Disappointed in Photo prints

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

Hello, I wanted to take a moment to ask a question related to the printed photos and to see if I could get some help. I'd like to start out by explaining what I was doing prior to smugmug in hopes that we can figure out what I need to do.

1) As you already know, I used WhiteHouse for all my printing prior to setting up my account with smugmug. Upon setting up this account I was told that I had to calibrate my monitor and run proofs before they would even begin printing for me. As a result I purchased a Spyder 2 device and calibrated the monitor. I have ordered many prints through WH and not one time have ever had a print come in that didn't look exactly like my monitor. I have never had to send anything back due to color or anything else for that matter.

2) I am using the same monitor and uploading some of the same photos to smugmug that I had already ordered for other people through WH. As a result I know that these photos printed out perfectly at some point as I have one hanging on my wall.

3) One of the people ordering prints had them shipped to me because they were out of town. Upon receiving them I contacted you guys and you very generously reprinted them for me. You also pointed out that somehow the photos were not set to the sRGB setting so before I uploaded new prints I reset that setting.

I have received the new prints today and am not happy at all with what I'm seeing. Andy had told me the skin tones didn't look right before he placed the reorder but I insisted that we order them as they were based on the fact that I have a few of these same pictures here and they look perfect.

Today I have received the new prints and I see Andy's reserves, but don't understand what is going on? On my monitor the picture looks exactly like the photo I have hanging on my wall. However, from what I have printed through smugmug it has a completely different tint to it. Exactly why Andy said something was wrong with it.

Is there anyway that I can download the print that you have on file back to my system to see if something was done during the processing stage of the upload to smugmug? This really is not making any sense but I can't have customer's ordering prints that look like these.

Thanks,

Andy · November 28, 2005

Hi Glenn,

Let me dig...

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

Andy wrote:

Hi Glenn,

Let me dig...

Thanks Andy, nice picture by the way... I can't look at you long though, the blinking at me gets me confused.. :-)...

rainforest1155 · November 28, 2005

First of all you'r monitor seems to be calibrated for the WH printing machines. Now you can't rely on that every company uses the same printers. I think you have to recalibrate your monitor. Smugmug prints through EZprints and they should be able to give you some kind of calibration chart to put your calibration system to use again.
Concerning the original file - just go to your gallery settings and allow Originals. Now you can easily download the original of yours - which hasn't changed at all, because smugmug doesn't change your originals.

Then it of course also depends on possible color profiles. Does the picture look in the Internet Explorer (IE) exactly the same you want it to look? If not you've included some kind of color profile which the IE just ignores, as EZprints does. Just save it as sRGB (look here for more info).

Hope this helps a little,
Sebastian

Baldy · November 28, 2005

Hi cybercrypt,

Wow, these are beautiful portraits — really great shots.

The one thing that jumps out at me, however, is how different the skin tones are in the two. I'm wondering if WHCC adjusted them before printing?

The reason I ask comes from measuring the photo on the left with the Photoshop eyedropper tool — which removes all doubt about monitor calibration, the way our eyes react differently, etc.

If you were to hover over the left part (your right) of her cheek on the left portrait, for example, it reads 1% cyan, 0% magenta, 6% yellow. Since yellow + cyan in the absence of magenta is green, if the lab is faithful to their true color mantra, that part of her skin will be green (greenish yellow, actually).

The question of why it doesn't look that way on your monitor could have different answers, but here's the most common reason: you may be able to calibrate your monitor, but no one can calibrate their eyes.

When you step from sun to shade, your T shirt still looks white to your eyes. But to the camera it looks blue. When you go indoors and turn on the light, your eyes say the shirt is still white. But to the camera it became yellow.

That's because your eyes remove color casts but the camera captures the colors as they really are, just as printers print what's really in your file — not what your eyes thought they saw.

Your eyes are good at comparing shots side-by-side, but when you stare at a portrait on your screen your eyes do what they're best at and remove color casts so you can't see them and don't know they're there.

