Print Order - Way To Go!

wolfejm

I have to pass along tremendoud kudos to Smugmug. I just received an order of 16x20's that didn't come out to their potential. The fault was, of course, mine. I had "corrected" the images and they came out good (to me) on my printers. Since I was happy with my output, I selected true color when ordering... big mistake. I don't have the tools to soft proof or really work color managed, and what looked good here was mediocre on print from Smugmug.

I sent email to smugmug, explained my situation (including the my fault part), and they sent the images over to Andy. Andy confirmed the better choice was auto-color and Smugmug offered to reprint the order. This is truly amazing for me, because I couldn't really justify the cost to reprint, and it really was my fault. Thanks Smugmug & Thanks Andy!! :barb

Here's my lesson learned:
Choose auto-color all the time unless you have very good reason not to. Good reason only comes in the form of a calibrated and color managed workflow.

I just have one question. I'm now looking at i2e because the results are really very good compared to what I can do at this point. If I use i2e on my own, should I use auto-color on my orders, or will this result in over correction? I noticed that if I loaded a previously corrected image, it made more changes to it, like if I had dialed up the knobs the first time. (I suspect that my lesson learned above still applies, but I just want to check).

Thank you!

Andy

wolfejm wrote:

[/B]I just have one question. I'm now looking at i2e because the results are really very good compared to what I can do at this point. If I use i2e on my own, should I use auto-color on my orders, or will this result in over correction? I noticed that if I loaded a previously corrected image, it made more changes to it, like if I had dialed up the knobs the first time. (I suspect that my lesson learned above still applies, but I just want to check).

Thank you!

Thanks for the kind words. If you purchase your own I2E (http://www.smugmug.com/clubsmug) then do NOT print AUTO after i2e-ing your shots on your computer. Use true.

I2E is wonderful, I highly recommend it!

wolfejm

Andy wrote:

Thanks for the kind words... I2E is wonderful, I highly recommend it!

The kind words are well deserved. I've been using Smugmug and Dgrin for 4 or 5 months now, and it has been a great experience. The customer service I received today is one of the things that separate smugmug/dgrin apart from the competition.

Enough about that

Can you share the i2e settings that Smugmug uses?

Also, in looking at my original prints, I noticed a slight periodic wave in the material on one side. I presume this was from rolling and that this was the inside of the role. Do you see that much, and what do you do about it? It seems to affect one's perception of the image because of the slight shine of the luster finish. (Incidentally, I got another piece of rolled art from another vedor and it wrinkled the same way.)

Thanks!

ebwest

Also, could you give a non technical explanation as to why this is better than making the (I assume) same adjustments in Photoshop? I downloaded the demo version and sure see why it's easier. I'm just wonder what makes the colors better for printing.

Thanks

ebwest

In case it got overlooked.

ebwest wrote:

Also, could you give a non technical explanation as to why this is better than making the (I assume) same adjustments in Photoshop? I downloaded the demo version and sure see why it's easier. I'm just wonder what makes the colors better for printing.

Thanks

Andy

wolfejm wrote:

The kind words are well deserved. I've been using Smugmug and Dgrin for 4 or 5 months now, and it has been a great experience. The customer service I received today is one of the things that separate smugmug/dgrin apart from the competition.

Enough about that

Can you share the i2e settings that Smugmug uses?

Also, in looking at my original prints, I noticed a slight periodic wave in the material on one side. I presume this was from rolling and that this was the inside of the role. Do you see that much, and what do you do about it? It seems to affect one's perception of the image because of the slight shine of the luster finish. (Incidentally, I got another piece of rolled art from another vedor and it wrinkled the same way.)

Thanks!

Sure, they are the default settings, but the brightness is at .15 and the shadow recovery is at .6.

i2e isn't "better" than Photoshop. I can always make an image better with photoshop. But if I have to make 750 images better, I'm using i2e

If I have to correct 1 or 10 images and I want to just adjust for color/skintone/exposure, I'll i2e them for sure. It's just so much easier & faster than photoshop.

ebwest

Thanks, one last question.

Is the plug-in as good as the stand alone?

Andy

ebwest wrote:

Thanks, one last question.

Is the plug-in as good as the stand alone?

Don't think so. Read the i2e thread, lots of feedback on both, there.

ebwest

Thanks.