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less-red filter option for prints
HighLightPhotos
Registered Users Posts: 68 Big grins
Hi All,
great to see the Lustre finish and reduced prices for 8X10.
How is the progress on the filter option for reducing the red cast on printouts coming along? There was athread on this a while back.
As I recall, it would mimick the shutterfly color balance.
I know the list keeps growing, but I'd really like to make smugmug my onestopshopping place
Apprecaite an update.
-cheers
great to see the Lustre finish and reduced prices for 8X10.
How is the progress on the filter option for reducing the red cast on printouts coming along? There was athread on this a while back.
As I recall, it would mimick the shutterfly color balance.
I know the list keeps growing, but I'd really like to make smugmug my onestopshopping place
Apprecaite an update.
-cheers
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I can't believe I missed this post and let so much time go before responding... I always hit the new post link and thought I was seeing everything, but I'll start going directly to the DGrin and smugmug forums from now on.
The bad news is, I made a decision to throw this option overboard for awhile because the cropping functionality has been so delayed. As soon as we get the new shopping cart/cropping option in there, we'll start working on this.
Every color support question gets forwarded to me and I handle them all, and it turns out 9/10s of them are from caucasions whose skin tone is reddish.
I always open them in Photoshop and measure the magenta and yellow and so far in every case I've seen, the magenta is 6-15 points higher than yellow. The rule of thumb for caucasian skin tones is yellow should probably be a few points higher than red.
I've sent several of these cases out to Shutterfly and Ofoto to see how they handle them and Shutterfly has enough yellow shift to handle some of them. Ofoto actually desaturates the red channel to a significant degree and handles quite a few more, although red objects suffer.
I tell everyone I can to use the cloudy setting on your camera to avoid this, even with a flash or in sunlight.
I think we're going to have to have two settings on our filter when we come out with it — normal and extra-strength or something, because some originals are so very red.
Thanks,
Baldy
You know baldy, the trouble isn't just the skin tones. I can see where some folks actually prefer the pink cheeks. We were looking through some albums just today, and when we got to some baseball pix and the blue of the Tigers' uniforms was purple, and the Blue Jay uniforms were...well, not the color blue they should be, I knew rightaway we were in the batch of pix I had done at smugmug.
As for the cloudy day setting, I can't see the sense of doing that to get good prints at SM when the prints made currently everywhere else come out OK (ofoto, shutterfly, costco, Walmart, not to mention my epson printer).
Those filters of yours can't get here fast enough!
Some of our customers do report it but the percentage seems to be lower than the customers who reported a yellow shift when we used Shutterfly.
I think it comes back to color being in the eye of the beholder and at the end of the day it's a matter of taste. Some like more yellow and some more magenta and we need to be flexible to let you specify the blend.
I am a very big fan of a wedding photographer whose lab lets him specify added magenta, etc., and his (Hassleblad film) photos look stunning. He specifies differently depending on the complexions of the people he shoots.
I, too, see a red shift. I recently ordered a few 4x6 prints to try out the Lustre paper. They look okay by themselves, but when compared to my screen (calibrated with a Spyder device) or prints from my printer (calibrated using ProfilePrism), the EZPrints show a red cast. As I said, I had to do a direct comparison to the original to recognize this, so it's not so bad that I'd expect anyone who purchased my photos to complain and return them. But it's definitely there after a comparison with the source image.
I'm at a loss as to why this might be. I may misunderstand things, but I thought with today's ICC profile tools that it was fairly straightforward to match things up. Sure, there are always complexities with adjusting a particular device to match, but if it should be something the EZPrints people can do, right?
I even did an experiment a couple of months ago, where I tried embedding different ICC profiles in copies of the same image, and tried converting the image between profiles in different ways. I then ordered prints through Smugmug. Based on that experiment, it looks like EZPrints is paying attention to embedded profiles, because anything with a profile embedded looked the same. They have consistency down, I'll give them that. Without an embedded profile it looked like they were assuming sRGB. (Caveat: this was not an exhaustive or particularly scientific test.)
If they are recognizing embedded profiles, this makes me wonder if their calibration method for their printers is off somehow? I know their equipment is far more expensive than mine, so I have no room to talk here about how hard it is to accomplish such a feat. I just know that my home-calibrated monitor matches my home-calibrated printer, and neither matches the EZPrints prints.
Or maybe I'm just totally whacked in the head. :hack
Steve Crooks
Steve.Crooks.net
Here's a new help section on hitting print colors that should explain what you're seeing: http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-color .
It is surprising to a lot of people, but the Fuji Frontiers that are the backbone of most Internet printing do not use profiles.
The key thing we're really debating is the ratio of magenta to yellow. Pleasing caucasian skin tones typically have a few percentage points more of yellow than magenta as a rule, but we're seeing quite a few digital cameras produce skin tones that can be as much as 15 points of yellow below magenta.
The filters we're devising are basically a way for the customer to choose less magenta and more yellow if that's their preference — and preview it before they buy.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
BTW: I won't post on this anymore. Just waiting for a fix from you guys and sticking with shutterfly for now (
Looking forward to all the improvements at SM.
Once a month I participate in a color advisory meeting with EZ Prints and each month I bring up the red issue emphatically, never more so than yesterday and I emphasized our plans to provide filters for people who want them.
I can see why it could be a problem to shift their color point but the enhance algorithm they have does not shift color — it only increases saturation and sharpness. Shutterfly's filter, VividPics, is on by default and does add yellow and decrease magenta. Ours will do the same but won't be on by default like Shutterfly's -- it'll be an option with a preview in the shopping basket.
Thanks,
Baldy
cheers!
Interested to see how that works. I just got an 8x10 Lustre print of this picture, and there is a definite magenta shift. I'd love to see a new icc profile, perhaps to augment the one they provide.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
After using Shutterfly as a supplier and completing this study, I'm reluctant to believe there is one color point that everyone can agree on, but I'd love to be able to let you choose between two or three of them.
I haven't thought through what that means for calibration prints and ICC profiles other than several versions, but that doesn't sound too hard.
Thanks,
Baldy