# Prints too dark. PLEASE HELP



## burstintoflame81 (Oct 24, 2009)

I just had prints made at Costco. I downloaded their printer profiles into Photoshop and converted all pics for their printer. My monitor was also calibrated this morning prior to editing these pics. The pictures came out way too dark. Lots of shadows. It was like I opened Curves and really cranked the blacks.

I then uploaded to Walgreens with no printer profiles and printed the same pictures. Both the Costco and Walgreens set looked exactly the same. 

I know that a lot of people are going to say "don't use crappy Costco or Walgreens" but thats not a helpful solution, so please refrain. I calibrated the monitor and adjusted to the printer, so WHY do my pictures still look like garbage? Shouldn't they atleast look CLOSE to what I was going for?

EDIT: I should also add that I am using a 23" 1080p LG LCD that is practically brand new up to date model.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 24, 2009)

Bump


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## battletone (Oct 24, 2009)

Well I have never downloaded a printer profile from Walmart or Walgreens (never used Costco), and my pictures always come out way to dark too.  So I would say its exactly what you said you do not want for a response.


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## JayCanon (Oct 24, 2009)

When I first saw your thread title, the first thought that jumped into my mind was that you needed to calibrate your monitor.  I see now that's not the problem.  

What happens when you convert your images in Photoshop using these printer profiles?  Do the images look too dark right then on your monitor, or just after the prints are made?  If you haven't already, I'd compare the images on another monitor just to see if there's any differences.  

Two different companies aren't necessarily going to produce equal prints.  You said you made prints through Costco with the printer profiles, and at Walgreens without the profiles.  Technically, if you wanted to pinpoint what effect the printer profile is having on the prints, you'd have to have them made with and without the profile _from the same company_.  But I understand your frustration, since you don't want to have to resort to trial-and-error to get proper prints.  You want them right the first time.  
I suppose you could try to compensate by boosting the brightness and highlights of your images before having the prints made, but you shouldn't have to do that since that's going to be a crapshoot, too.

I know you said you didn't want to hear anything negative about using Walgreens and/or Costco for prints, but there are a few places you can have prints made online that are inexpensive and produce great results.  Keep in mind that these web-based print companies specialize in this, and they're more likey to make prints they way they should be made.  I don't know how other members here feel about Snapfish, but I have had prints made through them with excellent results.  I don't know how their prices compare to other sites, but the prints are still very reasonably priced.  These days I do all my prints myself at home, but you might want to consider an online print company.  Even if they did charge a litttle more, in the long run you might be better off if you're burning money on bad prints from the retailers you're currently dealing with.  It won't hurt to at least look around online and see how the prices compare to whatever it is you're paying now.

If you get this corrected, let us know.  If I can think of any other suggestions, I'll let you know.


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## mrodgers (Oct 25, 2009)

JayCanon said:


> I don't know how other members here feel about Snapfish, but I have had prints made through them with excellent results.  I don't know how their prices compare to other sites, but the prints are still very reasonably priced.


Here's how I feel about Snapfish.  Also the price is outlined in the following.  This was my comment on another forum after sending 3 of the same photos to each MPix, Adorama, and Snapfish.  I don't know why it is all centered text now.  It wasn't back when I posted it...

First post where I received my miniature photo books I ordered.

Later post after my Snapfish prints arrived.

For the record, I can't say enough about Adorama prints.  I won't bother with anywhere else, even including the 50 free prints Snapfish wants to give me to "have me back."  They never had me in the first place after the garbage they sent me with my test photos (see links above).


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 25, 2009)

Thanks for the responses guys. 

