Printing at Photobox, Colors not right

Meds

Meds

Meds

Associate
Joined
20 Oct 2004
Posts
650
Location
London
Hi Guys,

I use a Nikon D90 and usually edit using Lightroom, rarely Photoshop. The problem is that the photos I get printed from Photobox dont come out the way the appear on screen, colors are wrong aswell as brightness.

I have just ordered a calibration card from them, is there anything else I can do?

I was thinking of prehaps buying/renting a color calibrator, or alternatively is there sites that would actually provide me with a profile etc???

Any help would be much appreaciated.

Thanks

Meds
 
First step is to profile your monitor. Without this anything you do will be guesswork. It's why given most peoples workflow now (digital), one of my first recommendations to people is a good monitor and calibration device. You view all your work through this piece of equipment, you shouldn't skimp on it.

Once you've profiled your monitor to a standard you can set about seeing how the prints vary from your new monitor profile. If you're getting consistent prints back you can adjust the profile targets to better match the prints.
 
Thanks Adrian,

Do you think I could get away with just using their Calibration Card?

I have a decent monitor Dell 2407. Not sure how good this is in terms of digital editing though.
 
Is their calibration card just a colour test sheet showing various RGB swatches and a stepped tone wedge? (White to black with shades of grey?).

Your Dell 2407 is more than suitable for what you need. They used to be *the* choice for entry level photography monitors, good panel, good tonal reproduction, great screens. Actually preferred mine to the Dell 3007 I had at the time.

I really would recommend a calibration device though. Something like the i1 Display 2. It will help you remove some of the guesswork and streamline your workflow. It won't solve the problem in one pass, you still have other variables to deal with when matching prints to screen beyond just the colour, but it's a far better starting point than looking at a sheet of paper and guessing. I would also recommend going into Photoshop to prep your prints (if you have it). Read up on something called Soft Proofing, and see if you can acquire a paper .icc profile from Photobox. If not I know DS Colour Labs supply one and I don't think their prices are too different from Photobox. They use the same printers for the small to medium sized stuff too :)
 
I would echo the recomendation for a display calibration device my printed images have been a mssive improvment since I invested, got mine for a reasonable price from Kerso on TP.

The biggest improvments I've seen though have been from turning the brightness down a lot (and I mean a lot I'm running under 50% now which gives a much closer representation of the final print) on my monitor and using DCS instead of Photobox. DCS have never let me down where Photobox always seem to disapoint.
 
Was just checking Kerso cant find any calibrators. Could you guys recommend me one for say £100 ish.... dont mind spending a little more if you guys think its really worthwhile. Also if I can get away with £50 thats great too :)

Are the Colorvision Spyder 3's any good,
 
best bet is to buy a calibration device, your screen will need doing regularly.

Meds said:
Are the Colorvision Spyder 3's any good,
Click to expand...

ive got the pro and have no issues, prints are very accurate from DSCL as to what is on my dell 2209wa's.
 
With regards to the color calibrators at the moment I've narrowed it down to 3 choices:

Colorvision Spyder 3 Pro £90
Colorvision Spyder 3 Express £70
X-Rite i1 Display 2 £140

Gonna read up some reviews on them, but I'm kinda inclined towards the Spyder Pro, partly cause of the price point :)

COchoc, I just received an email from them telling me theres one in the post to me??
 
I have a spyder pro and can't fault it expecially for the price. If I was a pro I would go with something top of the range but for the keen amature price really does matter.

I can't re-iterate enough that you will need to turn the brighness down on you monitor modern screens really are incredibly bright.
 
UPDATE:

After all the help I received I've just taken the plunge and ordered the Spyder Pro, should hopefully be with me tomorrow :)

Also I did receive the Photobox calibration card, but its kinda difficult to use as its so small :(
 
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