Print Problem

I have been trying to get a decent print of this image for some time, and have sent several variants to Photobox without getting a print that I like.

The prints come back looking grey and cold - something like the second image.

I created the second image by using the Levels tool in Gimp and scaling white down to about 200/255. There is obviously no valid inverse to this, as I would have to submit an image for printing with many pixels above 100%... This led to the thought that the print could be affected by out-of-gamut colours. I know that bright orange is a problem for litho printing so maybe it is also difficult for wet-chemistry photos. Could it be that Photobox are just desaturating the image until all colours are in gamut? If so, what can I do to get the best possible print?

-- AndrewFindlay - 02 Jan 2009

02 Jan 2009 20:23:00 JohnAshford:

I have just ripped a copy, transferred to Lightroom and gone down my normal print profile path to standard Lyson paper. It looks like the on-screen image you wanted in the flag thing, but a trace more yellow / orange on the stonework and the shirt.

When I moved the red, orange and yellow saturation up by 40% it didn't noticeably change. It looks as though my white point is somewhat shifted, but the orange prints fine. Want to make an offer for a second hand Epson R1800? I'll bring the prints on Tuesday.

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02 Jan 2009 20:24:52 RodBird:

Q: "If so, what can I do to get the best possible print?"

A: Either buy a good inkjet printer, or find a local company who'll produce good prints, and with whom you can have a sensible dialogue of the "look, this orange you've given me isn't right" variety.

I suggest you discuss with Mike Kiely who has had a similar problem.

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02 Jan 2009 21:27:54 JohnAshford:

More: I have just asked Lightroom to set the trousers to be white, and that moves the stonework to just about the colour of my print - approx 50 C warmer.

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28 Jan 2009 09:12:25 PaulFranklin:

Andrew - have you tried soft proofing the image to simulate the print? (Not sure which PS you use - you need full CS to do this as I don't think Elements does)

Would be happy to try a soft proof using my printer profiles and send you back if that would be useful

Paul

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28 Jan 2009 20:08:04 AndrewFindlay:

I don't have any version of PhotoShop. Adobe still don't make one for Linux. I use Gimp for photo work, though my current version is rather old and does not have colour management. When I need CMYK etc I use Scribus (desktop publishing package) or Krita (another bitmap editor).

I have tried converting the image to CMYK targeted at FOGRA27 coated paper (which seems to have the widest gamut of the profiles I have handy). Here is the result in the on-screen simulation, and also the out-of-gamut warning image.

I will have to wait for daylight to tell you which on-screen representation is closest to the various prints. Past experience with sending magazines for commercial printing suggests that the on-screen-proof is greyer than the final product, but I never have found out exactly what the print shop does between receiving my PDF and actually printing it!

I would be interested to know what result you get.

Wet-process colour printing is CMY rather than CMYK but the difference is probably not relevant to on-screen proofs...

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29 Jan 2009 17:45:53 JohnAshford:

Masha Ershova said - and I've added it here to keep it all in one place -

"Just to let you know that I've just received a trial batch from DS Colour Lab http://www.dscolourlabs.co.uk/online_photo_printing.cfm and the same pictures from [other], and

1. the difference is striking,
2. DSCL's colour rendition is ever so much better and truer to what I see on the screen
3. there's no difference in colour between A4 and 6x4 (one of my problems in the past)
4. DSCL is cheaper, as if it's possible
5. I think that resolves my problems "

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29 Jan 2009 20:23:53 PaulFranklin:

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29 Jan 2009 20:28:36 PaulFranklin:

Andrew

Please excuse the previous comment - I wanted to upload a comparison of the original and one soft proofed into Euroscale Coated V2 which is close to commercial offset printing. Obviously an ink jet printer should do better than that but it is interesting to see some greyness creeping in.