When I did load the printer profile, it actually made my pics in photoshop seem slightly lighter ( which I was expecting ) It wasn't a huge change though, just very minor. However, the wierd part to me, is the fact that both sets of pictures came out identical. So maybe I screwed up the printer profiles? ( which I guess is possible although I seriously doubt it. ) Also, a possibility is that Costco used the wrong printer. ( they have a fuji and the other one that the profiles are for, but I forget the brand name ). Maybe they printed with the wrong printer which had no effect on the picture, and then also when I sent them to Walgreens with no profile, they printed the same. If this is the case, then it would mean that the problem must lie in my perception ( my LCD and calibration being messed up ) 

I have dual outputs on my video card. I may just buy a small CRT monitor for 10 or 15 bucks on craigslist and calibrate that with the my Spyder ( anyone have any advice on doing this? ). Maybe I will be able to edit the pics better that way. Use my 1080p LCD for just the normal personal computing stuff.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 25, 2009)

Also, in the meantime, maybe I will send off a pic to Mpix, snapfish, and Adorama and see how each of those come back.


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## PatrickHMS (Oct 25, 2009)

I can fix that kind of problem in my Picasa3 software.

I can take a photo that the image on my computer screen looks almost totally black, no visible detail at all, edit it in my Picasa3 (which is free shareware from Google) to lighten it...

and get a properly lit, perfectly clear image that will produce a nice print.

And I didn't even have to use any of the expensive software packages.  Picasa3 does everythng I have needed to do so far.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 25, 2009)

PatrickHMS said:


> I can fix that kind of problem in my Picasa3 software.
> 
> I can take a photo that the image on my computer screen looks almost totally black, no visible detail at all, edit it in my Picasa3 (which is free shareware from Google) to lighten it...
> 
> ...


 
The problem isn't that the image doesn't look right on the screen. It is that the prints aren't consistent with what I see on the monitor. I am using Adobe Photoshop CS4. Thanks for the recommendation though.


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## JayCanon (Oct 25, 2009)

First, let me say that promoting Snapfish was not the point of my post.  I was merely using them as an example, since they're the only online printer I've dealt with, and only a few times.  I was trying to be careful with my words when I mentioned them, only commenting on the results_ I've_ had with them while leaving the door open to the possibility that other members here might have a different opinion.  

It is unfortunate that you had a bad experience with them.  I am by no means questioning your opinion or the quality of your prints, but I must say that the two times I have ordered prints through them (4x6's both times), the quality was excellent.  My prints didn't suffer from pixelization as you mentioned.  If there was any flaw, they might have been a bit over saturated (also as you mentioned) but I did boost the saturation a touch before I uploaded them.  Speaking of uploads, my files uploaded quickly.

As I mentioned, I do all my own prints now. I know it's costing me a bit more that way, but I want to be in complete control of the entire process.  I don't want to stray off topic here, so Snapfish aside, we can both agree that there are some very good online printers out there.  And based on the OP's current results, it seems the quality of his prints have nowhere to go but up.

EDIT:  My post is a bit out of sequence here. I typed it up about 20 minutes before I actually submitted it.  I was basically replying to mrodgers.


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## musicaleCA (Oct 25, 2009)

It's not a software issue. If the prints are too dark, it's because your monitor is too bright given your viewing conditions. Note that they the need to print at a higher printer brightness whenever you order, and hopefully that'll fix your problem. For example, any time I print documents at Staples, I need to specify that they "print at 95% brightness".


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## mtfd635 (Oct 25, 2009)

You have to 'tell' costco you want a specific printer. That is available on their onsite photo upload order form.
Otherwise u get wrong printer. Costco near me has two printers, I could only find profile for one. The other comes out about a stop too dark.
Isuggest trying that, I have been printing at costco for a year, and am very happy with the results


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 25, 2009)

mtfd635 said:


> You have to 'tell' costco you want a specific printer. That is available on their onsite photo upload order form.
> Otherwise u get wrong printer. Costco near me has two printers, I could only find profile for one. The other comes out about a stop too dark.
> Isuggest trying that, I have been printing at costco for a year, and am very happy with the results


 
Yeah, they told me when I asked that if you check the box to NOT let them adjust your photos, they use the printer with the profiles automatically. Which is what I did. I just uploaded 5 pics to walgreens with various white balance and brightness/contrast adjustments and the RAW file converted to TIFF. I want to see how they turn out. 

