print quality...

wetsands

hi all,
i'm a new pro user and have recently sold my first prints and was curious as to how closely the prints will match up to the image that the customer saw on the monitor as far as colour saturation, brightness, accuracy, etc.. (assuming they have a calibrated monitor, etc..).

thanks!

bwg

wetsands wrote:

hi all,
i'm a new pro user and have recently sold my first prints and was curious as to how closely the prints will match up to the image that the customer saw on the monitor as far as colour saturation, brightness, accuracy, etc.. (assuming they have a calibrated monitor, etc..).

thanks!

That depends entirely on the monitor. Calibrated or not, the monitor could still not be very bright or have low contrast. It's like both of us drawing a picture of an apple. We both know what an apple looks like, but our pictures will be a little different.

Smugmug prides themselves on their print quality and if you or your customer ever has a problem with a print, SM will reprint it no questions asked (they'll even fix color problems and the like). All you or your customer has to do is send an email to help@smugmug.com

Lyle C

Consider this one a testimonial if you will. Last month I ordered several prints from my website for an artshow. I was extremely impressed with the print quality. Yes they did look exactly as they did on my monitor. This was achieved by using the great info provided on Smug, including the icc profiles, and by calibrating my monitor.

Andy

wetsands wrote:

hi all,
i'm a new pro user and have recently sold my first prints and was curious as to how closely the prints will match up to the image that the customer saw on the monitor as far as colour saturation, brightness, accuracy, etc.. (assuming they have a calibrated monitor, etc..).

thanks!

Do yourself a favor, and order some of your own prints And I will be here always to take care of you and your customers should anything not match up to expectations.

dogwood

also...
There's an ICC profile available for EZ prints so you can soft-proof them. I've found on my color managed workflow that this is fairly accurate once you get a sense how it's presenting the data (monitors project light, prints reflect light, so they are never an exact match). The ICC profile for EZ prints sort of dulls the monitor preview but if you compare it to a print, you'll get a pretty good idea of how they work together and how you can use the profile to proof prints.

I've personally been quite pleased with EZ prints/smugmug. If everything is calibrated and you white balance properly, your prints will look fantastic-- especially the color prints.

wetsands

so do most of the pro users here edit their images with the EZ print icc profile / soft proof actively engaged.. or just not worry about the soft proof?

dogwood

speaking for myself
I've used the soft-proof ICC method a few times just to get a feel for how EZ prints will print my photos. I don't soft-proof now since I feel like I understand how the regular view in PSCS will translate to the EZ prints soft-proof view. That's just my experience, of course, but I'll bet if you soft-proof a few images and switch back and forth between your regular view and the soft-proof view on a calibrated monitor, and maybe compare that to an EZ print, pretty soon it'll make sense how a regular edit will translate to the print. I hope that makes sense... it's not nearly as complicated as I make it sound!

Andy

wetsands wrote:

so do most of the pro users here edit their images with the EZ print icc profile / soft proof actively engaged.. or just not worry about the soft proof?

Everytime? I do not. But it's useful to do so you know where your setup stands vis a vis ezprints.

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1123524

SteveM

Andy has had 6 points shaved and gained 1 demerit for using "vis a vis" in polite conversation. Sorry it had to come to this.

Andy wrote:

Everytime? I do not. But it's useful to do so you know where your setup stands vis a vis ezprints.

Bodley

Another testimonial - I've sold over 2000 Ez-Print's prints from 4x6 (99%) to 16x20. Never had anyone complain about "print" quality. However, I have had several compliments on the "print" quality.

(knock...knock...knock...on wood)

Pamela

Speaking a printing what you see on your monitor,

My desktop died yesterday, so I bought a new macbook.
So far it is overwhelming and nice, I had been using imac 9.2.
This is where my problems are starting, I have a epson rx620 printer, I used with the old computer-

Now when I print my photos the colors dont look the same, now im feeling very sick, after $1500, and dont know enough about this computer, to fix it, or know why.
I hope epson can help me. I dont have the same choices for page set up that I had on the 9.2.

Thankyou for listening .

Andy

Pamela wrote:

Speaking a printing what you see on your monitor,

My desktop died yesterday, so I bought a new macbook.
So far it is overwhelming and nice, I had been using imac 9.2.
This is where my problems are starting, I have a epson rx620 printer, I used with the old computer-

Now when I print my photos the colors dont look the same, now im feeling very sick, after $1500, and dont know enough about this computer, to fix it, or know why.
I hope epson can help me. I dont have the same choices for page set up that I had on the 9.2.

Thankyou for listening .

Pamela, you have to calibrate your monitor against what you are going to get from your printer. Have you a printer profile for your printer?

Pamela

Andy


Hi ! and thankyou ,
wow am I feeling very vulnerable right now, a new computer- with OS 10.3.4 or 10.4.3 .
See i cant even type now, funny how something can change the comfort and ease of use.
Where is this and how do I find the profile?
I guess I could use alot of help!

(Oh by the way if anyone gets a new epson printer- and has the lastest version of mac running system, they have to go to the epson web site to download the proper driver)


Thankyou


Pamela