Well I should start by saying that I am definitly a novice at this so I will try to keep it to the point. I'm trying to figure out my color/printing woes. I am pretty certain I will need to perform a calibration on my monitor. I will be doing most of my printing at a local Costco. I was able to find and install their specific printer profiles into CS3.
What I'm trying to understand is how I would apply their profiles to my images. Since I am uploading my files through their website, I don't use the CS3 print dialog box. I printed a test batch today and it seems the colors are not matching.
After you calibrate your monitor, you will want to adjust the image to your liking on screen and then save it. Now, duplicate the file and using the Edit>Convert to Profile command, convert your file to the Costco profile. Save that as a high quality jpeg and upload that duplicate file to your local Costco. If your calibration is good and the profile itself is good, your screen to print match should be pretty good.
Ah, thank you. So if I'm understanding correctly I will need to make an additional copy of my edited image.
Ok, I just tried it and it does make sense. Should the 2 copies looks different....? Mine don't... I gues the real test will be tomorrow when I can get my monitor calibrated.
Oh one more question. I was trying to figure this out on my own but could find it. Is there an easy way to perform this to an entire folder of images?
The two copies should look virtually identical. When you Convert the file, you are changing the pixel values to tailor it for a different output device while retaining as close as possible, the original look. If you open you Info Palette and take pixel readings of the same areas, you will see how the numbers have been transformed.
Those of us who work on images for a living typically have multiple copies of the file on hand. There might be the original, then a layered file with all retouching and color corrections on separate layers, and then a flattened final RGB tiff version, which can be used to duplicate to convert for whatever output you need.
Don't be surprised if you file looks different after you calibrate your screen.
Costco use Noritsu printers which (for obvious reasons) tend to be pretty close to sRGB so use that in the absence of an available profile. I'm remembering that Dry Creek used to publish profiles of various kiosk printers that people had sent in so you might try searching for that.
The images should look nearly the same to any application that is color managed (like Photoshop). The only differences would be colors that are out of gamut for the printer profile but within the gamut of the both the original profile and the monitor. Especially if you're not using a wide gamut monitor I'd expect this to be pretty rare, especially in real world photography which doesn't tend to push the limits of color saturation.
Thank you both for the info. I have been using sRBG so it makes sense that my images were pretty close from CS3 to print. I did find the profiles for my local store through Dry Creek.
I did notice most of the images I printed today were probably close enough for what I do but since I found their printer profiles I figured I would try to get the best results possible. It seems mainly the purple and pink colors were the worst. I did some searching here on FM and I found a free monitor calibration tool (calibrize). I just ran it and I'm going to try another batch of printing tomorrow and see what that does.
The problem with these printers is that they're really not all that close to sRGB if you are going to be the least bit critical. I've profiled many of these that claimed to be sRGB and not a single one was. Now, they might be close enough for the casual user who doesn't know any better, but that's not good enough for the rest.
I profiled my local Costco's (Culver City, Ca.) Noritsu and it's been working well for over two years.
If you have access to a good profile for your local Costco, all you have to do is take your file which has been converted to that profile and then ASSIGN the sRGB profile to the file - and watch how much the file visually changes on screen. The bigger the change, the farther the printer is from sRGB. Depending on the range of colors in the file, some color may not change at all but other may change a great deal. This is a great technique for helping you to assess and compare printer spaces with working spaces.
