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icc profiles
Hello,
quick question regarding icc profiles. Should I load an icc profile on a picture first and then edit to the way i like it so it will print out correctly on the stores photo printer?
for example, i have some a picture that i had edited. my monitor is calibrated. i edit, then printed it at costco and it came out all dark. if i load the icc profile on the image it will change the apperance of the image. so should i load it first, then edit the image, and then save the image with the icc profile and send it to the printers? Also, if i save the icc profile picture as "save for web" option in photoshop, then will it look ok for other browsers that don't support icc profiles?
i know this is confusing, hopefully i explained it well. thanks for all your help!
quick question regarding icc profiles. Should I load an icc profile on a picture first and then edit to the way i like it so it will print out correctly on the stores photo printer?
for example, i have some a picture that i had edited. my monitor is calibrated. i edit, then printed it at costco and it came out all dark. if i load the icc profile on the image it will change the apperance of the image. so should i load it first, then edit the image, and then save the image with the icc profile and send it to the printers? Also, if i save the icc profile picture as "save for web" option in photoshop, then will it look ok for other browsers that don't support icc profiles?
i know this is confusing, hopefully i explained it well. thanks for all your help!
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I think the most important thing for displaying your photos on the web or getting them printed by consumer labs like Costco, is to make sure they are in the sRGB color space.
Here's why.
Many pro labs know how to handle your file if it's in another color space like Adobe 98, and Safari and Firefox browsers do too under the right circumstances for displaying on the web. But the majority of print labs will ignore your profile and so will most desktop computers when browsing the web.
I agree with Baldy on sRGB for printing at consumer labs like Costco. The second most important thing is to make sure that your monitor is in the proper ballpark for calibration of both brightness and color.
But, a good possibility for why your image came out dark when printed at Costco is that your monitor is too bright (many consumer monitors are). If your monitor is too bright and you adjust your images to make them look good on your monitor, you will end up making them darker. When you then go display them on a properly calibrated output device (printer or screen), they will come out too dark.
The best solution here is to get a monitor calibration device and let the sensor in the hardware device (which measures the actual luminance and color coming off your monitor) guide you in setting up your monitor.
If you don't want to do that, there are some things you can do to try to make sure you're in the right ballpark. Here are some links that might help you do that:
http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html
http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/printing.html
http://www.digicamguides.com/print/monitor-calibration.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/110070/digital_focus_calibrate_your_monitor.html
You've obviously read about ICC Profiles for printers so you may be interested in how you could use them. As Baldy said, for most consumer labs, you do not want to convert the image into that profile. But, the profile can be used for what is called "soft proofing". A few apps like Photoshop CS support soft proofing which is a feature that attempts to show you a simulation of what your image will look like when printed. It does not convert your image into the ICC profile for the output device, but does use the information in that profile to understand the output capabilities of the output device (e.g. printer) and then show you a simulation on screen. Even the simulation will be imperfect because the screen may not be perfectly calibrated and may not be able to show all the colors that the printer can. But, within those limits, it can sometimes help. Soft Proofing is a fairly advanced function and getting the colorspace for the lab right (sRGB) and getting your system color calibrated are way, way, way more important, so if I were you I'd concentrate on those first.
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I know it's been a really long while for a response, but here it goes.
This is what i'm doing, and i'm most likely doing it wrong, but it's kinda working... so what i do is load the photo i want to print out a costco (these are just for my family, and that is where they want to get their prints...) so I load the photo into PS and then choose the proof color. so i load the proof color and it automatically goes dark. then i'll lighten/sharpen/whatever to the picture while it's in "proof" mode. now when i print out that picture at costco, it looks like what is on my monitor, well pretty close. is this what everybody has to go through? or is it just me because i'm using costco and not smugmug. for client pictures, i'll be using smugmug to go through, i'm sure that is just another different icc profile.
OH and by the way, my monitor is calibrated and i'm sure i'm using the sRGB color space.
Thanks!
That sounds pretty good. The part that sounds best to me was, "it looks like what was on my monitor."
I like what John had to say about calibration and proof mode but at the end of the day the acid test is buying what's on your monitor and seeing if the match is close enough.
Your monitor shines light through your image from behind, whereas in a room it reflects back to you from whatever light falls on it. Sometimes I'll adjust the brightness of the print based on where it will be hung, if I know.
We had someone at SmugMug receive a print of his wife from a vendor we were testing and his head exploded when he unwrapped it. It was too light and her skin tones were off.
He took it home to show her and promise he'd get it printed right. But to his surprise, it looked good in the subdued tungsten light of their home and they didn't return it.
There's a shot I love that I tried printing and never could get it to look like it does on my monitor, so I gave up and put it in a lightbox printed on flim. Here's a shot of it hanging in our lunchroom:
I know how to load the ICC profiles now. so after opening a picture that i'm going to edit, i'll apply the color profile to the picture. then i'll edit it to the way i like it. and then i'll do the "proof" color part. and it always comes out darker than i like. so then i'll try to brighten it up. but it just doesn't have the same effect. i didn't realize how annoying this could be. i can make my pictures look really good and when i go to print.. it's just not the same. I also have to blame it on where i'm printing at.
I have some flower pictures i'll be getting printed from fotoflōt and they said they use just a sRGB profile. so i'm just going to do it. and see what happens. i honestly don't know how some of you guys do it. and i wish there were a tutorial for dummies out there that explained this. but i'm learning....
baldy, that picture is absolutly awesome.
back to the drawing board...