Photo Color different when printed

[ashleykaryl]

Printer profiles are device specific, so in that sense you cannot use their profile with your own printer. You can soft proof the image on your display though if they are willing to provide you with an ICC profile for the chosen paper. It's not an unreasonable request.

One caveat here is that you not only need a properly calibrated display, but also a display of reasonable quality. If you are on a laptop or perhaps an older low end display soft proofing can create more problems than it solves.

It's worth remembering that a display and a print will never be 100% identical, since they are completely different media, but nevertheless the perception of accuracy should be excellent if everything is properly profiled.

Assuming your display is good there are basically two reasons why the prints might not be as expected. Either your display is improperly profiled for whatever reason or possibly the lab is not that great.

In situations like this, especially if working with a lab for the first time it can be a good idea to send in a file and make a print at a very small size, before moving forward with a bigger order.

 

[jsecordphoto]

Some labs resist giving out their ICC profiles because lots of people don't even understand how to properly use them.

 

[KmH]

Which is a pretty lame excuse.

 

[bazzaboy2010]

I use lightroom and photoshop. photoshop is always the end of my process

How is your monitor calibrated? What calibration device are you using?

Joe

Colormuki smile

Good, and what post processing software are you using?

Joe

I use lightroom and photoshop. photoshop is always the end of my process

OK, then under the View menu in Photoshop you can select the option Proof Setup. Select Custom and then you'll need to provide a device to simulate. Here's is where you chose the ICC profile supplied by your printer. If they won't supply that for you find another printer that will. Printers can be reluctant to supply ICC profiles to customers because they rightly fear that most of their customers don't have a clue what to do with them and will use them incorrectly and only make matters worse. Hard to blame them because they're right about that unfortunately. I got ICC profiles from MPIX but it took an email exchange in which I was able to convince them I understood how to use them.

Once you have the profile in place on your system you can go to the View menu and select Proof Colors to get a soft proof -- Photoshop uses the profile to simulate how your print will likely appear on that device.

Joe

Thank you for your help. They have sent me the profile and now i have added that to my photo. Lets hope that now it works.

 

[Ysarex]

I use lightroom and photoshop. photoshop is always the end of my process

How is your monitor calibrated? What calibration device are you using?

Joe

Colormuki smile

Good, and what post processing software are you using?

Joe

I use lightroom and photoshop. photoshop is always the end of my process

OK, then under the View menu in Photoshop you can select the option Proof Setup. Select Custom and then you'll need to provide a device to simulate. Here's is where you chose the ICC profile supplied by your printer. If they won't supply that for you find another printer that will. Printers can be reluctant to supply ICC profiles to customers because they rightly fear that most of their customers don't have a clue what to do with them and will use them incorrectly and only make matters worse. Hard to blame them because they're right about that unfortunately. I got ICC profiles from MPIX but it took an email exchange in which I was able to convince them I understood how to use them.

Once you have the profile in place on your system you can go to the View menu and select Proof Colors to get a soft proof -- Photoshop uses the profile to simulate how your print will likely appear on that device.

Joe

Thank you for your help. They have sent me the profile and now i have added that to my photo. Lets hope that now it works.

You don't add the profile to your photo. If they sent you their printer/paper profile that's a device profile. You use that for soft-proofing. Your photo should have a device independent color space profile assigned -- preferably sRGB when dealing with a commercial lab that doesn't specify otherwise.

What you should do:

1. Check in Photoshop that your file has the correct color space profile. (Edit -> Convert to Profile). In the dialog box you'll see the assigned profile for you photo. If it's not sRGB you should convert it to sRGB.

2. Soft Proof the print output using the lab supplied profile. (View -> Proof Setup -> Custom). In the dialog box for Device to Simulate: select the lab suppled profile. The other settings in the dialog box you should get from the lab.

3. Finish editing your photo to your satisfaction and then soft proof to the print lab's profile. (View -> Proof Colors). You can toggle the soft proof back and forth to see how Photoshop simulates the change to your image when it's printed. You then have to decide what to do. If the change is very slight you may chose to do nothing and be happy with the understanding that it's unreasonable to expect an exact match. If the change is substantial DO NOT CHANGE OR EDIT YOUR FILE!!!! Create a duplicate of your file and with soft proof activated make edits to the duplicate to bring the image to the colors/tone you would prefer. Save that duplicate (sRGB) and send that file to be printed.

Joe

 

[ashleykaryl]

Joe has explained it pretty well and I would agree you shouldn't become too anxious about small differences.

The only proviso I would add is that successful soft proofing really requires a calibrated desktop display of a certain level in a suitable environment for visual reference. If you are editing on a laptop outdoors on a balcony all bets are off.

One little trick you can use is to apply edits on an adjustment layer, while soft proofing with the gamut warning enabled. Give that layer the name of the paper for reference and leave the background layer untouched. At the end export a flattened copy with the edits for the lab and this process can be repeated for different paper types.