Selecting a photo printing shop/service

DF
Posted By
Derek Fountain
Jul 3, 2004
Views
365
Replies
5
Status
Closed
I’m going to take a couple of photos off to get them printed at a print shop or service. I’ve never done this before, and have 2 questions:

1) What sort of equipment is used by competent print services, and what is to be avoided? I’m assuming there’s a range of equipment in use, some of which gives much better results than others. Is any of it of the "ohmahgawd, you use *that*! Run away!" type?

1) What do I need to do to my image in Photoshop to help get a printout that matches my screen? CMYK or RGB? (I’ve never used CMYK!) sRGB or Adobe1998? My monitor is calibrated, so do I just ensure there’s an embedded colour profile?

I suppose I could just walk into the shop in the local shopping centre that has a big "Kodak" sign out the front and a sign saying "Digital camera photos printed here!", and hand a disk over and see what I get. I’d rather walk in there with a few intelligent questions and some idea of the process (and therefore product) I’ll be paying for.

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B
bagal
Jul 3, 2004
FWIW there seems to be 2 main consumer type machines on the go (in my experience)

These are Fuji & Kodak based machines. There did not appear to be a great deal of difference between each type. However, the Kodak one I used has a narrative talk through In a great Scot’s accent 🙂 It was really quite helpful on the first pass but I wish I could have turned it off by the third pass. Helpful for sure to begin with.

The Kodak ones I used were standalone machines on a self-use basis with helful assistant nearby.

I think the photoshops are still coming to terms with the best way to use the machines. For instance – the first Fuji machine I used was set up with a sliding charge on a number of prints basis and included free-to-user editing (Not major editing – limited to choosing the printable area, B&W or Sepia conversion, zoom-enlargement, colour balancing, brightness & contrast I am sure you’ll id the options)

Second time I used the same machine prices had changes to price per print based on number of prints PLUS a 25p (about 20c?) charge per USE of editing facility. eg use it twice, costs = 50p, use it 3 times costs = 75p etc

By the third occasion of using the same machine the price per print was still number of prints dependent but using the editing facility had changed to a one-off charge of 99p (say $1)

The machines are good with print sizes 6×4 and 7×5 (some now offering 8×6 BINGO! a 4×3 ratio!) The self-operated machine terminate with a request for a user code (call an assistant across to get this) which prompts you to pay the bill too. By the time the bill is paid the prints are churning out and boy! do I mean churning. None of this damp paper let it dry first stuff!

The Fuji setup (different shop/outlet) meant pay at the desk & call back in 1hr and pick the prints up from the process counter. This was at a renowned specialist photo shop and I think they QA machine output. On one occasion the 1 hour service ended up being a 2.5+ hour service. I obtained 117 prints for about
DF
Derek Fountain
Jul 6, 2004
I hope this helps – IO could go on ….
<snip!>

Yes, much interesting information. But I think I learnt what I needed to know by going and asking. There are 3 shops in my local shopping centre which will print an image from CD. None of them knew what types of machines they use, and none knew what a colour profile was. One told me to bring the image in as a TIFF file instead of PSD because that wouldn’t use colour management at all and therefore I’d get exactly what I see on my screen. Another was at least honest and said they wouldn’t fiddle with the machine too much because they weren’t trained to do so. They could change the colour saturation and brightness but that was about it. In the 3rd shop, after two exhausting conversations in the others, I just asked the manager if she knew what a colour profile was. She said no, so I left.

It honestly shouldn’t be hard to find someone who knows more about colour management than I do, but the local shopping centre isn’t the sort of place to go looking. I think I need a proper printing shop run by a professional who know what s?he is doing.
B
bagal
Jul 6, 2004
Yup – may be so

One shop I use is a reputed photo supplier/trainer/employer the other is a reputed high street shop I coulldn’t really say service or product is bad or poor.

Besides I want the on-High-Street service to be cheap cheerful and accurate (it has been)
For more specialist stuff I don’t mind going to a more specialist outlet

All I need do now is find a camera club that has a discount agreement 🙂

das B

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message
I hope this helps – IO could go on ….
<snip!>

Yes, much interesting information. But I think I learnt what I needed to know by going and asking. There are 3 shops in my local shopping centre which will print an image from CD. None of them knew what types of
machines
they use, and none knew what a colour profile was. One told me to bring
the
image in as a TIFF file instead of PSD because that wouldn’t use colour management at all and therefore I’d get exactly what I see on my screen. Another was at least honest and said they wouldn’t fiddle with the machine too much because they weren’t trained to do so. They could change the colour saturation and brightness but that was about it. In the 3rd shop, after two exhausting conversations in the others, I just asked the manager if she knew what a colour profile was. She said no, so I left.
It honestly shouldn’t be hard to find someone who knows more about colour management than I do, but the local shopping centre isn’t the sort of
place
to go looking. I think I need a proper printing shop run by a professional who know what s?he is doing.
TS
The Signatory
Jul 6, 2004
Derek Fountain wrote:
I hope this helps – IO could go on ….

<snipped>
It honestly shouldn’t be hard to find someone who knows more about colour management than I do, but the local shopping centre isn’t the sort of place to go looking. I think I need a proper printing shop run by a professional who know what s?he is doing.

I know you are in Aussie, but here’s a link to a very recent survey conducted by some respected chappie at the University College of London who went ot some pains to try and find more out about online photographic printing outfits.
http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/%7Edgriffin/digitalprintreview/
Even though the companies are UK based, it’ll still give you some insight into the current state of play re colour accuracy in digital continuous tone reproduction.

Some of the websites he links to are quite informative too, like the www.peak-imaging.com. Check out their advice on ‘Obtaining better prints from digital files’ here: http://www.peak-imaging.com/htmls/ical.htm

HTH

Kind regards

Nigel
H
Hecate
Jul 7, 2004
On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 10:32:30 +0800, Derek Fountain
wrote:

I hope this helps – IO could go on ….
<snip!>

Yes, much interesting information. But I think I learnt what I needed to know by going and asking. There are 3 shops in my local shopping centre which will print an image from CD. None of them knew what types of machines they use, and none knew what a colour profile was. One told me to bring the image in as a TIFF file instead of PSD because that wouldn’t use colour management at all and therefore I’d get exactly what I see on my screen. Another was at least honest and said they wouldn’t fiddle with the machine too much because they weren’t trained to do so. They could change the colour saturation and brightness but that was about it. In the 3rd shop, after two exhausting conversations in the others, I just asked the manager if she knew what a colour profile was. She said no, so I left.

<falls about laughing> Sorry, but that just made me laugh so much! You really ought to read Dan Margulis book on colour correction and see what he says about getting images printed. It’s one of the funniest things in the book.

It honestly shouldn’t be hard to find someone who knows more about colour management than I do, but the local shopping centre isn’t the sort of place to go looking. I think I need a proper printing shop run by a professional who know what s?he is doing.

Yes, you’re right. You need a professional shop. But, don’t assume that professional equates to "knowing what they’re doing" at least, not entirely. For example, if you’re printing to CMYK – try asking them what their dot gain is. Not only won’t they tell you if they know (because the higher the figure the worse the printing) but most of them actually haven’t a clue in the first place. So, in this case, you need to take extra care in preparing your images. One piece of pertinent advice is – always assume the worst and do as much as you can to avoid the printer having to do *anything* other than put the image through.



Hecate

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