Hi Brian thanks for your report and the useful information regarding histogram settings. Lately I printed an old portrait on the Epson 2100 photo printer and lost every shadow detail in the darker areas (middle of bottom) of the black clothes and the veil on the print - all was printed black. On screen it looks fine, I had to make the photo quite brighter to look so-so on the print. I used the quad tone rip for the Epson 2100.
Have a look at the portrait if you like at: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3315957 I had to restore the photo from a compressed JPG file, because the original negative is lost forever and had to fix a lot of scratches. It's (c) by Mireille Weber, before you ask ;-) I wonder what would have happened to the details in the dark areas when ordering prints? greetings Markus >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Brian Dunn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 6:36 AM >>To: [email protected] >>Subject: Digital printing kiosk quality >> >> >> >>( In response to all this talk about optical vs digital prints, >>film is dead, etc. ) >> >>Here's an area which you'd figure digital would have helped >>tremendously but which seems to still be a big problem... You'd >>think by now that anywhere which takes a digital image in sRGB >>and produces a digital print on the spot would more or less have >>its colors and contrast optimized such that 255 is white, 0 is >>black, and skin tones look human. >> >>Take an sRGB image, put it onto a CD, and go around to all the >>various printing kiosks and order some 4x6s. Amazing variance in >>results. Whites which go blue, blacks which go green, saturation >>and contrast cranked way up, colors which are more yellow, cyan, >>or red than the other machine at the next place, etc. >> >>I had the very same digital file printed in both 5x7 and 8x10. >>The 8x10s seemed ok, but the 5x7s produced on the very same >>Frontier machine at the very same time came out too green. The >>only difference seems to be the paper sheets themselves. Perhaps >>these age? >> >>The same images at one place with one brand of dye sub came out >>super saturated and another place with another brand of dye sub >>came out too yellow. >> >>Most everyone cranks out the contrast such that a wedding dress >>or a tuxedo lose a lot of detail. I made some test images with >>gray scales to determine where the black and white disappear into >>oblivion, and decided with this one Frontier machine that all >>images should have their histograms scaled to fit between 20 and >>235. Anything below 20 is solid black, and above 235 is solid >>white, when printed. >> >>These are all digital output machines. You'd think at least the >>dye-sub places would be totally consistant with each other, since >>their chemicals are dry, but you get wildly different results >>depending on who made the kiosk printer. >> >>One bizzare thing is, many digicams have 'vivid' saturation modes >>on them, but then the images has its contrast cranked up even >>MORE when it is printed. Hyper color and blasted details. >> >>Brides don't understand why buying prints from the photographer >>might be a good idea, and even when I explain it to them they >>still choose my CD only pricing option to get more images than my >>CD and prints option to get actual 4x6 prints. I reduce the >>contrast on their files so that they at least have a chance of >>getting a decent print. I also give them a few samples so that >>they can see what a decent print should look like. I can also >>direct them to a few better machines to have the prints made. I >>tell them to make a few samples before placing a big order. I >>cannot control what their relatives do when they get copies of the CDs. >> >>Looking forward to the day when you could bring an image anywhere >>and get more or less the same results... >> >> >>Brian >> >>http://www.bdphotographic.com >> >>