We have many pros who print at the big three on the Internet (whcc, MPIX, and EZ Prints) as do I, and we see some variation in color between them (MPIX has a more yellow color point than EZ Prints, for example), but nothing like the variation between these two shots.

So, back to the original question: why do these two shots look exactly the same on prints from whcc as your monitor and they don't from us? I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that because I don't know your monitor and what whcc did. But I do know what the Photoshop eyedropper tool says so I'm pretty sure I know exactly how your prints look with the true color option.

Andy may have mentioned this, but returns for the true color option are 10x the autoadjust option for many of the reasons mentioned here. It's why so few labs offer a true color option or make it very hard to find.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Chris

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

rainforest1155 wrote:

First of all you'r monitor seems to be calibrated for the WH printing machines. Now you can't rely on that every company uses the same printers. I think you have to recalibrate your monitor. Smugmug prints through EZprints and they should be able to give you some kind of calibration chart to put your calibration system to use again.
Concerning the original file - just go to your gallery settings and allow Originals. Now you can easily download the original of yours - which hasn't changed at all, because smugmug doesn't change your originals.

Then it of course also depends on possible color profiles. Does the picture look in the Internet Explorer (IE) exactly the same you want it to look? If not you've included some kind of color profile which the IE just ignores, as EZprints does. Just save it as sRGB (look here for more info).

Hope this helps a little,
Sebastian

Thanks, I have already tried recalibrating my monitor in case something was off. Calibrating really has nothing to do with the print house though. I also have the calibration print that Andy sent me the other day and it looks exremely close to my monitor as well. Of course this is all subjective to your eyeballs but it doesn't make much sense to me when the other prints are coming out fine...

Still hunting.. Thanks,

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

Chris,

Thanks for all the info. I agree with your statements, however, I'm not comparing prints to my monitor. I understand those two images above are different and they are on my monitor as well for obvious reasons. Lighting being the major. I'm also not saying they are perfect images as I'm not that good of a photographer (yet). I'm also not saying anything is wrong with easyprints. I'm just confused at how to keep this from happening. I can change my prints back to the auto color option from true I guess, but that is what started all this. Andy reprinted the original prints due to them being too green.

I also agree completely that it could be my eyes, however, I have pretty good eyes and when comparing the WH image to the monitor they are identical. I'm also not holding the image up beside the monitor as that would not provide a very good example as you had suggested above. I'm holding the photo flat in order to have the light on it more, and then looking up at the monitor. When putting the photo just received by the earlier WH photo, the new one is more creamier looking.

This set of images are the only ones that for some reason got their modes set to the 1988 RGB settings. Not sure how that happened as none of the other photos I've reviewed had that happen, but they are reset now to sRGB. Maybe I should try reprinting with Auto now that they are set back and see what results are like.

What do you think Andy? Or should I just modify the images and forget about a comparison? I'm just worried now about what my customers are getting in their hands because I've always had images come through me before going out so that I could make sure things looked right. And as stated, I've never had a problem before...

Thanks,

Andy · November 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

What do you think Andy? Or should I just modify the images and forget about a comparison? I'm just worried now about what my customers are getting in their hands because I've always had images come through me before going out so that I could make sure things looked right. And as stated, I've never had a problem before...

Thanks,

Thanks for posting. I have previously recommended to you our great help pages on skin-tones, on aRGB vs. sRGB, and also monitor calibration and calibration prints, and the EZPrints ICC profile.

I'm not being flip when I say to look at these help pages - it's dead-simple IMO - calibrate, soft proof, and follow the skin tone guidelines, and learn to use the eyedropper tool in photoshop because unlike monitors or our eyes, it's not subjective in anyway at all.

If you'd like me to color correct these images I will be happy to do so, and fire off a new set of prints on us.

All the best,

DavidTO · November 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

I also agree completely that it could be my eyes, however, I have pretty good eyes and when comparing the WH image to the monitor they are identical. Thanks,

Don't trust your eyes, trust the numbers. The numbers that Baldy pulled off your shots are impossible. It is not possible for caucasian skin tone to have cyan and yellow and no magenta. It's a very simple measure to indicate whether the skin tone is possible, and that image has skin tones that just plain don't exist. No wonder you're having problems.

