they don't have a backlight in them like a screen has

5) Printing is a nightmare - welcome to the nightmare

6) In my experiences the dynamic range of most prints is lower than that of most screens - so you have to watch your whites and blacks for print otherwise they end up in t rouble really easily (whites more so than blacks)

 

[dannylightning]

I have used a calibration program called PT quick gamma, after running that everything looked natural, the whites looked white, the blacks looked black, the grey looked grey, and all of the unwanted color tint was gone as far as I can tell after running the program. one of these days I am going to get one of those spyder calibrators, right now I have racked up my credit card way more than I would like so till that is paid off than I am not getting allowing my self to buy anything.

the main issue is the brightness being off and not knowing how good that lab is a creating the correct color for your prints. I am not sure how much of the color being off is them or me. for all I know it could be both. but from what you are saying about the brightness its probably normal that they came out darker.

they did offer color correction on the prints, I chose not to do that because I wanted to see how close the prints were going to look to the image on my monitor. I am not even sure if that just fixes the colors or if it also changes the brightness or what.

I am happy with most of the prints, how ever a few of them look kind of blah because they are a bit too dark. the color on the prints is fine and they colors on the prints look pretty good, there just a little different than what i am seeing on my monitor is all.

 

[Overread]

Those programs don't really work all that well - like I said the eye adapts and software approaches only aim to reach some kind of baseline software wise - the hardware itself might not be on the same line.

If you've not got the hardware the other options is trail an error - print a few - see how they look - adjust - print again (small postcard sizes are all you need for that).

The retailer might have printer colour profiles that you can download and then use - however without proper calibration software you might not get desirable results (ergo you'd still be on trial and error).

 

[dannylightning]

this is the gamma chart and contrast chart that I use.

How to calibrate your computer monitor

when I set back and squint my eyes a bit all of the boxes are the same color and than I adjusted the contrast so you can just barley see the black and white circle in the first and last square of the contrast chart.

I am sure its not the best but it seems allot better than it was before I ran the program. I have one of those AOC graphics type monitors. where no matter what angle you view it the colors do not change. its not a good one but it is much better than my laptop monitor where the colors do change when you move around the room and view the screen at a different angle.

 

[Overread]

Ahh I forgot the colour/contrast shift with viewing angle (meant to put it in and forgot to). Yes your monitor is already a step above many so you've got a big bonus there.

However that program is still relying upon your eyes - its really not ideal. Plus its still not going to deal with the "brightness" issue. You can make a light-box display for your photos - that might show them more akin to display on the monitor to compare to.

 

[dannylightning]

X-rite color monkey makes a few less expensive calibrators that have good reviews. I think the one was around 80 or 90 bucks, I did read some reviews on these things, one review seemed to like the inexpensive color monkey calibrator better than the more expensive ones and they also seemed to like that better the spyder calibrators.

I think it was the color monkey smile. I am not really sure how good that inexpensive one is but it seems to have good reviews.

 

[dannylightning]

I guess I have one more question here, when you guys make prints do you crank up the exposure on them a bit before you send them off to the lab so they print out a little brighter.

thanks for the help..

 

[KmH]

Did you soft-proof on your display using Adorama's ICC printer profile computer before you sent the files off to Adorama?

• Soft Proofing: Matching On-Screen Photos with Prints

As mentioned, prints - being fore lit - will always look darker than your back lit computer display unless you soft-proof before sending the files off to the print lab.
Even then soft-proofing is still just an approximation.

 

[BillM]

I just got a set back from Adorama today, they are perfect, absolutely perfect. I had a set made at WalGreens last week and they were ... wait for it .... GREEN, go figure lol Worst set of prints I had ever seen, so bad i didn't even bother having them redo them, that is why I went back to Adorama.

I also got a pair of metal prints back from Adorama, these were a test run, absolutely love the almost holographic look to them. The look may not be for every body but I like it

 

[HelenOster]

I had some pics printed up by them. the colors are off a bit, I am sure my monitor is not perfectly calibrated though so I am not sure how much of that is them or my monitor. I

the main issue I see here is the prints came back darker than the photos on my monitor, I just turned down the brightness on my monitor all the way and the prints are still darker than the photos on my screen.

Try this link :

Next, get in touch with [email protected] personally and she'll set you up with some test prints, so we can get you the best product.

 

[dannylightning]

when I exported the photo to jpeg from light room I did choose the lighrtroom export setting for printing on glossy paper with standard sharpening.

I tried watching that video but I just woke up a few minutes ago. and well I am not really awake yet. Ill check that out again later. I have tried that windows monitor calibration but the quick gamma program seems to do a better job. as far as downloading the adorama color profile thing, I ll have to watch that again once I am a bit more awake.

well now I know that its probably on my end as far as the colors being off which does not surprise me. I have never ordered prints before so that is all new to me. my friend was going to have a art show at the bar he is now managing and I figured I would bring a few items out. most of these prints are fine, the colors are just not quite as vibrant since they are darker, the tint of the colors are pretty close, out of the 10 prints only 2 or 3 of them look lousy due to being to dark. I only plan to take 5 of the prints to the show anyways.

this weekend ill probably check out this video again and play around with that stuff and see about getting some test prints.

I appreciate all the good info.