Last week I calibrated my monitor using the X-rite Eye-One Display 2. Yesterday I submitted some prints to Costco and I am less than thrilled with the results. The images no longer "pop" and the skin tones and colors all look subdued. I use DPP to convert the raw files to jpegs and have the printer profile for the Costco printer installed. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I told the technician to turn the color correction off, but I am not certain he did. I will submit another small batch via online process where I can explicitly select no color correction.
I have their printer profile installed. Maybe I am not using it correctly. How do I use the profile in Canon's DPP software to see the difference between what is displayed and what prints?
Costco's printer tends to desaturate their print jobs. I have had good luck in two states by asking them to turn off their color management. Dry Creek Photo used to publish profiles for specific printers in many of their stores. Tried that too, and got better results with the print management request.
Just "installing" the profile does no good. The Dry Creek Photo instructions explain how to view the profile effects in Photoshop, then manually make corrections (called soft proofing). It sounds like DPP, which I don't use, may not support soft proofing.
My technique is to make adjustments to RAW in Lightroom, then export as a TIF to Photoshop where I view the same image with the Costo profile applied (View>Proof Setup>Custom>Costco Lustre (or Glossy). I keep the Lightroom image on a second monitor while I make matching adjustments to the Costo profiled image, which otherwise appears lifeless and flat.
You may need to use Photoshop and otherwise carefully read the Dry Creek instructions after getting the profile for your specific Costco. Remember to periodically download the latest, specific, Costco profile from Dry Creek, as printer characteristics change over time.
Costco hired Dry Creek to profile its printers and the profiles and FAQs, if followed, are the key to getting good results printing there.
The most important thing is communicating with the operators. Don't use the kiosk, put the files on CD, edited for color and sized to print pixel dimensions at the native output ppi of the printer, which can vary from 300, 320 or 400 ppi depending on the printer model. Dry Creek also suggests increasing canvas size 2-3% because the printers by default resize by that amount to compensate for paper alignment variance (to avoid white lines on the edges). When you give the CD to the operator tell them you've edited and want no corrections.
I noticed recently the on-line interface at Costo has changed for the better. It's not as tedious to upload and order as in years past and there is an option for printing with no corrections. There's even a "For Professional's" advice section on the home page of the photo processing section which suggests the use of the custom profiles.
