online printing

[cn15]

Several months ago, I took an intro to PS CS3 course at the local community college.  The instructor told me to download the ICC profiles for the specific printer/paper for optimal color management.  For non-critical work, he suggested downloading the ICC profile for the printer at Costco since Costco offers its ICC profile online.  So I downloaded the Costco ICC profile, calibrated my monitor with the SpyderExpress2 kit, soft proofed the pics in ps,  uploaded the pics to Costco in jpg format (I don't think they accept any other format), and turned off Costco's automatic color correction feature.  I did several test runs but always found the prints to be rather flat, lacking contrast and saturation (4x6 size).

I am a newbie hobbyist and don't print that many pics to justify buying a good printer/paper/ink.  It seems to me that when I send the pics to Costco online, my PS is not in control of their printer and even though I have Costco's ICC profile, it is only for soft proofing.  Is this correct?

Is there any way I can get consistent and good quality prints from an online service? or am I limited to buying a good quality printer or take my pics to the local professional lab?
Chuong

[Jonathan Wienke]

Are you downloading the profile specific to the Costco location doing the printing? Are you converting (and not assigning) the image to that profile before converting to JPEG and submitting?

[santa]

I'll guess Jonathan has the right direction. You haven't explained what you did with their profile. You need to convert it to the proper profile (I think), otherwise, when you send it to them any assigning you have done would be lost. I could be corrected on that though. And of course you do need to know for sure that the profile you are using is indeed the correct one for the specific printer your files are going to.

[Doc Brown]

Make sure to convert the files to sRGB before uploading. I haven't had anything printed where the service worked well with aRGB or ProPhoto as the embeded color profile. Don't convert them to the printer profile, only use the profile for softproofing.

Also try a couple of different online services. About 2 years ago I tried about a half dozen of them. The best prints came back from MPix.

[joedevico]

"Don't convert them to the printer profile, only use the profile for softproofing."

Uhhhh...why would you not convert the image to the profile? That's exactly the point of the profile isn't it. Obviously though it needs to be the profile for the specific printer you intend to print to.

I use Costco all the time for commercial publicity and wedding proofs. The printers are up to fine art printing - but for a beginning or intermediate hobbyist, they can't be beat. If you don't convert the image to the Costco profile, then what you see on the properly profiled screen will not be what you get from the printer.

And yes...they do only accept .jpgs as uploads in either sRGB or the Costco sRGB profile. Wide gamut profiles are not properly rendered on their Noritsu Printers.

joe

[Jonathan Wienke]

I haven't had anything printed where the service worked well with aRGB or ProPhoto as the embeded color profile. Don't convert them to the printer profile, only use the profile for softproofing.

That's not necessarily the right answer. By default, Costco's printers assume the input image is sRGB regardless of how it's tagged, and Adobe RGB or ProPhoto files will look desaturated, especially ProPhoto. But if you have the file printed with "no color adjustments" then the image is sent directly to the printer with no profile conversion, and you need to have converted the image to the printer profile to get good results.

The trick is finding a trained monkey at Costco who knows how to do the "no color adjustment" print mode. If they don't know how, you're better off just converting to sRGB. But if they do know how, then converting to the printer profile is the best way to go.

[PeterLange]

By default, Costco's printers assume the input image is sRGB regardless of how it's tagged, and Adobe RGB or ProPhoto files will look desaturated, especially ProPhoto.

But if you have the file printed with "no color adjustments" then the image is sent directly to the printer with no profile conversion, and you need to have converted the image to the printer profile to get good results. The trick is finding a trained monkey at Costco who knows how to do the "no color adjustment" print mode. If they don't know how, you're better off just converting to sRGB. But if they do know how, then converting to the printer profile is the best way to go.

Yep - that's right the same as with the Fuji Frontier printer, as far as I can tell.

Even when handing over an image file 'in' sRGB
- whatever any assigned tag says, it's ignored anyway when the printer is run in 'sRGB' mode (which probably most printer are) -
I find it useful to apply a slight brightening S-curve i.e. this one here at approx. 18% opacity. While the printed gamut is not perfectly the same as sRGB, the curve can help to some degree to compensate for dyn. range compression (monitor to print):
http://www.prophotohome.com/forum/colour-m...tone-curve.html

As far as I can tell, and provided that the image looks nice on a well calibrated & profiled screen, this beats any auto-image-correction (to be switched off in the print ordering software).

Peter

--

[DarkPenguin]

The trick is finding a trained monkey at Costco who knows how to do the "no color adjustment" print mode. If they don't know how, you're better off just converting to sRGB. But if they do know how, then converting to the printer profile is the best way to go.
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Ah ha!  I always forget that piece.

[Eli Burakian]

I second Mpix.  Very high quality.

[cn15]

It is clear to me now that I have not been converting the pics to the Costco printer profile when uploading to Costco.   To do this, in CS3, I would go to Edit/Convert to Profile/Destination Space=Costco profile specific to the store and printer I will be sending to.   Then save as jpg, upload to Costco and check off "no color adjustment".  Am I missing any steps?

Would I do the same for Mpix? do they make available their ICC profile?
Thank you for all your helpful comments.
Chuong

[Jonathan Wienke]

I would go to Edit/Convert to Profile/Destination Space=Costco profile specific to the store and printer I will be sending to.   Then save as jpg, upload to Costco and check off "no color adjustment".  Am I missing any steps?

You got it. The next issue is whether or not Costco honors your "no color adjustment" request properly. But at least you have your part figured out properly now.

[joedevico]

You got it. The next issue is whether or not Costco honors your "no color adjustment" request properly. But at least you have your part figured out properly now.
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I've just made sure that I have "friends" in the printing department. Even when I forget to check "no color adjustment" in the dialog box, Hortense and James make sure it's taken care of...they also claim that it's Costco's "policy" not to make color adjustments on prints larger than 5x7 unless requested by the customer as it's mostly advanced photographers making the enlargements. Beginner's making enlargements don't really notice problems with their prints...

my happy Costco experience.

jdv