Do you know what %brightness they typically print at, if you request 95% as a change? That could be the problem. I tried turning down brightness on my monitor, but when it gets low enough to be like the pics, its almost un useable as a monitor. Thanks for all of the help guys.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 25, 2009)

So I just printed like 5 pictures at Walgreens. 1 was a Tiff conversion right out of Camera. The other was with the brightness/contrast panel adjusted to extreme ( Contrast pulled all the way down and brightness cranked all the way up ) I also did one with the colors significantly saturated ( not horribly so, but as high as tolerable ). The other two were minor curves adjustments of white balance. They ALL came back looking nearly identical with all the color washed out. The saturated ones had the biggest difference but only because they got a little darker. Colors were still dull and washed out. I also noticed just now, that even when I upload the pictures, and look at them once they are uploaded to my album, they look like they printed. So why during the upload process, is my pictures turning to garbage?

CVS seems to have the same deal. Once uploaded they look terrible. 

I also sent my pics over the network to my wifes computer which is a compaq with 20" LCD basic computer with uncalibrated monitor, and it looked identical to what my pics look like on my computer prior to uploading them. So I am beginning to think that it has nothing to do with my monitor and settings. Is it possible for the upload to degrade the picture? At this point I am thinking that I am never going to be able to get prints made. Like I said, even with the brightness/contrast heavily tweaked, it got me little change at all.

EDIT: I was just trying to find calibration images online, and found this on Flickr. Is it some kind of gag? I cannot see a gray dot at all and tweaked all controls in the monitor and still got nothing. Can anyone else see it or recommend something to view online to test my monitor?


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 25, 2009)

I am just going to keep this updated incase someone else has a similar problem. Even if noone has an answer or advice, this may help someone else in the future. 

UPDATE: I just went to Walmart and bought a new color ink cartridge for my HP photosmart printer. I usually only use this printer for documents so I was empty on the color side. Anyway, without even profiling the printer, I printed the same saturated picture that I printed at Walgreens with a HUGE difference. All of the dark areas were not muddled. The colors were not dead on in terms of brightness ( but pretty close ). Considering that I didn't profile the printer either, that atleast shows me that the problem lies with the crap print services. GEEZ, why couldn't someone have just said "costo and walgreens sucks, don't use them " and saved me some time  just kidding. I still would like to figure out WHY they are messing up though. I am going to order some from Adorama and see how they turn out.


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## Garbz (Oct 25, 2009)

Here's a few things:

a) Just because someone provides colour profiles doesn't mean that they will do a good job. I wouldn't trust any mom and dad printers to provide accurate prints even if they do give me profiles.

b) What do you mean you "converted your pictures to their printer profile?" You did this how? If you are assigning the printer profile to the image you are going about this the wrong way. Printer profiles should only ever be used at the actual printing stage (i.e. from the print dialogue) or through the "soft proofing" system. Just because they provide you with printing profiles doesn't mean they don't expect sRGB files.

Assigning a printing profile to an image and then giving it to someone who expects sRGB files would likely have very serious implications on the tone. What you do is softproof to the printing profile and give them an sRGB image with no profile assigned.

c) Also remember that the calibrator only defines a tonal relationship between colours. It will not define your brightness and contrast. If you wish to directly compare your print to the screen you will also need a calibrated lightbox with the correct brightness and colour temperature, very dim room lighting, and the screen calibrated to the correct brightness and contrast ratio, something that very very very few photographers ever do.


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## DennyCrane (Oct 25, 2009)

burstintoflame81 said:


> I am just going to keep this updated incase someone else has a similar problem. Even if noone has an answer or advice, this may help someone else in the future.
> 
> UPDATE: I just went to Walmart and bought a new color ink cartridge for my HP photosmart printer. I usually only use this printer for documents so I was empty on the color side. Anyway, without even profiling the printer, I printed the same saturated picture that I printed at Walgreens with a HUGE difference. All of the dark areas were not muddled. The colors were not dead on in terms of brightness ( but pretty close ). Considering that I didn't profile the printer either, that atleast shows me that the problem lies with the crap print services. GEEZ, why couldn't someone have just said "costo and walgreens sucks, don't use them " and saved me some time  just kidding. I still would like to figure out WHY they are messing up though. I am going to order some from Adorama and see how they turn out.


