Horible Kiosk qual!! {anyone experience this)

[kawter2]

I had my film processed at SamsClub for a long time. (they looked wonderfull). Now I have attempted to run a digital through the same printer (of course via the kiosk vs the scanner) and no the images look like garbage.


Yes, I have callibrated my monitor

Yes I have downloaded and use the dryCreek ICC correctly in my workflow

Yes, I am using a large enough file



What happenes when i print is what appears to be a ramping of the contrast in PS i can replicate the general look of there prints with about a +25 to +32 contrast!!!!!! They say THERE IS NOTHING BEING DONE TO THE IMAGES. and keep telling me they look incredible. I know how they should be printing and what is coming out loooks like garbage. I am aobut to go have the photodisk test image printed to see if that looks over ramped



Anyway.. has anyone seen this? the fact that the images run through a kiosk are getting an auto contrast ramp?



here is an example... I allready have a lot of contrast so when it prints there it almost liiks like she has black lipstick on (does anyone sse it like that on their monitor?
http://kawter.hostrocket.com/girls/port1.jpg

[slin100]

Make sure that they are disabling any auto color corrections on the printer. Once, I almost forgot and the operator told me it was a good thing I mentioned it. Otherwise, they just leave it on. OTOH, if you are unlucky enough to have a clueless operator, then you're SOL.

You might also soft-proof the output in Photoshop to make sure none of the colors in the image are out of the printer's gamut. One time a bunch of prints came out with these gray spots. Sure enough, when I soft-proofed the image those areas were out of gamut. Apparently, my particular photo lab's printer doesn't gracefully handle out of gamut colors and prints them as gray!

Most Frontier and Noritsu printers can't handle images with embedded profiles. So, make sure you just convert the image to the printer's profile and save it without embedding the profile.

Finally, make sure the Dry Creek profiles are up to date. They become invalid if the printer undergoes recalibration or other significant maintenance.

[mattchase]

I haven't used any kiosks at Sams or Costco, so can't speak for their quality. But your image posted here looks fine, looks like a properly exposed high key image. Her skin and hair is very white, but they appear to be in the right range for a high key image, and I can make out the difference in density of her eye color to her black pupils, which with too much contrast those would probably blend together. And her lips don't look black, they just about right to me.

[kawter2]

Make sure that they are disabling any auto color corrections on the printer. Once, I almost forgot and the operator told me it was a good thing I mentioned it. Otherwise, they just leave it on. OTOH, if you are unlucky enough to have a clueless operator, then you're SOL.


I think they have to be cluless or it has to be a function they have no access to. When I ran film it was AWESOME, and they totally knew what was up.. not it is like, "The machine doesn't do anything to the image at all!"


You might also soft-proof the output in Photoshop to make sure none of the colors in the image are out of the printer's gamut. One time a bunch of prints came out with these gray spots. Sure enough, when I soft-proofed the image those areas were out of gamut. Apparently, my particular photo lab's printer doesn't gracefully handle out of gamut colors and prints them as gray!


I will have to look at that


Most Frontier and Noritsu printers can't handle images with embedded profiles. So, make sure you just convert the image to the printer's profile and save it without embedding the profile.

Yea i made sure of that at a recomendation i saw in another thread


Finally, make sure the Dry Creek profiles are up to date. They become invalid if the printer undergoes recalibration or other significant maintenance.
I think that is a possibility, because i think the kiosks are newer than the profile. When they had the profile don, i think the people ran everything through manually


mattchase
Thanks for the feedback on how the image looks on your monitor, you never know but sometimes you start to question your setup, now I know it is at least displaying properly

I'm thinking
that i have noticed that lesser expensive digCameras dont seem to have colors that "POP" so they automatically ramp the contrast so the 98% of people go "Man my images looked vivid at Sam's club" and they think that the pros/prosumers are so anal that they will figure it out