[itou]

hello,

i've always been wary of printing digital photos out of fear of colour inaccuracy. whenever i want photos to keep (hard copy), i use film. if i don't mind the photos to be kept and shown on a display, i'll use digital. since everyone's on the digital bandwagon and i'm finding myself shooting more and more on my digital SLR, so perhaps it's time to try printing some of my digital photos. i've got about 400 photos that i'm ready to print, all edited with aperture and tuned with photoshop, and since it's a huge batch, i want to make sure the colour is correct. i.e.: what i see on my screen should be "close" to what i get on paper. what is the best way to ensure that the colour is accurate when i get my prints from the shop? i'd really appreciate any tips since it'll most likely save myself a lot of money and grief if the colour is perfect.

thanks.

[DMurray431]

There is an article on that subject in the current edition of Popular Photography magazine. Debbie Grossman does a monthly column on "digital toolbox" that is a very helpful series on using photoshop and other digital operations. This month there is an aditional article on inkjet printing that you might find helpful. An "online" copy of that article is Here: http://www.popphoto....inting-20.html. It is rather interesting the way photography has changed over the years. The magazine has evolved as well, with a lot of emphasis on digital photography. I just would have wished that digital had evolved earlier....... I have quite a few "film" cameras getting dusty.

[GBrown]

Hi there - I was going to put up a post on this very subject myself.

I have been struggling the last few days on getting the color correct on the scans of my wedding photo negatives - the photographer uses an old-school 35mm camera. The shots turned out marvelous, but I'm trying to bring them into iPhoto and the color isn't quite right.

I have been trying to wrap my head around the ColorSync utility in Tiger. The iMac monitor is listed in ColorSync, as well as my CanoScan 8400F, but my HP Photosmart 8250 printer is absent, which is frustrating. At this point, I know enough to say I don't know enough about what I'm doing. I'm not certain that the printer needs to have a ColorSync profile, because I've scanned and printed negatives in the past that turned out fantastic.

I also have about 150 honeymoon photos shot with my Canon PowerShot S1 digital camera. I have struggled to get accurate color reproduction for them as well. Again, I know enough to say that I don't know enough about judging the color on-screen.

My first suggestion is to ensure that your printer is correctly calibrated for color - there may be a calibration utility you can run and some sample pics to print that will let you judge how well the color looks. Make sure you use photo paper during the calibration process.

Second, try a few 4x6 test prints. Pick the photo you're happiest with on-screen, and then try printing it out. I have played around with the Quartz Filters quite a bit, and I noticed that the Lighten Photo filter worked pretty well - in a lot of cases the photo appeared fine on the screen, but it was darker when printed out. I am not sure if that's a generic thing that is part of my system (computer/printer/camera) or something that varies from photo to photo.

Check out the soft-proofing capability of Aperture, which is also recommended by the experts. As a side note, I also have Aperture, but the color and print quality of my printed photos was terrible coming off that. I literally spent 8 hours on Christmas Eve trying to make it work and ended up going back to iPhoto '08.

To the previous post - thanx very much for that article. Much appreciated!

G.B.

[moose_n_squirrel]

In this article there is more detail on the Photoshop side of soft proofing.

[Philbert]

Calibrating the monitor should always be the first (crucial) step. If you're trying to get accurate prints while working with an uncalibrated monitor, it will be a frustrating experience. You can get by with Apple's eyeball calibrator in a pinch but it's best to use a hardware calibrator like xRite's EyeOne Display 2. (I disagree with the linked PopPhoto author - use a gamma of 2.2)

In terms of printing, after a calibrated monitor, color management works by using an accurate profile for the specific paper you use. (there's really no way of "calibrating" a printer - different papers need different profiles for that printer) Many printers supply profiles for their brand of papers that work fine for most users. (Epson's profiles are fairly accurate although not perfect.)

Here's a great Photoshop CS3/CS2 printing primer:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps10print/ps10print_1.htm

(note: I recommend Print Workflow 2 - it will give the most accurate prints on a consistent basis)

-phil

[GBrown]

My monitor has been calibrated using the calibration routine in the Display Preferences panel. Yes, it's not perfect, but I think I've got it set up not bad.

I've been looking into getting a piece of hardware to calibrate the display - luckily there's an article on just that in a photography magazine I picked up while traveling on my honeymoon. I may have to order something online though, as the local photography shops have pretty slim pickings when it comes to colorimeters.

One thing that's frustrating is that most articles about photos and color and such I've read online are Photoshop-specific. I agree it's the most popular program out there, but it's not the only one.

G.B.

[DMurray431]

Unless your Photo Store is a combination Computer-Photo store the kind of color meter you are looking at there is not what you want. Photo color meters are for film/slide photography. They read the "color temperature" (degrees in the kelvin scale) of light so the photographer can select the correction filter for his pictures correctly. Daylight is about 5600 kelvin and normal photo lighting is around 3200 kelvin. As you may know artificial lighting goes all over the scale, cool white, warm etc. With digital photography yout can correct the color after the fact.......film a lot of work. There are several monitor correction meters available, buying online is probably the way to go, as not a lot of computer stores would stock these items as not a lot of sales.