Just for giggles, take a print from Adorama and the same Costo version and ask Costco if they can justify not giving you a refund. Adorama is very reasonably priced, so I doubt they can play the "you get what you pay for" schpiel.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 25, 2009)

Garbz said:


> Here's a few things:
> 
> a) Just because someone provides colour profiles doesn't mean that they will do a good job. I wouldn't trust any mom and dad printers to provide accurate prints even if they do give me profiles.
> 
> ...


 
Well Costco had a tutorial with their profiles. I soft proofed and then clicked Edit and "convert image to" I then took that photo and saved it. It also said not to include the ICC data because the printer could not read it anyway. So it said to convert it to this method. Maybe their directions were screwed.

Either way though, my pics look the same on two seperate computers, and looked CLOSE when printed from home. I am going to try to download a program to take screen shots. I will open my picture and then what it looks like uploaded to Walgreens just to show an example an try to upload to here. Might be a day or two before I have time to do that though.

I am going to send some to adorama and see how close they are. I am also going to try to adjust my monitor to fit the home printed pics.


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## HelenOster (Oct 26, 2009)

burstintoflame81 said:


> Garbz said:
> 
> 
> > I am going to send some to adorama and see how close they are.
> ...


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## Garbz (Oct 26, 2009)

burstintoflame81 said:


> Well Costco had a tutorial with their profiles. I soft proofed and then clicked Edit and "convert image to" I then took that photo and saved it. It also said not to include the ICC data because the printer could not read it anyway. So it said to convert it to this method. Maybe their directions were screwed.



Ok you soft proof first using the soft proofing function, and then used the "convert image to" function.

What did you convert it to? Was it sRGB? If it was anything OTHER than sRGB and you do NOT include the ICC profile then you will end up with problems, as when no ICC profile is embedded in an image it automatically assumes sRGB.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 26, 2009)

Garbz said:


> burstintoflame81 said:
> 
> 
> > Well Costco had a tutorial with their profiles. I soft proofed and then clicked Edit and "convert image to" I then took that photo and saved it. It also said not to include the ICC data because the printer could not read it anyway. So it said to convert it to this method. Maybe their directions were screwed.
> ...


 
I converted to the Costco printer profile after my adjustments were made. That is what their tutorial said to do. Then to save it as a TIFF or JPG and upload it.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 26, 2009)

HelenOster said:


> burstintoflame81 said:
> 
> 
> > Garbz said:
> ...


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## musicaleCA (Oct 26, 2009)

burstintoflame81 said:


> Garbz said:
> 
> 
> > burstintoflame81 said:
> ...



Then they're wrong. Garbz has it right.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 26, 2009)

Well, I just printed 5 pictures at home ( I found that if I used the profile "Japan Coated 2001" in CS4 as the soft proof, it made the image on the screen much closer to whats been printing on my home printer ( still off a little though ) . I also found,  if change my color workspace and reopen one of the edited pics, it prompts me to convert the workspace or use the ICC data on the file. However, if I choose to ignore all ICC data and just open the file it looks very close to whats printing. ( does this mean anything or explain my problem? )

Well I also took all 5 pictures and uploaded them to Adorama and ordered prints of each pic on 5 different types of paper to see what comes out best. ( hopefully they don't all come back crappy. ) At this point I am a little discouraged. I feel like I am taking good pictures, but if I can't print them then what good is it?  I even had issues when I uploaded to Flickr because the pics lost a lot of their color. ( does this connection mean anything in terms of my overall problem??  )


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## Garbz (Oct 27, 2009)

Ok time for a primer.

There are 3 types of profiles. Input profiles (what is used by CameraRAW and your camera to determine the colours that are picked up by the sensor, working profiles which determine your usable set of colours your program is working with (these are also saved with the file so that a different program understands what those colours were), and output profiles which is what is used to say what a monitor will display if a certain value is sent to it, or what colour a printer produces when a certain value is sent to it.

Soft proofing is the act of making one profile look like another. So in photoshop when you softproof a printer profile, it will make an estimate of what the colours in that printer profile will look on your monitor profile.


