Colors of lab printing versus my monitor?

[tomd]

Let's say I email Mpix a pic in sRGB. How in the world will it print anything like I see it on my monitor? I could have all kinds of problems with my monitor, color management boxes checked incorrectly, etc.

Even if I would calibrate my monitor, it isn't sync'ed to their printers?

Sorry for the NOOB question.:oops:

(I am having major printing color management issues, but I'll save that for another thread.)

[René Damkot]

Welcome to the wonderful world of color management :p
Have a read in the link from my sig.

If your monitor is not calibrated, the rest remains guessing...

[tomd]

I hope Santa brings a monitor calibrator.

I don't fully understand calibration: what is the monitor getting calibrated to? In other words, there has to be some base line that the monitor calibration seeks to match. Is it a standard color chart (paper)? Does the physical calibrator (huey, spyder etc.) use optics to compare the monitor color hues to a know correct color chart?

YES I am confused. Oh and yes I read your link in the signature Rene, it was helpful and also made me aware of more questions than answers. It is well written, but my ignorance is my handicap.
Tom

in fact after reading the sig/thread about color management and how so many of us are having troubles, I decided to set everything I could find to sRGB. My camera always was set to sRGB, I set Lightroom to sRGB, I made sure my printer was not managing color. And my printed pics are the worst!
I'll have to get this Dell 2007 WPF calibrated and see what prints out.:mad:

[René Damkot]

Don't set the monitor profile (in the system prefs) to sRGB. Set it to the monitors profile. (Preferably that is crated by a calibration device)

If the printer isn't managing color, the software must do so, so you must set the proper printer / paper profiles.

From Bruce Fraser (http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/14331-1.html):
"When you "calibrate" your monitor, either by eyeball or with an instrument, you actually do two things. One is the actual calibration of the monitor, which simply means putting it into a known state, with a specified white point and gamma. The other is to create a profile that describes that known state -- a process often known as characterizing the monitor. Most so-called monitor calibration tools conflate the two processes into a single whole, but they are still really doing both things."

Here's a link: Click (http://epaperpress.com/monitorcal/)