Metallic print from Smugmug

Here is a picture I had printed from my account with SmugMug. I've never ordered anything from them before, but wanted to get a high quality print for my Mom of this barn from the old farm she grew up on:

Chris wrote in post #13550156
I don't know anything about printing, so I was wondering if a metalllic print is generally darker than a normal print, or did I just screw up? I don't have a calibrated monitor, so that could be part of the problem too. Anyone have any suggestions or advice?

I've had a couple metallic prints done from Smugmug (Bay Photo) and they came out spot on. Uncalibrated monitor could definitely be a problem.

But how does this look on your calibrated monitor? The snow in the foreground printed out looks like a gray sweatshirt.

Chris wrote in post #13550752
But how does this look on your calibrated monitor? The snow in the foreground printed out looks like a gray sweatshirt.

To me the foreground snow looks a little gray/blueish compared to the snow on the roof. The blue in the sky looks kinda light blue, definitely not dark blue.

How about a picture of the picture to see what your talking about?

Have you talked to the folks at smugmug yet?
I've heard they are pretty good about working with you to fix printing problems.

(and I am on an uncalibrated monitor. the ground looks a little dark, but the top of the barn is much brighter)

Smugmug uses Bay Photo which is an excellent lab. The prints I have gotten back are spot on with what I see on my monitor. I do regularly calibrate my monitor.

Guess: You had them auto correct the image?
That would cause a dark print (automation thinking "whoa, that is a lot of white, let's print darker").

René Damkot wrote in post #13553006
Guess: You had them auto correct the image?
That would cause a dark print (automation thinking "whoa, that is a lot of white, let's print darker").

I also feel that this is the case.

OP: Under Control Panel -> Settings set Color Correction to No

Gizmo1137 wrote in post #13552105
Smugmug uses Bay Photo which is an excellent lab. The prints I have gotten back are spot on with what I see on my monitor. I do regularly calibrate my monitor.

For Basic and Power accounts Smugmug uses EZPrints, not Bay. Pro accounts can choose either Bay or EZ Prints. I've used EZ Prints a lot and the results are always excellent. I do soft proof in Photoshop using the EZ Prints profile.

Try this trick, which I learned recently. I have not worked out the math on why it works, but I tired it on 3 different calibrated monitors and it was accurate.

Take any good DSLR, put it in aperature mode with manual focus. Set the ISO to 400, set the f-stop to 5.6. Put up a blank white screen on your monitor (Notepad maximized).

Point the camera at the screen, fill the viewfinder with white and throw it out of focus. Half press the shutter to get exposure. Read and record the shutter speed. Then turn the camera into portrait orientation and do it again.

The highest shutter speed you get is the brightness of your screen in the "cd2" measurement. For example, if you get a shutter speed of 1/125 then your screen brightness is 125 cd2.

A screen brightness of 90 to 100 will most closely match prints. If you get anything higher than 100 then your screen is probably too bright and your prints will look darker than the screen. This test has nothing to do with color accuracy, only brightness (and dark prints).

The reason you need to meter in both landscape and portrait orientation is that many LCD monitors are polarized. On a polarized monitor, one of the readings will fool the camera meter and give a much lower and inaccurate reading.

I tried this on a neighbor's brand new uncalibrated LCD, straight from BestBuy, and got a reading of 180!

Try lowering the brightness of your monitor until you get to the 90 to 100 cd2 range. Then look at your barn image compared to your print and see if they match in tones. If the colors are way off, then you really have a calibration problem.

Bob_A wrote in post #13553073
For Basic and Power accounts Smugmug uses EZPrints, not Bay. Pro accounts can choose either Bay or EZ Prints. I've used EZ Prints a lot and the results are always excellent. I do soft proof in Photoshop using the EZ Prints profile.

Thank you, good to know, I am not yet on Smug Mug but looking into it. Good idea using EZ Prints profile.

I've looked at the print on several monitors at home and at work and they all show the foreground being much brighter. I also found out that I did not ask for auto correct so they have offered to reprint and lighten the print. I'm pretty happy with their customer service.

Red Crown: thanks for the info, I'll have to check that out.
Bob: what does it mean to do a soft proof in Photoshop?

Your image does look grey in the foreground on my calibrated monitor. Generally an issue with a monitor that is too bright - prints come out dark.

SmugMug offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee on prints if I remember right.

Easy folks to work with.

Hi Chris, we have the best possible guarantee on prints so we'll fix you up. We can recommend ways to fix this image and print it for you again or get you a full refund. Send an email to our help desk and one of our image specialists will take a look.

http://help.smugmug.co​m/customer/portal/emai​ls/new

-Zac

Thanks Zac,

Customer service already working on a reprint. Thanks for your response.