Frusterated with printing

I have been doing a lot of reading here about printing. I have had the classic issue in that prints (from prob. not the best store) not looking like the images on my monitor. I have been on a few site to check the calibration of my monitor and it seems to be pretty good. All the talk about "color management" is making my head spin. My question is this: Are there a few simple steps I can take, such as confirming profiles etc..., that I can take in order to make sure my prints come out nice at the store? Should I ask the store anything specific about ICC profiles, sRGB or whatever? I am going to try a camera print shop next time. Or has anyone had a good experience with costco? Or should I just go out and throw down for a good printer.

Thanks for you time.

Step 1: Buy a good calibration device and REALLY calibrate your monitor.

Optional: Buy a more accurate monitor.

How much money and time have you wasted so far?

Be sure to instuct any store to TURN OFF AUTOMATIC ADJUSTMENTS on the machine when they print your order. Costco does a great job.

no money...a few hours of reading through the sticky's here on POTN and www. I guess I just was wondering if I need to be asking the print shop if we are on the same page with regards to profiles of my images.Or if I am using sRGB color space is this the standard and everything should match up? Do I need to go there with ICC?

Color management is really fairly simple but can be confusing as all heck get out until you get a handle on a few concepts.

When do you need a color managed work flow? Simple! The moment you touch a color slider and make changes to a photo you need it. The monitor used to make any such adjustments needs to display correct colors. If not, any adjustment made to look good on that monitor will look off in prints and other color correct displays. It's kind of like what you see when you walk into a store with 30 TVs all on and all look different. If only 1 was on it would look great but with 2 more on, 1 on each side of it it will look off to the others.

As for ICC profiles and local print shops it's best to send files as sRGB IEC611966-2.1. Some high end shops may ask you to embed a aRGB or ProPhoto profile and some commercial work will want some sort of CMYK profile. You may ask the shop you use for a profile used for the paper you are having a print made and use that profile to soft proof. With a properly calibrated monitor you will have a good idea what the finished print will look like when soft proofed. The ICC profile is just a filter with corrections to keep the color a close match from device to device.

Now this brings up color space and gamut but that's another story but very closely related and intertwined.

This issue makes my brain bleed. I'm a photographer, not a scientist and since having made the move from medium format film to digital some years ago, I found the learning curve on this stuff to be very difficult. My photography is great, but the computer side of things is frustrating beyond belief. I've read hours and hours of stuff, trying to figure it out, but some things just don't sink in. I've tried to find classes on it, but no such luck. I have great computer gear, a 27" iMac and 17" macbook pro, but that means nothing if you don't know what to do with it. So I feel your pain...

suecassidy wrote in post #11873446
This issue makes my brain bleed. I'm a photographer, not a scientist

Exactly, I just want my nice images to come out nice on paper! Thanks

MrAl wrote in post #11873368
As for ICC profiles and local print shops it's best to send files as sRGB IEC611966-2.1.

Can you describe how to make sure I am doing this. Should I be sending my files electronically or take them over there on some type of hard drive? Thank you folks so much.

idsurfer wrote in post #11873548
Can you describe how to make sure I am doing this. Should I be sending my files electronically or take them over there on some type of hard drive? Thank you folks so much.

I really don't know how to answer this.
For getting your files to the lab they (the lab) should have some sort of upload feature or if local you could burn the files to a cd/dvd or even a memory card or thumb drive.

First thing is to ask shop for profile for printer / paper combo. If the say they don't have one, or if they want you to make a test print and adjust your monitor to match, leave and find another shop. I recently have checked with two local camera stores that have "pro print facilities" only to find they know nothing about color management. They have really nice Epson printers and no knowledge of color management.

If they have profiles, use them to soft proof on a calibrated monitor with the proper luminance setting. The proper setting is the one the gives you a print match in a given viewing environment. It will likely be between 90-120 cd/m.

Ask them if they only handle sRGB or can handle aRGB or pro photo. Ask them what resolution to save the file as. Many times you are better off handling that yourself rather than letting them do it.

Another option is that several online outfits offer what they call "exhibition print" service. You send them a raw file and they make it into a nice print handling all the post processing and color management. They will proof it for you. I did one like that while I was studying up on color management. It was nice. More expensive, obviously although reprints are cheaper than the initial print.

Can soft proofing be quickly defined?

In Photoshop, not sure about other software, the software can take the printer / paper profile and combine it with your monitor profile and "convert" the image to a close approximation of what it will look like on the print. I say close approximation because the monitor is a lit device and the paper is not. This will show how the printer will render colors that are out of gamut for the printer / paper combination. Might soften some colors or "round down" the color if the color is out of gamut. How it handles this will be influenced by what rendering intent you choose in PS. Softproofing the different rendering intents will show you the effect of each. Based on the soft proof, you may want to make some adjustments.

"Color Management for Photographers" by Andrew Rodney is a great book. There are others I am sure, but this one I read.

This may be of interest as well.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/c​amera-print.shtml
It is next on my list of education for this subject. I have their LR3 tutorial to get through first.

I should have prefaced my posts by saying that I am new to all of this, and some of my terminology and explanations might not be technically correct. I have been reading a lot of info on the subject, but I think it has the gist of it from a beginners view.

idsurfer wrote in post #11873864
Can soft proofing be quickly defined?

http://tv.adobe.com …soft-proofing-your-image/

suecassidy wrote in post #11873446
...I've tried to find classes on it, but no such luck...

This site constantly features live web seminars by well known experts.

http://www.retouchpro.​com/forums/retouchpro-live/