Posted by Jeff Wiebe on November 1, 2007 at 8:34 PM
Since I started in photography about a year ago, I've only printed a handful of images. I just had 4 of my favorite shots printed, with not so great results. While 1 of the 4 shots that I printed turned out as I expected, the other 3 are a little dissapointing. They are either darker than on my monitor or lighter, and they seem quite desaturated. Is this all a product of a shoddy print shop, or am I just crazy? It's quite frustrating. Help!
Are you sending pre-flighted files to the print shop, or film for scanning and printing, or RAW files?
Are you using color management?
Is your monitor calibrated?
Are you 'soft-proofing' using their paper's color profiles.
Is their equipment calibrated, and do they have accurate color management profiles?
There are lots of variables, as you can see. From what you describe, it appears that the profile for soft proofing colors you are using is different from the color profile for the paper the shop is using. This seems to be a good place to start.
I'm sure others will also have suggestions that may help you. Keep us posted.
-PB
Posted by Jeff Wiebe on November 1, 2007 at 11:27 PM
Preston:
There's obviously a lot I have not learned about printing images...
-I'm not familiar with the term "pre-flighted" - I am using photoshop to process my RAW files, then taking them to the print shop in jpeg format (maybe a bad way to go?)
-I don't know anything about colour management, and I use a laptop computer, so I don't think there's much calibration that can be done on it.
-I also have no idea what you mean about "soft proofing with their paper's color profile"
Another article deals with 'soft-proofing'. It was written for PS-6, but is easy to correlate with later versions: Soft Proofing
A 'pre-flighted file is simply a file that has been 'worked' in PhotoShop and is ready to print.
Some shops will print directly from RAW files. Others cannot. It is best to send files in either TIFF, or the PS PSD file format, better yet, the file format the shop specifies.
There are calibration tools that will do a nice job calibrating a laptop screen. Barring that, there is a utility installed with Photoshop called Adobe Gamma. The color management article I referred to above shows how to use it.
I hope this helps!
-PB
Posted by Gene Lugo on November 2, 2007 at 6:40 AM
Color space is another big issue. If you are shooting in Adobe RGB, then viewing and processing your files in SRGB (standard rgb) color space, there can be a dramatic color and luminance change. The Adobe RGB has more colors (gamut) and at first look has less saturation when compared to SRGB. SRGB is the lowest common denominator, is universally used for web destinations and generally has colors that can be printed by nearly all photo printers.Adobe RGB has more cyan-green, orange-magenta. Typically Adobe RGB requires 16 bit files (RAW, Tiff or PSD), and SRGB uses 8 bit (JPG) files. The better print shops (with better equipment) will require 16 bit images for best results. Those with less capability can only work with 8 bit images.
Photoshop will allow you to convert between 8 and 16 bits. Whenever possible, stay in the space that your camera is set for. Taking pictures in adobe RGB and recording them as RAW files is a great start. It allows you to capture the widest variety of colors. Stay in that color space when going into Photoshop - do not convert to SRGB. That way at least color space differences will be taken out of the equation.
I am curious about your comment that Adobe RGB 'typically' requires 16 bit data. How come? I have used Adobe RGB in 8 bit for a long time and have not seen any issues. 8 bits per color channel produces 256 colors per channel or 67.7 million colors. Our eyes can only decern about 10 million colors and tonal differences of about 1 %. 16 bit data produces a file with over 281 trillion colors! Since we can see only about 10 million colors, 16 bit seems to be overkill. That said, I can understand shooting in 16 bit because we want the sensor to capture as much information as possible. However, in the final print using the Adobe RGB color space, we likely would not notice a marked difference.
I agree that if one captures an image in 16 bit, further processing should be done at that bit depth to preclude loss of data if the file is converted from 16 bit to 8 bit. I also agree that if the capture is in 16 bit Adobe RGB, the master file should remain tagged with that color space.
About the only time one would need to convert Adobe RGB to sRGB is for printers cannot recognize Adobe RGB and/or when an image is to be used on the web.
Jeff: How's it going with your understanding of color management? Is it making more sense?
Discussion
5 repliesYou need to provide some specifics for us...
Are you sending pre-flighted files to the print shop, or film for scanning and printing, or RAW files?
Are you using color management?
Is your monitor calibrated?
Are you 'soft-proofing' using their paper's color profiles.
Is their equipment calibrated, and do they have accurate color management profiles?
There are lots of variables, as you can see. From what you describe, it appears that the profile for soft proofing colors you are using is different from the color profile for the paper the shop is using. This seems to be a good place to start.
I'm sure others will also have suggestions that may help you. Keep us posted.
-PB
There's obviously a lot I have not learned about printing images...
-I'm not familiar with the term "pre-flighted" - I am using photoshop to process my RAW files, then taking them to the print shop in jpeg format (maybe a bad way to go?)
-I don't know anything about colour management, and I use a laptop computer, so I don't think there's much calibration that can be done on it.
-I also have no idea what you mean about "soft proofing with their paper's color profile"
Clearly I'm a little lost here....
This article will answer a lot of questions: PS-CS2 Color Management
Another article deals with 'soft-proofing'. It was written for PS-6, but is easy to correlate with later versions: Soft Proofing
A 'pre-flighted file is simply a file that has been 'worked' in PhotoShop and is ready to print.
Some shops will print directly from RAW files. Others cannot. It is best to send files in either TIFF, or the PS PSD file format, better yet, the file format the shop specifies.
There are calibration tools that will do a nice job calibrating a laptop screen. Barring that, there is a utility installed with Photoshop called Adobe Gamma. The color management article I referred to above shows how to use it.
I hope this helps!
-PB
Photoshop will allow you to convert between 8 and 16 bits. Whenever possible, stay in the space that your camera is set for. Taking pictures in adobe RGB and recording them as RAW files is a great start. It allows you to capture the widest variety of colors. Stay in that color space when going into Photoshop - do not convert to SRGB. That way at least color space differences will be taken out of the equation.
I am curious about your comment that Adobe RGB 'typically' requires 16 bit data. How come? I have used Adobe RGB in 8 bit for a long time and have not seen any issues. 8 bits per color channel produces 256 colors per channel or 67.7 million colors. Our eyes can only decern about 10 million colors and tonal differences of about 1 %. 16 bit data produces a file with over 281 trillion colors! Since we can see only about 10 million colors, 16 bit seems to be overkill. That said, I can understand shooting in 16 bit because we want the sensor to capture as much information as possible. However, in the final print using the Adobe RGB color space, we likely would not notice a marked difference.
I agree that if one captures an image in 16 bit, further processing should be done at that bit depth to preclude loss of data if the file is converted from 16 bit to 8 bit. I also agree that if the capture is in 16 bit Adobe RGB, the master file should remain tagged with that color space.
About the only time one would need to convert Adobe RGB to sRGB is for printers cannot recognize Adobe RGB and/or when an image is to be used on the web.
Jeff: How's it going with your understanding of color management? Is it making more sense?
-PB