Prints from Walmart/Wallgreens too dark...

[sigler]

Hi,

I've just had some digital prints made from Walmart, and Wallgreens. All pictures were taken with a 10D, and some were edited in Photoshop. Here are my observations:

1. At Walmart, any photo that I edited in Photoshop did not print. (Saved as Jpeg) Many of the prints were too dark. Also, the pictures did not look sharp...they seemed to have a matte finish.

2. At Wallgreens, some of the jpegs edited in Photoshop printed, and only a few did not. The finish was glossy, and they were incredibily sharp...but again, some of the prints were too dark.

Why are the prints coming out too dark? They are much darker than they appear on my g4 laptop screen.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Rob

[Spinners]

Sigler,

i have had no problems with my prints at walmart.

Did you calibrate your monitor?

If you made brightness and saturation changes in photoshop to make the picture look good on your screen without calibrating your monitor, then your changes could be the reason the prints are bad.


It's important to remember that what you see on your screen is not what your going to get when you print your pictures, unless you have calibrated your monitor and setup photoshop with the proof profile of the walmart printer. provided you can find a profile for that printer.

here is a website that has all the walmart printers profiles, or most of them..

http://www.drycreekphoto.com

calibrate your monitor, download the profile for your printer, then view your picture in proof mode before you burn it to cd. this should give you a rough estimate of what your going to get.

hope this helps.. i'm pretty sure i didnt miss anything, but im sure someone will let me know!! :)

[sahutch]

Rob,

I have just started a test project to see just what I can get from the many different "consumer" labs in my area. I have been in the photo lab business for almost 20 years. We have not purchased any digital equipment yet, so I wanted to test the waters with the new machines out there. Let me tell you, good luck getting anything that looks perfect from any of the department/drug store labs. There are so many variables that come into play. At one lab, they took my CD and I could tell they went in and "color corrected" each image. The only problem is that they "corrected" it to look good to them, and they were not much of a judge of good color. And I got totally different results from two different places using the same machine! At a third place, I could tell they didn't touch a thing, and the prints were the best out of the three.

Your best bet is to take your images to a lab that will promise not to color or density correct them. Tell them to leave them alone. That way you can establish a beginning point from which to start from. If all your prints come out dark, then use your image editor (Photoshop) to lighten them up. Do this as a last step before you take them in.

As far as some images not printing, you may check to see if they are actually in the correct format. Make sure they are in fact jpg's and not psd's. If they are jpg, they may (and this is just a guess) be too big. I would try and size them to, at the largest, 8x10 at no more than 250 dpi, or even the exact size you want printed. The machines may pass on files that are so large it will take too much time to print. This is purely speculation.

If you really want to get into color management, check out Ethan Hansen's web site... www.drycreekphoto.com . He is a color management guru. He may even have a color profile for a lab in your area. If not, he can make one for you.

Good Luck!

Steve

[clos]

I had the same problem at WalMart but have since corrected the problem. Her are some tips.

1. Do not save JPEGs as progressive. Save as Baseline, standard or optimized. This will solve the "some will print problem".

2. Resize image to desired dimension (i.e. 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 etc) at 300DPI for Walmarts Fuji Frontier system.

3. After (or during resizing) resharpen the image. I use BreezeBrowser proofs for this and it works great. For crisp pictures this is key.

4. Use drycreek for ICC profile and use it.

5. Make sure you get hold of the manager or a technician that knows what they are talking about and make sure to tell them to send it "directly to the printer" no zooming, cropping, color correction, brightness or contrast adjustment.

6. If the prints still come out too dark try readjusting the Gamma to 1.2 or up. You can also do this in BreezeBrowser in the same step as resizing.

It took me a while to get what I wanted and just kept taking the same JPEG over and over again until I got it right. Since then I sometimes include this JPEG with a large batch as a benchmark. When I get my pictures back I go straight to that JPEG to make sure it looks right if it doesn't I know they screwed up and I have them redo it. I include a white border around this JPEG also to make sure they don't zoom or crop.