Now programs are dumb!
There is no way of knowing what profile an image has if it is not embedded in the image. Any program which opens a file and encounters no image will automatically assume sRGB is the profile. I don't care what costco's website says, an image should never be converted to the printer profile, and even more so should never be converted to anything other than sRGB if that profile will not be embedded.

The working profile in photoshop should never be assumed or ignored, if it is something has gone wrong in your colour management process. The working profile in photoshop should be set to sRGB, it is the standard profile. If you have a pressing need to use another profile you can convert, and if you open a file that is not sRGB you will get a dialogue box asking you what to do. The only correct options are convert to current profile, or use embedded profile. If selecting ignore gives you correct colours then something has gone wrong with your process.

So starting from the very beginning. You open your photo you just took on your camera. Fire up the softproofing dialogue and select the printer profile that will be used. This can even be done at home. No idea why you think Japan Coated 2001 gives you correct colour, but what you should be doing is getting profiles from your printer manufacturer website or creating your own using a colour profiler. (Canon provide 6 profiles for various papers and printing settings). Now adjust the colours to suit your tastes.

If you are printing with an external company and you softproofed via their supplied profile. Great. Click edit->convert to profile, and make sure that the profile is sRGB unless you have checked specifically with the company that they support other or embedded profiles. I have never seen a company recommend anything other than sRGB or AdobeRGB. Save the file and tick embed ICC profile. EVEN if they do not support it. EVEN if you are in sRGB. There is absolutely no reason not to embed your colour profile in your file. Send the file off to the printer and you're done.

If you're printing at home. It's even harder. When you're finished and your colours are the way you want them fire up the print dialogue. Select Photoshop manages colour and pick the printer profile from the list of your manufacturer supplied or custom created profiles. The manufacturer's website often gives you a list of which profile to use with which paper. Now the critical part is go into the printer settings and completely disable colour management. Don't use Windows ICM or any other conversion system, completely disable it, photoshop is already sending the right colours if you've followed me up to this point. Click print.

Colour management is impossible to get right if you don't understand it. It's large and convoluted, and if costco's website really says to convert the file to their printer profile and not embed it (madness) then it shows that even big companies have no clue.



Your uploading to flickr is another colour space problem. Even if you embed the colour space, browsers are not colour managed, and there's no guarantee that flickr won't strip the profile anyway. Start your colour management process in sRGB and work with sRGB all the way through. The benefits of using a large space can only really be seen if you go out and spend ludicrous money on a chemical print, or have a $1000 computer screen, and even then the extra colour is likely to be clobbered in mismanagement and colour conversions.


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## bp4life71 (Oct 27, 2009)

burstintoflame81 said:


> I just had prints made at Costco. I downloaded their printer profiles into Photoshop and converted all pics for their printer. My monitor was also calibrated this morning prior to editing these pics. The pictures came out way too dark. Lots of shadows. It was like I opened Curves and really cranked the blacks.
> 
> I then uploaded to Walgreens with no printer profiles and printed the same pictures. Both the Costco and Walgreens set looked exactly the same.
> 
> ...


 
Ever thought of Wal-mart?  GASP!  Walmart!  Are you serious?


Yes, I'm serious.  I take pictures all the time, and bring them to Walmart to print on their FUJI machine.  The pictures come out superb everytime!  The only time they dont, is when I MESSED up taking the photo.

I know Walmart is not going to be the popular choice by many here at the forums (most of them consider themselves professional), but seriously, my prints come out awesome.  As an added bonus, you can get them within an hour, sometimes shorter.  Cost is right too, 15 cents a print if you do more than 100 (4x6's).

Give them a shot, and see if it makes a difference.


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## bp4life71 (Oct 27, 2009)

fdgdfgdfg


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 27, 2009)

Garbz said:


> Ok time for a primer.
> 
> There are 3 types of profiles. Input profiles (what is used by CameraRAW and your camera to determine the colours that are picked up by the sensor, working profiles which determine your usable set of colours your program is working with (these are also saved with the file so that a different program understands what those colours were), and output profiles which is what is used to say what a monitor will display if a certain value is sent to it, or what colour a printer produces when a certain value is sent to it.
> 
> ...


