Dissapointed

[Ptyler22]

So I got 100 4x6's printed from Adorama and I have to say that I am not happy with the results, (not mad because they were free) but I am not sure if I should order from them again. I tend to like pictures a little more contrasty than most people so in pp I put the contrast up a little. I got the pictures and when going through them they all look kinda grey and decontrasted and desaturated a bit. Is this normal, do pictures usually print with less contrast and saturation? I had them do their adjustments because I figured it wouldn't hurt but do you think that's why they look grey? If it matters I had them printed on lustre paper.
Thanks

 

[Ptyler22]

I can also calibrate my screen to what print places use but I don't know what profile it is that they use. Does anybody know what I should calibrate it to?

 

[Overread]

Firstly - are you using a moniter calibrater to calibrate your computer screen?
If you are not then chances are what you are seeing on screen is not what the photo will actually look like in print. As a result you get differences in the printouts.

After that though they did "their" editing on the photos, chances are that they try to maintain the original look of a photo (assuming that that was the look you were going for) minor noise or sharpening might be what they apply to get the best out of a photo, but in the end they cannot know what true look you want from a photo.

 

[hossmaster]

I have had nothing but great experiences with Shutterfly for my digital prints. Color and balance were spot on with them.

 

[Ptyler22]

Firstly - are you using a moniter calibrater to calibrate your computer screen?
If you are not then chances are what you are seeing on screen is not what the photo will actually look like in print. As a result you get differences in the printouts.

After that though they did "their" editing on the photos, chances are that they try to maintain the original look of a photo (assuming that that was the look you were going for) minor noise or sharpening might be what they apply to get the best out of a photo, but in the end they cannot know what true look you want from a photo.

Ya, I see what you mean, I didn't think that they would do any major changes that's why I am so surpirsed at how badly they came out. I have a Mac and it has all diferant calibration settings, so I can set it to a bunch of differant ones. Right now it is set at standard imac, but I don't know what to calibrate my screen to to make it look like how they see it.

 

[Overread]

when you say calibrate do you have something like a spyder - an external device - that reads the output of the screen or are these preset calibrations set by Mac?

 

[mrodgers]

Hmm.... I have photos at Adorama right now. Other than I have no idea where in the process they are because it has said "pending" since I uploaded them on Saturday, I haven't had the chance of an opinion yet. This is the first time for me sending digital photos anywhere to have printed and the first time I'm printing anything out in 8x10 size ever.


I chose Adorama because someone here started a thread praising them.

For me, I haven't a clue about all this calibration stuff. I don't have money to waste away on monitor calibrator and have no clue about the color profile stuff. I've read plenty, but it is all gibberish. I'm just hoping they come out. I figure if people can just pull their SD disks from their camera, take them to Walmart without ever looking at them, and have Walmart print fantastic photos for them, how bad can prints be if I actually care about photography a bit more than those who print nearly directly from their cameras?

I don't understand the fuss over calibration and color profiles and adjustment, etc. I will use my coworker as an example. He has a Canon XTi. He uses full AUTO mode, doesn't adjust anything in his pictures, goes to the Walmart store, and gets great looking prints back (ignoring his lack of thought in composition, DOF, motionblur, and other stuff, his pictures are snapshots of his kids). Why all the fuss when full AUTO mode and Walmart generic printing gets fantastic results?

 

[Overread]

though as a person that cares you will have edited passed fresh from camera and thus what you have changed can change the look a lot more than you think -- you might also have shot in a non-auto mode!!

Regardless if you just print off some samples at home on a cheapy printer you can get some idea of the colours and saturation at least - not a perfect solution, but a compramise

 

[bhop]

Every time i've had b/w prints made by a lab, i've experienced your same disappointment. I like contrast and they're ALWAYS grey with little contrast when someone else does it. It's one of the reasons I bought a photo printer and started doing my own printing so i'd have complete control (no space for a darkroom).

 

[Ptyler22]

when you say calibrate do you have something like a spyder - an external device - that reads the output of the screen or are these preset calibrations set by Mac?

They are presets by Mac, but some of them are like adobe rgb, and stuff like that, I can write out the list of options if you want.

 

[Ptyler22]

Every time i've had b/w prints made by a lab, i've experienced your same disappointment. I like contrast and they're ALWAYS grey with little contrast when someone else does it. It's one of the reasons I bought a photo printer and started doing my own printing so i'd have complete control (no space for a darkroom).

OK, ya I wish I could have my own photo printer, No money for one though, I know somebody who has a huge one, but I don't know if they would be able to print it, I don't think they have 16x24 paper, which is what I want to print

 

[manaheim]

BTW, ptyler, here is a thread on print shops where Mike30D posted a big list of pro labs.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135683

 

[AussieDee]

Printers will print in CMYK, monitors are displayed using RGB, CMYK won't make the photos look as "bright" as RGB will.

Also having those calibrations are just standards in most mac's. You would need to find out what calibrations the company uses and set yours to theirs.

Everybody's monitors vary and so do browsers when it comes to displaying photos, as most people are aware. I'd say if you like your way of upping the contrast then don't have the printing company make ANY adjustments. Any adjustments that they do will be converting from RGB to CMYK if you didn't do that yourself.

 

[Overread]

They are presets by Mac, but some of them are like adobe rgb, and stuff like that, I can write out the list of options if you want.

While they are colour calibrations they are still not perfect WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) for the screen - for that you will need a moniter calibrater - something like spyder - not cheap, but worth it if you want to do good prints and get the right result each time. I belive you can also forward calibration info from your computer and spyder to the printing labs as well to further aid in getting the right print view.

 

[el_shorty]

You can download the Adorama ICC printer profiles from this page.
http://www.adoramapix.com/Support.aspx?SupportID=prepcolor

And they also have a link to a page where shows you how to calibrate your monitor.