Black's Photography Prints -- Hideous.

First time using Black's Photography to do my prints. Typically I don't print or if I do I use a home inkjet or a colour laser at work with good results. I know B&W has been tricky in the past for me as colours are used to blend the tones of gray, or so I have been told, thus I had some B&W high key photos printed at Black's today, they turned out hideous!

I called and they will redo, but before I go back to Black's to work with the staff to get the photos the way I and my client need them, maybe a suggestion or two from some wise folks?

The portrait photos (4 .jpegs) are all black and white. They are all far too dark and have a red hue... one, that is largely mid tones, is nearly all pink.
I am surprised the staff did not notice or question!

When talking with the lady on the phone and explaining, she said something to the effect of converting them to B&W when they do it again. They are B&W! Two are simply converted to 8bit B&W mode, the other 2 were created with B&W mask in PS. So I am not sure about that.

I have viewed them on 4 monitors my self, 2 of which are calibrated. Others viewing, including the client do not see any red tones or brightness/contrast issues.

Thoughts?

My bother suggested the following,

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The problem is reciprocity failure inherent in colour photo chemistry and paper. Trying to get monochrome images on colour paper requires that all 3 colour channels be perfectly balanced AT ALL EXPOSURE LEVELS. This is hard to do because the colour response curves of the printing paper are non-linear and not equal. So you highlighs and lowlights will not track to perfect grayscale values, no matter how well everything is calibrated. This has been my experience in the past. I don't know why or if the technology of photofinishing has not caught up to deal with this problem. You might want to ask the people who did the finishing for you on that point. But as far as I know, the most direct and fool-proof way to get a B&W print is to use B&W paper.

Rick
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DanteCaspian wrote in post #4422944
But as far as I know, the most direct and fool-proof way to get a B&W print is to use B&W paper.

Perhaps, but you should be able to get good black and white images from home printers as well as photolabs.

For a while I was shooting a lot of Kodak BW400CN film, which is a black and white film that can be processed at any C-41 colour lab. Because most of these labs don't bother colour correcting individual images or rolls, I had to be careful and specify that I wanted black and white and not sepia. If left untouched, I would indeed get a sepia colour cast. However, once they were warned to "colour correct or else," I did get some pure black and white images from colour processing and colour paper.

One thing to keep in mind is that many photo labs - Blacks, Wal-Mart, Jean Coutu, Costco, etc, process so many films (digital files), and stick to that 1-hour promise, that they can't individually colour correct each film or image. Their equipment is set for an average colour and density which will make most prints look half-decent but none perfect. If you have special instructions or concerns you should either make them clear when you drop off the film (digital files), or find a professional lab that will colour correct every image. The pro labs will be more expensive, but you'll be much more pleased with the results.

Another option is to embed a custom ICC profile in your images, specific to the machine the lab uses. You can get the ICC profiles for Noritsu machines at http://www.drycreekpho​to.com/Frontier/Fronti​erDatabase.htm. While the website provides data for Costco locations, most other commercial labs use the same equipment and papers. Just find out what your local Blacks is using and then embed the appropriate ICC profile.

If you want images printed on traditional BW paper, you can go through a lab like http://www.dalmatianla​b.com/. I have had them produce several prints on fiber paper and they were execllent - blacks were truely black but they are expensive. They offer a less expensive RC print which I have not tried. They are using Ilford papers. Good luck Dennis

Ok first off the guy is in Canada. Many online labs don't ship to the North Pole.

You need to understand they use sRGB and JPG for colour correction. Send the files ot them in that format and you'll get better colour representation.

Or go to Costco where you can download their profiles and proof the colour yourself.

What Jason said. Try saving a colour photo from photoshop in rgb colourspace. Then save a copy in Srgb. When viewing with Windows viewer you probably won't see a difference. Open them both with explorer and you will. I was not converting to srgb profile when sending to Blacks and I was getting prints back that looked like the RGB colourspace photo when viewed in explorer (srgb). Convert to profile srgb before uploading to Blacks. This may be the same for B&W but not sure as I've not checked it. I'm using COSTCO now with the ICC profiles at DryCreeekphoto. Great results.

Thank you very much everyone!

I got them back from Blacks last night. They got them right this time. The girl gave me some tips as to how to have B&W or pro stuff done with them.
When I asked another sales person if there equipment is calibrated... confusion was in the eyes.
I can say for certain, the kiosk system is not calibrated, the one girl giving me tips eluded to this as well, she advised I have my stuff taken directly to the back room.

In any case, I will take the suggestions and advise you all offered and stuggle much less in the future!

I LOVE POTN

-Dante

When in Photoshop go to Image, Mode and then Grayscale. If your prints are still in srgb or adobe rgb they may look black and white but they are still in essence colour photos. The other option if you are at Black's is the go to options; print, edit, crop and then on the top of the screen you will see convert to black and white. Or you can ask that the images be converted to monochrome by the staff when they are printing. This will happen at most labs as their machines will see the images as colour if you have not converted them to Grayscale.

They were true grey scale.

What profile?
I'd convert to sRGB before sending in.

Dchemist wrote in post #4425320
If you want images printed on traditional BW paper, you can go through a lab like http://www.dalmatianla​b.com/.

wow. these guys are local to me, in NC. good to see them represented on the board.

it's been a while since i used them but just looked them up the other day. The have been in business for a long time, at least since i was in photog school, 1993.