 

Well, I just went in and found that Windows was managing the color in the printer. I changed it to sRGB and bumped to the HIGHEST quality settings and the print came out great. THANKS!. 

As for the soft proof, I realize now how dumb it was to convert, but I figured maybe they needed that since they said it couldn't read ICC info attached. However, the reason I was using the Japan Coated was my experimentation. I was trying to reverse engineer the print I got and match my screen to that. Sort of as my baseline. I found that if I turned down the brightness a little on the monitor and used that setting for my Proof, it looked close to what I was getting out of the printer. So it was just me trying to find a way to figured out how to adjust to compensate. Now I know my printer wasn't set right and hopefully that means that Walgreens and Costco sucked and my Adorama pics will come back great. I will keep this updated as to how everything goes. Thanks everyone for your help.


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## Garbz (Oct 28, 2009)

You're welcome.

For future reference when someone says they do not support ICC profiles what they really mean is send us sRGB files


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 28, 2009)

One thing that I think may be the cause of the problem is this...

I have had Photoshop set to ProPhotoRGB due to a recommendation in a CS4 book I was reading. So for my pics to come out perfectly, technically I should be manually converting each picture from ProPhoto to sRGB when I save it as a TIFF or JPG and making sure to attach the ICC correct? This could have been my problem all along. I haven't had the time to test this theory but plan on sending a few more pictures to Walgreens tonight to check. I can't remember if I just send the same files I sent to Costco to Walgreens or if I re-edited them first. ( I also have the Adorama pics coming which I believe were edited after I switched my workspace back to sRGB )

On another note, I printed more pics on my home printer and they all look awesome. Maybe its good that I had this problems, cause now I am all psyched at how good my pics look by comparison.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 28, 2009)

Well, after looking at the files I had sent to Costco and Walgreens I think I may finally know the problem. Under properties it says "Color Representation: Uncalibrated" when it should say sRGB. I never checked the ICC tab when sending to Costco and just re-sent the same pictures to Walgreens. I am uploading some now to Walgreens to print and make sure this fixes the issue. If anyone has this same problem and finds this post in the future, atleast they will know what to look for. I am no longer using ProPhotoRGB as my workspace either. Just going to keep it simple and use sRGB always.

Does anyone know how to convert a mass amount pics to a different color setting all at once? If not I have to open each pic in CS4 and convert.


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## Garbz (Oct 29, 2009)

If it says uncalibrated it will assume sRGB. The pictures you sent, didn't you say you converted them first to the printer profile? If so that is the mistake. The picture is in one profile but the software assumes another. 

Large colour spaces are rewarding if you know how to handle them. One thing the book probably didn't mention is that any 8bit format is insufficient when working with wider gamuts like ProPhotoRGB, and will probably give you a worse image than if you just left it sRGB. The thing with wide gamuts are that in this digital age so few people actually bother to go out and spend the $10 / picture needed to print these incredible colours, and more so many scenes often fall well within the bounds of the sRGB gamut anyway (deep orange sunsets excepted). 

These wide gamuts are only useful if you really understand colour management, and actively seek out ways to present your bright colours, otherwise it's a waste of time and can only cause accidents.


In photoshop, goto actions, and start recording, open the file, click edit -> convert to profile, file -> save as, close the file, and stop recording. Then click file -> automate -> batch, select the action, choose the source folder and click override open, select save and close as the destination and click override save as, and run the action


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## Rifleman1776 (Oct 29, 2009)

Prints from Walgreen were always too dark.
From Wal-Mart, they were too light and smudgy.
Not having any other local choices, I now on-line order from Kodak and am very pleased with results and prices.


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 29, 2009)

Garbz said:


> If it says uncalibrated it will assume sRGB. The pictures you sent, didn't you say you converted them first to the printer profile? If so that is the mistake. The picture is in one profile but the software assumes another.
> 
> Large colour spaces are rewarding if you know how to handle them. One thing the book probably didn't mention is that any 8bit format is insufficient when working with wider gamuts like ProPhotoRGB, and will probably give you a worse image than if you just left it sRGB. The thing with wide gamuts are that in this digital age so few people actually bother to go out and spend the $10 / picture needed to print these incredible colours, and more so many scenes often fall well within the bounds of the sRGB gamut anyway (deep orange sunsets excepted).
> 
> ...