I have also noted that all Walmart Fuji Frontiers are not alike so shop around with that master JPEG. Actually when it counts I go to a local pro shop that has the same Frontier System, they seem to come out better but cost more.

All this work paid out for me and I now get predictable, remarkable results. I hope this helps you also.

-Clos

[form]

I always save Baseline Optimized jpeg, 11 quality; never any issues loading. My monitor is always set on its native colors, and photoshop...usually I use the same color setting as the image I'm dealing with, I.E. Adobe RGB.

I don't ordinarily have brightness problems with prints from Walmart; they come out just about as bright as I made them at home. The matte finish doesn't appear quite as sharp as Walgreens' glossy, but maybe that's because the DPI resolution isn't being divided evenly (original image res at 4x6 may be 438 or some other odd number which isn't divisible by 300); I'm not sure about that. The walmart prints are also 2/3 the price too.

My problem isn't so much getting the right brightness, but rather getting the proper colors and saturation. I shoot medium speeds (1/150 to 1/320) under fluorescent lighting and have to correct white balance in almost every shot, resulting in human-factor flaws. Besides that, I'm never absolutely sure how the walmart printer will handle my deep blues, or the red floors.

[Curtis N]

I shoot medium speeds (1/150 to 1/320) under fluorescent lighting and have to correct white balance in almost every shot.You might benefit from reading this thread. (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=100091)

[form]

I've actually done pretty well with the gradient effect, by using a similar gradient of opposite color on a layer over the picture. I've HAD to. Incidentally I'd already read a slightly less detailed post on that very subject, and I am familiar with the basic reason for white balance issues under that lighting. But thanks, that one's getting saved too.

[themichael]

I made a "target" in photoshop. It was gradients and steps. Black (C+Y+M), Black (k only), R, G, B, C, M, and Y setting the color values numerically. Gradients were from "color" to white. No calibration required.

None of the shops could print the continous tones without banding.
The steps were fine.
Black(CMY) was sometines brown. On my cheap ink injet too.
Black(k) was black.

The local Walgreens have to give me my money back because the target printed out as a negitive!! I was told by "the main photo guy" that is was because it was made in Photoshop.

Mike

[form]

I just got a consistent batch of some of the best prints so far from Walmart, by setting my monitor & photoshop's color settings to the monitor's native colors (Sony CPD-G420S). Some shots were adobeRGB and some were sRGB, and I adjusted them each so they looked good, with medium contrast, and perhaps very slight undersaturation.
The result was maybe .1 or .2EV darker than on-screen, but very rich, very clean, very nice overall, from the local Walmart Fuji printer.

No, I have NO idea how this would help anyone. I just felt compelled to share!

[PhotosGuy]

And I got totally different results from two different places using the same machine! I was lucky to get the same results from the same place using the same machine an hour later at Walmart and Wallgreens!
Costco & Sam's Club Digital Prints (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=123887) Post #10 & #18.

[tzphotos.com]

Sigler,

i have had no problems with my prints at walmart.

Did you calibrate your monitor?

If you made brightness and saturation changes in photoshop to make the picture look good on your screen without calibrating your monitor, then your changes could be the reason the prints are bad.


It's important to remember that what you see on your screen is not what your going to get when you print your pictures, unless you have calibrated your monitor and setup photoshop with the proof profile of the walmart printer. provided you can find a profile for that printer.

here is a website that has all the walmart printers profiles, or most of them..

http://www.drycreekphoto.com

calibrate your monitor, download the profile for your printer, then view your picture in proof mode before you burn it to cd. this should give you a rough estimate of what your going to get.

hope this helps.. i'm pretty sure i didnt miss anything, but im sure someone will let me know!! :)

Does anyone know what has happened to drycreekphoto.com? When I tried to look at the profiles I get an error.

[PhotosGuy]

Something strange is going on with them, but I googled it & the cached link (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:SZgAyDVllxMJ:www.drycreekphoto.com/++%22dry+creek+photo%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1) still works.