I also did a soft proof of your image into Epson 4880 and there was simply a reduction in contrast (compared to what my monitor can deliver and not a significant colour shift or "greying" so I do think it may be a question of the quality of Photobox

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31 Jan 2009 11:34:45 JohnAshford:

Just to see, I tried sending one of my print files (Echeveria sp. as in ANH 2009) to DSCL. The print came back promptly, and is sharp, well defined and the colours look to be true in hue. However all of the colours appear to be significantly undersaturated relative to my own print which was made using Lyson paper, Lyson inks and a custom profile.

I shall go on printing my own - I enjoy it, and mistakes are often educative - but if I had a lot to produce i would probably go to DSCL but do a control print first to get the saturation right.

To be fair to DSCL, the print I tried really was awkward both in overall gamut and for the rich range of blue / lilac / pink shades. The image in Competition Images / ANH (sRGB) is about as far from the actual print (in Adobe RGB) as the DSCL print, but in hue shift rather than saturation.

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01 Feb 2009 19:31:01 AndrewFindlay:

Curiouser and curiouser!

Paul: How did you grab the original image? The one that you label as "original" is actually closer to the prints than my original original... Your proof is close too - perhaps a fraction greyer than the prints.

I now have prints from Photobox, from DSCL, and from John's Epson. All of the photographic prints are very similar. The inkjet print is lighter.

Comparing the lab prints to what I see on screen:

• In daylight the prints appear colder and less saturated than the on-screen version. The orange handkerchiefs are noticeably different.
• In artificial light (low voltage quartz-halogen) the prints look better than the on-screen version. The whole image is warmer and the handkerchiefs are well-saturated.

All this is to be expected, as daylight has a much higher colour temperature than most artificial lights.(Daylight is 5000K to 6500K, halogen lamps are around 3200K and old-style filament lamps are about 2800K). There is a useful summary of colour temperature at techmind.org

Does this solve my original problem? Probably not - in fact it adds another one as now it seems that "on screen proofing" really needs to take account of the light that the print will be displayed under!

The Techmind site also has a very interesting article comparing the performance of several digital printing services (Jessops, Boots, Photobox etc). The services using Fuji Frontier machines (Jessops, Photobox) came out very well, though the results are still dependent on a good operator and good maintenance.

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01 Feb 2009 23:17:04 RodBird:

I may have missed the relevant part amongst the exchanges above Andrew, but have you profiled your display screen? The club has two devices for doing so (a Spyder and a Monaco Optix) and this is generally recommended as the first step towards getting a reliable workflow.

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02 Feb 2009 10:39:22 PaulFranklin:

Andrew - I grabbed the image from the website so I may or may not have got the right colour profile tagged with it when I started - can you email me one and I can do the same comparison and also email it to you so you can compare on your own screen

Paul

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03 Feb 2009 11:25:32 AndrewFindlay:

Rod: I have not profiled the display with a colorimiter, though I do have a very basic profile for it. I will have to re-do this sometime though, as the laptop screen was replaced a few weeks ago.

Laptops don't usually have much control over screen calibration, but Linux does allow me to set gamma separately for red, green and blue.

Which version of Spyder do we have? Linux support is available for Spyder 2 but there is some doubt about Spyder 3. I am not going to try this immediately anyway, as I need to update to the latest version of SuSE, which will have a much greater choice of software than my current (2006) version. It looks as if the Argyll CMS is the one to use for calibration.

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03 Feb 2009 16:58:25 RodBird:

I'm not sure which Spyder version we have - Mark will know. Part of the procedure for creating the display profile involves increasing or decreasing the display's brightness and contrast until whites and blacks are rendered correctly. I'd be keen to go though this before seeking more complex explanations.

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03 Feb 2009 23:43:10 PaulFranklin:

Andrew - I have tried again to produce a hardcopy proof of your image as if printed on Euroscale Coated V2 - using CS2 instead of CS3. There is now a difference between the straight print and the proof print - the CS3 ones were identical suggesting that CS3 may not be able to print proofs correctly. The straight print using CS2 and the straight one using CS3 look like they will end up the same (once the CS2 print has dried down)

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