Colours went wrong?


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espn

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Dec 20, 2002
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I sent a whopping 186 photos to Photo Friends for developing last friday, yesterday got back the prints, I would say most of them are very badly developed.

1) The colour of the bride is very off, the face is over pinkish and the colour tones are not gradual.

2) The face colours have reddish spots

I sent the files in an uncropped 5mp (3:2 by camera) resolution to them. The pictures looked wonderful on the computer, but when developed, the two above problems creep in.

Just wondering, is it ok for me to go back and ask them to reprint those errorneous ones? I find the colours very off and very disgusted. Those are wedding shots...

I don't know why , but the skin has those red little dots over, and the bride with make up is over pinkish on certain parts on the face and arms the colours are just not gradual...

Do they do post processing on the pictures? Cos the pictures of what I see on the computer and on the photos are totally different.
 

Hi, I don't think they will entertain your request to have your photos re-printed; unless a nominal fee is charged.

Do they do post processing on the pictures?
Yes, they did post processed the pictures. Though I can't see for sure what they're doing (I was standing at a distance), I can roughly gauged that they were adjusting the CMYK value of the photo before printing it.

Regards,
 

What colour space are your pictures in? The the colours not being gradual may be the result of banding which is usually caused by a mismatch of colour space between your digital picture and the lab's printer.

Why not try this? Is Photo Friend using Fuji Frontier machine for developing and printing photos? If they are, get yourself registered here (Just Level 1 will do). http://www.fujifilm.co.uk/colour/ And download the appropriate Frontier profile, install it and convert all your picture files to the colour space before sending them in to the lab. They've also got some FAQ there.
 

What colour space were you working in? Fuji frontiers work in sRGB. If you were working in another colour space it might have been the cause.
 

Originally posted by Zerstorer
What colour space were you working in? Fuji frontiers work in sRGB. If you were working in another colour space it might have been the cause.

sRGB for Frontier is OK, but isn't perfect. Colours are still more accurate with profiles form Fuji itself which are meant for their printers. :)
 

Originally posted by Noir
sRGB for Frontier is OK, but isn't perfect. Colours are still more accurate with profiles form Fuji itself which are meant for their printers. :)
Careful there. Colorspace is colorspace. Profile is profile. They are not the same thing. The best is to use the profile for the specific Frontier that you will be printing to. Short of that, use the generic profile.
 

I took the pictures using a CP 5700 then edited the photos in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 then save the image then send for printing.

The thing is some of the photos turn out very nice, the colours are gradual but some are not.

Sorry, but can elaborate on the colour space thing? I'm not sure of what I'm using and such, and what is colour space?

For me I just edited the pics, lighten it a bit, and then send for printing, it looks marvellous on my gallery and so commented by others but when developed the colours everything went out.
 

i dun tink they are using frontier machines

but anyway my experience with them was very good!
send tons of prints to them and i am satisfied with every one of them

and totally opp. to ur experience, my prints on my PC looks worse than those that developed:)
 

You should try KT Digital at Hong Lim Complex. The manager SK Tan is very friendly and even showed me how they adjust the colour and brightness settings on the Fuji Frontier machines for printing. They also have very competitive prices for Club Snap members.

I had similar problems with printing as what you described. I'm using a Coolpix 5000 so our camera settings should be similar. These are my findings so far.

(1) Apparently all my photos have a magenta cast when viewed on the Fuji Frontier monitors. If Photo Friends did not correct this then it may explain the pinkish skin tones. Maybe only the Coolpixes has this problem. Can anyone else verify this?

(2) The majority of digital photos appear underexposed on the Frontier monitors. That's why the labs have to brighten up the images by decreasing the "K" component of the CMYK colour model. If they have to do more than "-2" adjustment, my images look burnt out. Maybe this is what you meant when you say the colour tones are not gradual. I can't reproduce this artefact on photoshop or Nikon Capture. It's as if Fuji uses less than 8-bit processing.

(3) The Photoshop edited images are the worse affected. The ones that are converted to JPEG using Nikon Capture turned out okay. Not all Photoshop images are affected though.

For the record, my monitor is calibrated with Adobe Gamma and through the Digital Secrets' monitor setup at http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/portabledarkroom.html . All my images look fine on the monitor and also using a histogram. My camera, Photoshop and Nikon Capture are using sRGB colour space.
 

linse:
Yep that's right my images look like exactly what you mentioned!!!

I feel very sad.. cos my pictures are pretty ok when viewed on the monitor on printing out the colours are terrible!! The colours are also not gradual like you mentioned overburnt.

I spend $74.40 on the photos... just feel that I need to get some redone, those are wedding photos. I think they should compensate me the photos they developed that are out of sync or maybe a slight fee for those photos.

I'll just head down on wed and see what I can do :( very dissppointed with the developed photos.

zerstorer/noir:
The CP5700 takes the photos in sRGB colour space, so that's what I passed it to Photo Friends. :(
 

Originally posted by espn
I took the pictures using a CP 5700 then edited the photos in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 then save the image then send for printing.

The thing is some of the photos turn out very nice, the colours are gradual but some are not.

