Suggestions for UW print lab

[King Neptune]

Whenever I get my digital UW prints back from the photo lab they have too much green and blue in them even though they look good on the computer.

 

Does anyone have a suggestion on where I could send them that knows how to print UW pictures?

[bruce-r]

If your images look good on your computer, but bad in print, I suggest that you get a calibration tool for your monitor. That way you will see the "true" colors of the image on the monitor and they will match what the prints look like.

 

If your UW prints are too blue/green, you'll need to do some editing with Photoshop or something similar.

 

Alternately, you'll need to find a place locally that will show you in advance what the image will print like. A custom photo lab would be the place to start.

 

Finally, have you printed any of the images at home? How do they look?

[King Neptune]

Bruce,

 

The other pictures including some UW all come back looking like they do on computer. I don't know why others don't. I already use photoshop. I haven't tried printing anything at home.

 

I need some more info on this calibration tool. What is it and how does it work?

[bruce-r]

I need some more info on this calibration tool. What is it and how does it work?

 

Just to get you started, here are a couple from a google search:

 

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration_tools.htm

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/colorvisionmonitorspyder/

[scubaran]

Bruce,

 

The other pictures including some UW all come back looking like they do on computer. I don't know why others don't. I already use photoshop. I haven't tried printing anything at home.

 

I need some more info on this calibration tool. What is it and how does it work?

 

Hi,

 

I use the ColorVision Spyder tool myself. Basically what these comprise are a hardware device that "sticks" to your monitor (thus the spider name) and a piece of calibration software. When executed, a series of colors are flashed on the monitor and the hardware device notes the difference from what they should be and what they are, and programs the system with color corrections. This gives you the best color for the monitor.

 

But you should be aware this only takes you so far... Colors on the monitor don't always match what's in print. If you think about how color is produced, they're opposites of each other. In order for your monitor to produce white, all the color pixels have to be turned on and to produce black all the color pixels are turned off. Also monitors display in RGB, colors are made from the red, green, blue pixels). To print on a media, to produce white no inks are used (assuming a white media) and to produce black all the inks are used. Printers print in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black) inks). As such, blends of colors, like blues, greens and yellows are blended differently on a monitor than on a media. What you need to produce colors consistently is to understand the "profile" of whatever you're looking at. Many professional photographers actually graph colors for each of their media devices to understand the differences. What I'd recommend is to find a professional color chart (you can usually get these from pro photo shops and sites) and take a picture of it. Display it on your monitor and adjust it to match as closely as possible to what the sheet looks like, then send it off to whoever does your prints. Note the differences, if any, and then go back and modify your monitor to match the colors you find on the photograph. This is really the only way to guarantee you're printing "true colors". But be aware, there are colors that just don't come out well on your monitor that will in print (you have approximately 32 Million colors on your monitor but infinite colors in inks). But You'll be 99.999% there with this method.

 

Randall

 

P.S. go to http://dx.sheridan.com/advisor/cmyk_color.html for more details around the differences between monitors and print media.

[tunseeker1]

http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=79&ca=2&s=0

 

That works very well for the money, I also put color profile for the shop in the computer before I work with anything.

 

Also what camera are you using for images?

[King Neptune]

My camera is a Canon A540, pretty basic.