beautiful on monitor/bad prints

[ronitcris@msn.com]

My pictures looked sharp and focused on my G2 viewfinder or my computer monitor but the prints (dotphoto.com) were foggy and out of focus. Could it be that even if the picture is great on screen, it is actualy bad ..or is it the fault of the printer...all were 4x6 I am posting this question everywhere I can- need an answer...Ronit

[SteveCliff]

IMHO, if the focus looks good on the screen, it should be good on the print. The only thing that could change between screen and print are the colours, due to inaccurate calibration.

Sounds like dotphoto have screwed up to me .... not sure how though, it's difficult to print an out-of-focus digital photo ! Anybody know what method dotphoto use for printing ?

[ronitcris@msn.com]

thanks for your reply. The pictures were more grainy and foggy than out of focus. I called Canon they said what you said. If it looks good on the screen it should look good on paper. I wonder if anyone had problems like this one with Dotphoto... Ronit

[Mike K]

If the prints were grainy it is possible that they were printed at a resolution that was too low. Monitor resolution is 72 dpi or a bit higher, where as good print resolution is at least 150 dpi, 240-300 dpi is typical. If there are not enough pixels of information per inch, the image may print out grainy. You didn't say any thing about this issue in your initial post. Did you shoot at max resolution, crop to 4x6 and pass on the files to dotphoto without resizing? Here is an article on resolution:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/understanding_resolution.htm
Mike K

[philgabe]

Maybe a little late to reply, anyway.
The process Dotphoto uses is explained on their webpage, it's basically a chemical process of exposing photo paper as opposed to inkjet or dye. I agree with the last post that the only reason you could have such a discrepancy between monitor and print output is the resolution of the file you uploaded for printing.
I've used Dotphoto quite a bit and never had any problem. I always send 8x12 at 180dpi Jpeg saved at highest quality. This will print 4x6 and 8x10 very nicely.

Cheers.

Philippe