MPIX and Monitor Calibration

[whiskaz]

After receiving a print from MPIX where the tint (it was a b&w image w/ a vanillaish tint to it) and contrast were way off, despite using a "calibrated" monitor, I requested ICC profiles for the printers they use so that I could soft proof. Actually, the first thing I did was calibrate and calibrate again and no matter what I did, I couldn't get the image on my screen to look anything like the print they sent me.

Well, after receiving the ICC profile for their printer(s) and soft proofing the shot in CS3, I saw on my screen what they sent to me in printed form. When soft proofing, MPIX has you set the rendering intent to "Perceptual." However, setting this to Relative Colorimetric produces similar results to the original image. Sadly, that's not what the image will look like printed @ MPIX.

Now, I know I can switch to proof mode and edit the image for print but I'm pretty sure I can get things to be a little closer without having to add this step to my workflow. That's my question - what's the easiest way to calibrate my monitor so that it's closer to the ICC profile MPIX sent me. I thought maybe I could use the profile to define "target settings" in the eye-one software, but it didn't want to open the icc profile.

When I calibrate I use the "suggested" settings for White point, Gamma and Luminance and usually get very close to those. Still, when viewing the proof w/ the MPIX profile...it's pretty far off. Too contrasty and little more yellow than I'd like.

Any suggestions?

[Damo77]

What colour space are you sending your photos in?

What targets have you calibrated to? (Particularly luminance)

[whiskaz]

Damo - I send the photos in as sRGB (which is how they request them to be sent in).

White point: 6500
Gamma: 2.2
Luminance: 120

[whiskaz]

Here's a screenshot from CS3 (MPIX printer profile on the right).

In some cases I do prefer how their profile looks but, even with this one, the skin is a little more yellow than I'd like and the added contrast kills some of the detail. A little adjusting can fix this but, it's a step I'd like to avoid as I can see it being a time killer!

[whiskaz]

One more...this is the one that I got back, printed and was a bit peeved by the difference. It looked almost exactly like the proof (right):

[Peano]

I'm not sure I understand how you're editing for print. Do you turn on soft proofing using the mpix profile and edit the image using that view until it looks the way you want it to look? Or are you editing under the standard view without soft proof?

[Damo77]

It sounds like Mpix have an accurate profile, but are not using it properly. I think you should edit as normal, then convert to their profile and send them untagged images. Not "proper" procedure, I know ...

[whiskaz]

Currently I process the RAW file and then bring it into CS as AdobeRGB. Edit it to my liking and save it as a JPG w/ the sRGB color profile. The examples I've posted are images that followed this exact workflow but are being previewed via soft proofing w/ the MPIX printer profile. The image on the left and right have the SAME processing done to them (they are exact copies of each other). The one on the right just has soft proofing turned on.

What I'm trying to avoid is having to turn on soft proofing and do additional editing to the image to make the print look good. There's a happy medium somewhere - one that looks good on monitors/web and one that prints nicely too.

Hope that makes sense!

[Damo77]

Yeah, the answer is conversion to Mpix's profile. They should do it themselves, of course, but it appears that they aren't. That's why I suggest doing it yourself.

[whiskaz]

Damien,

I'm not exactly sure how that will fix anything. If I convert to their profile in CS3, it takes on the same qualities as the soft proof image and I still have to make changes to it. Once I convert back to sRGB (for web) then the image is going to look different again. I'm still having to edit for both web and print. I know some people might do this - I'm not a total stickler for perfection I just want a happy medium I know that my printed images are never going to look EXACTLY like the images that display on my monitor, but they should be a lot closer than what I'm seeing, I think.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Damo77]

I think you might be assigning, not converting. After a conversion, there should be no visible difference.

[whiskaz]

I'm converting...

Of course if I convert using a Rendering Intent of Relative Colorimetric, there is no visible difference but obviously that's not the correct rendering intent since Perceptual is what matches the final print.

Try converting to a profile in PS and w/ "Preview" selected. Regardless of intent, some of the profiles WILL show a difference. In this case, MPIX's printer profile does - it's the difference between the image on the left and the image on the right above. Same exact thing.

[Damo77]

No, something's not right here. The only reason I can think of for a conversion to change appearance is if you've still got the soft-proofing turned on while you're doing it. I haven't checked this, but I can't think of anything else.

[whiskaz]

Damien... something isn't right here, I'm just not sure what exactly's wrong

Here's another screenprint... on the left is the image before conversion, right is the image w/ the conversion popup and preview checked. I'm not in soft proof mode.



It's basically the same scenario as going from original to soft proof.

Maybe something's wrong w/ my i1??

[Damo77]

Sorry, I'm floundering. Hopefully our wise and benevolent moderator will be along soon with his wisdom.