It's a tough learning curve that I'm still on, too. Your eye gets more discerning and your technical expertise always lags behind. At least mine does. Keep at it.

And yes, don't expect smugmug to behave exactly the way WHCC does. Get over it and move on to making your colors accurate and/or possible.

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

Don't trust your eyes, trust the numbers. The numbers that Baldy pulled off your shots are impossible. It is not possible for caucasian skin tone to have cyan and yellow and no magenta. It's a very simple measure to indicate whether the skin tone is possible, and that image has skin tones that just plain don't exist. No wonder you're having problems.

It's a tough learning curve that I'm still on, too. Your eye gets more discerning and your technical expertise always lags behind. At least mine does. Keep at it.

And yes, don't expect smugmug to behave exactly the way WHCC does. Get over it and move on to making your colors accurate and/or possible.

Thanks, I'll play around with them tonight. I have read the info on the pages Andy sent before, I just wasn't expecting such a difference in prints. I"ll play around with them and see if I can figure it out.

Thanks guys,

Techman1 · November 28, 2005

I use both WHCC for my portraits and EZPrints (via Smugmug) for my events photos. I save all my files as sRGB and have a calibrated monitor. My prints from both places look good and accurate based on the original photos.

If you are shooting Canon, make sure you are shooting sRGB or make sure you save with sRGB as your final JPEG file. Then if it looks good on your calibrated monitor, it should look good in print from both places.

Good luck. I know it can be frustrating, but once it works....it works well!

Fred

Andy · November 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Thanks, I'll play around with them tonight. I have read the info on the pages Andy sent before, I just wasn't expecting such a difference in prints. I"ll play around with them and see if I can figure it out.

Thanks guys,

Glad to hear it! Let us know if we can help you further, Glenn.

Baldy · November 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

I'm also not saying they are perfect images as I'm not that good of a photographer (yet).

I love those shots! If the one on the left were available as a stock photo, I'd buy it to use on SmugMug's site somewhere.

All the best,
Chris

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

Baldy wrote:

I love those shots! If the one on the left were available as a stock photo, I'd buy it to use on SmugMug's site somewhere.

All the best,
Chris

lol, you are funny... everything is available on smugmug... :-)

Thanks though,

StevenV · November 28, 2005

Andy wrote:

... our great help pages on skin-tones, ...

I must be in bizarro-land today. When I follow that link I end up at www.microsoft.com -- and I'm using FireFox!

Oh, found it... there's an extra "http:" stuck inside the link. It should be skin-tone.

Andy · November 28, 2005

StevenV wrote:

I must be in bizarro-land today. When I follow that link I end up at www.microsoft.com -- and I'm using FireFox!

Oh, found it... there's an extra "http:" stuck inside the link. It should be skin-tone.

fixed 'em - thanks Steven!

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

Ok guys, still having trouble...

Here is my question... I open the original to that left image shown on the previous page. I see the skin tones on the left side of her face that are below the recommended values, however, at what point do we view things here? As the left side of her face is more exposed than the right. the right side shows values more in line with what you recommend for skin tones... So how would I adjust this picture to get what you recommend with your settings?

I also used your recommendations to reveiw the picture on the right and i"m showing magenta being the correct percentage below yellow, but again, these values depend a lot on the exposure of the picture so I fail to see how this is a failsafe way to handle this issue either. Which is why I didn't mess with the original pictures. I wanted to see how they came out using the same values as the prints I received from WH...

What am I missing here?

Thanks,

cybercrypt13 · November 28, 2005

Just to be more precise, I went through the demo completely and made the recommended changes to that photo. What I end up with however, is an almost orange overcast over the entire photo. And again, I'm making these changes to a photo in which I don't see a problem to begin with. But I'm trying...

let me know if I'm doing something wrong... or missing a point here..

Thanks,

Andy · November 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

let me know if I'm doing something wrong... or missing a point here..

Thanks,

Glenn - I copied this thread to our Photoshop forum so that others could join in.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=204217#post204217

Disappointed in Photo prints

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