 

Thanks. I re-submitted some pictures that were Re-edited from the RAW file and sent as sRGB JPG to walgreens. Still dark. So I guess Walgreens just sucks. I am going to redo a few at Costco this weekend and see if I can get better prints. My adorama pics shipped today also so I will wait to see how they did as well. I would just like to find one local place that can get me a half way decent group of prints quickly if I am pressed for time or something. 

Good to know that they would default to sRGB, because the ones I sent to Adorama also said uncalibrated. I know that my printer is printing them well, just not very economical and takes too much time. Atleast it proves that the problem can't be in the pictures.

Now my next problem is trying to get my pics to work decent in Flickr or Photobucket so that I can upload some here without having everyone crush them and say "too dark, needs color adjustment" as if I am a total hack. haha


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## burstintoflame81 (Oct 29, 2009)

Is there a way to directly upload my pics to the forum without using Flickr? The tutorial seems dated, because the place it says to do that, is not showing up on my browser.


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## rub (Oct 29, 2009)

Tell them to turn the auto correct off on your ordr.  Makes a world of dfference.


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## burstintoflame81 (Nov 4, 2009)

So I finally solved the problem ( well when I uploaded to the online albums the prints looked fine and not distorted like the prints so I am almost positive I fixed the issue. ) I was "Saving as" a TIFF and then using ACR to convert that TIFF to a JPEG. Perhaps the main issue was not converting to sRGB first even though my workspace was sRGB. Anyway, I found that if I go to Adobe Bridge and under tools click PHOTOSHOP-IMAGE PROCESS, it takes me to  a converter within CS4. When I convert to a JPEG of 12 ( ACR only goes up to 10 ) it converts to sRGB and also produces a file about 4 or 5 times the size that I was getting out of ACR. Does anyone know why?

One question I have to anyone reading this is, how do I get to that Image Process section without going through bridge? When I save as a TIFF, it shows JPEG as a compression option, but it will not let me choose it. I looked in the menus inside of CS4 but cannot find "IMAGE PROCESS" under any of them. I would rather save in Photoshop format and then just convert straight from CS4 whenever I need a JPEG for printing.


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## TJ K (Nov 4, 2009)

Can you order prints from adorama? When you sign up you get 25 free yes FREE 4x6's. the quality is always great. GL
tj


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## Garbz (Nov 5, 2009)

Your workspace is only sRGB if you create a NEW picture using File -> New, in photoshop. Otherwise the workspace for the image is whatever the image is opened as. In the case of RAW files in ACR the colour space to import into photoshop is at the bottom. Make sure this is set to sRGB too.

JPEG is just a standard with a million options. There are a wide variety of ways to actually compress a JPEG, some more efficient, some higher quality, and in all cases rather variable. You usually can't go wrong saving the highest quality. Harddisks are cheap these days so don't fret about it .

If you click File -> Save As and one of the options is TIFF, but there's no option for JPEG, it means that your image is 16bits per pixel per channel, something which is unsupported in JPEG. Click Image -> Mode and select 8bits/channel to fix it, and if you do make sure this is the very last step of your process. At this point you're throwing away information that makes post processing more accurate, but will have no visible difference to you straight up.

The Image Processor is under File -> Scripts in Photoshop. It's designed for batch conversion of images.


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## burstintoflame81 (Nov 7, 2009)

Garbz said:


> Your workspace is only sRGB if you create a NEW picture using File -> New, in photoshop. Otherwise the workspace for the image is whatever the image is opened as. In the case of RAW files in ACR the colour space to import into photoshop is at the bottom. Make sure this is set to sRGB too.
> 
> JPEG is just a standard with a million options. There are a wide variety of ways to actually compress a JPEG, some more efficient, some higher quality, and in all cases rather variable. You usually can't go wrong saving the highest quality. Harddisks are cheap these days so don't fret about it .
> 
> ...


 
A huge help as always, Garbz, thanks.


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