Help with Printing Company

Flukester

Flukester

Flukester

Man of Honour
Joined
1 Nov 2007
Posts
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Location
Christchurch UK
Hi all

Some noob questions here after a disaster. As I test print I used a company in Germany to produce a print backed onto aluminum sheet for hanging on a quadcopter generated panorama.

Here is a small version of the photo...

300m_burton_sml.jpg


I was naive enough to think it would look nice and bright like on my screen... but no, was unusable. Gloss looks awful also

Here is how it looks... looks worse in person

2013-09-25%2009.33.30.jpg



So the question is, how can I ensure that prints will look like photo. The website in question has ICC? profiles I can download. I assume I would use these in photoshop along with running a monitor cal ?

help :)
 
Is your monitor calibrated? your origional pic looks pretty dark on my screen with some massive blown highlights in the sky.

Most people have their monitor brightness set way to high for photo editing hence the disapointment when prints come back. I'd also avoid anything glossy it looks awful in a bright room.
 
Thanks, yeah I will deffo look at monitor calibration. I'm guessing the profiles are needed also ?, they have a different download for each type of print.

They also had a checkbox to 'auto optmise' brightness and contrast but I left that unchecked
 
Agree with alex2001.

The picture isn't the best to start with. Oversaturated blue in the sky, blown highlights and muddy browns and greens.

To be honest, although the shot of the finished product is covered in reflections and probably taken on a different camera, they appear to have done a reasonable job at reproducing it.

Calibrate your monitor.
Use something like Photoshop or Lightroom to check the clipping levels.
 
Thanks, I guess a better photo to start with would have been a good start. Photo in question was with a thunder storm overhead so lighting was awful, and the poor gopro didn't stand a chance.
 
Can you find a local printing company? At least that way you can see it on their calibrated monitors before its sent to print.

Alternatively use Loxley. Probably be a lot more expensive but every single thing I've had from them overt the last 12 months of business has been top notch.
 
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