Image Won't Print Correctly

I've had a lot of success with Costco, especially after turning their Auto Correct feature off and finding a location where they really care etc.

However I've had this image printed in 5x7 and 16x20 (mail order) and both dont have any of the detail and subtleties of the original:

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Taking some guesses here but how big was the file? What was the color space? If they used sRGB, was the image processed in sRGB? Was format was it in, JPEG I assume? Is your monitor calibrated? Did you sharpen for print?

Can you print a picture of the print? and are both the small and large prints looking the same? Have you tried making a print at home to see?

basically the answer I got over on FM was this:

Mike, I can almost guarantee you that the problem you're experiencing is one of color gamut. Reds, greens, and blues are three colors that have limited color gamut with the photographic dyes used in silver halide (photo) paper. I downloaded the Glossy ICC profile for the Costco in Bellingham, WA (from DryCreekPhoto). If I do a soft-proof using the Costco profile, turning on the gamut alarm in Photoshop, virtually the entire blue petals are out of gamut. The soft-proof shows the petals to be dull and slightly purple in color. You would need a good inkjet printer to do justice to your image. Six-color inkjet printers have a wider color gamut than do photographic (silver halide) printers.

so apparently I need a higher end printer or shop.

Not neccesarily. If the colours are out of gamut it's probably a simple tweak in softproofing to bring them back into gamut.

But you must remember that a print will NEVER look as good as a screen image or a projected slide, due to the different ways light is illuminating them. A backlit image on screen is larger than life, compared to that, a reflected light print is a poor imitation. Try to forget the screen image and view the print away from the computer. Does it stand up on it's own merits?

ok so how to do that tweak in softproof?

Assuming Photoshop, View> Softproof> Custom and select the profile the printer sent you.

There is an option to highlight the "out of gamut" colours, select that and parts of the image will look VERY peculiar* indeed. Now just very gently play with the saturation/levels/curv​es until all the "weirdness" goes away. Now the image is within the printers gamut.

*Note: A bit like the highlight warning when highlights are blown in camera.

thanks richard...

found this as well for working with out of gamut colors specifically

http://www.udel.edu …hue-sat/gamut-huesat.html