Sorry, but can elaborate on the colour space thing? I'm not sure of what I'm using and such, and what is colour space?

For me I just edited the pics, lighten it a bit, and then send for printing, it looks marvellous on my gallery and so commented by others but when developed the colours everything went out.

This link should help http://computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_1.htm :)

I have heard of photographers doing digital and using the common lab services comment that the control of how a photo print will finally look is back in their hands. I can’t agree more. However, a lot of preparation work has to be done before being able to achieve this. These include the calibration of the monitor and the application of the correct colour profile to achieve the correct colour space for the intended output. Finally when everything is done right, what one sees on the monitor will be very close to what one will get in the final output. It shouldn’t be any other way. Specifically, in my opinion, digital prints shouldn’t need any further colour or density correction at the lab itself. I usually do my own colour corrections and effects, apply the appropriate colour profile and then send them to a lab with instructions not to change anything in anyway. And I get prints that look as satisfying as they were on my monitor, most of the time.

Originally posted by espn
zerstorer/noir:
The CP5700 takes the photos in sRGB colour space, so that's what I passed it to Photo Friends. :(

U should, if possible, convert the photos in Photoshop from sRGB to the appropriate colour space meant for the output device. I am not sure what printer Photo Fiend uses though and whether you will be able to get its colour profile.
 

Reading all the replies, I would like to know if I took my pics in adobe RGB and not sRGB, what are the post processing I need to do b4 I send them for development?
 

Originally posted by Paladin
Reading all the replies, I would like to know if I took my pics in adobe RGB and not sRGB, what are the post processing I need to do b4 I send them for development?

Fuji Frontiers do not read the embedded colorspace profile. You would need to resave the images using sRGB colourspace. Otherwise, the colours will look a bit dull.
 

Originally posted by Noir
This link should help http://computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_1.htm :)

I have heard of photographers doing digital and using the common lab services comment that the control of how a photo print will finally look is back in their hands. I can’t agree more. However, a lot of preparation work has to be done before being able to achieve this. These include the calibration of the monitor and the application of the correct colour profile to achieve the correct colour space for the intended output. Finally when everything is done right, what one sees on the monitor will be very close to what one will get in the final output. It shouldn’t be any other way. Specifically, in my opinion, digital prints shouldn’t need any further colour or density correction at the lab itself. I usually do my own colour corrections and effects, apply the appropriate colour profile and then send them to a lab with instructions not to change anything in anyway. And I get prints that look as satisfying as they were on my monitor, most of the time.
Correct. That is the "right" way to do it. But if you ever need to print to CMYK then you get :rolleyes: as the printing will then be different again.


U should, if possible, convert the photos in Photoshop from sRGB to the appropriate colour space meant for the output device. I am not sure what printer Photo Fiend uses though and whether you will be able to get its colour profile.

Don't have PS with me at the moment, it is under "Convert Profile". Also "Photo Fiend" <- Freudian slip? :devil: :D
 

I usually do all adjustments (color, sharpening) myself before sending pics to them for printing and the prints looked great.

would you want to post a sample here?
 

Noir: I have sent some photos there to develop before the colours came out great.

Watcher: I won't term it 'Fiends' I believe everybody is reasonable and is able to explain things... i headed down to PF today and they agreed to reprint, but will have to bring the CD down again and then view on their monitors before printing.

mpenza: Just as I was getting ready to scan somehow my system is screwed, I can't get my scanner to work. Can't scan for now. Will try again tomorrow.

The face is over pinkish the arms colour aren't gradual, then towards the darker areas there are red spots all over, small little 'pixel' likes.
 

Originally posted by Watcher
Correct. That is the "right" way to do it. But if you ever need to print to CMYK then you get :rolleyes: as the printing will then be different again.

Exactly the reason why one should always convert from the narrower camera's sRGB colour space to a wider colour space like Adobe RGB before editing in PS. Keep a "master" copy of the edited picture in that wider colour space and convert to the appropriate colour space for the relevant ouput. Like sRGB for web use or whatever CMYK colourspace for whatever CMYK printer use.
 

Originally posted by espn
Watcher: I won't term it 'Fiends' I believe everybody is reasonable and is able to explain things... i headed down to PF today and they agreed to reprint, but will have to bring the CD down again and then view on their monitors before printing.

Heh heh, I was just making fun of Noir's mispelling :D It is good that PF is willing to give you a try again. Just convert all your photos to 8-bit sRGB photos. It should be fine...
 

Originally posted by Noir
Exactly the reason why one should always convert from the narrower camera's sRGB colour space to a wider colour space like Adobe RGB before editing in PS. Keep a "master" copy of the edited picture in that wider colour space and convert to the appropriate colour space for the relevant ouput. Like sRGB for web use or whatever CMYK colourspace for whatever CMYK printer use.

Actually, my :rolleyes: for CMYK is a lot more than what you said above. UCR vs GCR? SWOP? Max ink level? Dot Grain? All these do not exist in sRGB but are important if you ever want to print it out on magazines, posters or newspaper.

I actually prefer to leave my files in LAB (aka La*b*) mode...
 

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