Bad Digi Prints

PH01

I've my digital camera a couple of months now. It's a 3.2 megapixel so it's pretty good. And I've taken about 130 photos which I want printed - so I've burned them onto a CD and take them to my local 1 hour photo. I ask for 6x4 prints with a matt finish. They send it off to a place in town who do the digital photo printing.
I get them back the other day and I'm not happy with the quality as some of the colours seem totally wrong - the reds and greens were too bright, practically florescent.
Has anyone come across this with their digi prints from photo labs?

DadaKopf

I've never been happy with digital prints. If you're not happy, bring them back. Alternatively, it could be that your monitor isn't properly calibrated. Get PowerStrip, alter your contrast and gamma (but not much) to the actual photos. Do this in subdued light.

They probably send it into Fuji on Abbey St. (everybody does).

PH01

I brought them back to the local photo shop (Fuji) yesterday. Yerman there said that he'll give them (a crowd in Abbey street called 'Photocare') a shout today, and he'll get back to me.
I hope it's an error on their part as I can print out the same images at home and they're of a much better quality, but much too expensive to print them all off that way.

And DadaKopf, digi prints from these labs can't always be this bad? If this is the case, I'm going to trade in my digital and buy a pretty good SLR.

PH01

The photo shop just rang me there. He said that the lab can't do anything for me as it is all down to 'Saturation'. Can anyone explain this in laymans' language?

Anyway, they're going to give me my money back - which is nice.

solaris

Have you edited the photographs ? If not, and if they look good on your monitor, and look good on your printouts, I suspect the problem is with the calibration of the printing equipment at the shop, or the lack of experience of the operator. Many of the one hour photoshops can print digital images themselves now, as the newer fuji minilabs (the machines that print the photographs) support digital as well as traditional film. If your photographs are oversaturated, a trained operator _should_ be able to adjust the images before printing. Try another photo shop, where they print themselves rather than send away to another lab.

PH01

Originally posted by solaris
Have you edited the photographs ? If not, and if they look good on your monitor, and look good on your printouts, I suspect the problem is with the calibration of the printing equipment at the shop, or the lack of experience of the operator. Many of the one hour photoshops can print digital images themselves now, as the newer fuji minilabs (the machines that print the photographs) support digital as well as traditional film. If your photographs are oversaturated, a trained operator _should_ be able to adjust the images before printing. Try another photo shop, where they print themselves rather than send away to another lab.

Thanks for the info, Solaris.
The photos should be OK - I downloaded them from the camera and then burned them straight to the CD.
Yerman at the local photo shop more or less said that I shouldn't expect film quality prints from digitals and I shouldn't expect the same quality for 4x6 prints @0.25 cent each.
I was so disappointed when I hear this!
Anyway I got my money back from him which is decent enough.

I'm going to try www.bonusprint.ie to see how well they do, and just with a few this time.

Samba

Sounds like Colours were enhanced, <not Pimpage>The Fuji Centre in Blackrock just got a **** off digi printing machine, all I can saw is WOW, it can also scan normal 35mm Negs</not pimpage>

DadaKopf

*ahem*

DadaKopf

Originally posted by PH01
Thanks for the info, Solaris.
The photos should be OK - I downloaded them from the camera and then burned them straight to the CD.
Yerman at the local photo shop more or less said that I shouldn't expect film quality prints from digitals and I shouldn't expect the same quality for 4x6 prints @0.25 cent each.
I was so disappointed when I hear this!
Anyway I got my money back from him which is decent enough.

I'm going to try www.bonusprint.ie to see how well they do, and just with a few this time.

Digital certainly doesn't mimic conventional imaging. It's completely different. Getting what you want is all trial and error.

Regarding quality/resolution; normal digicams record at 72dpi, to get a high quality print, they recommend 300dpi. The cams get around that by making the images bigger and squeeze them down. I just don't like digital anyway.

solaris

It is normally possible to spot a digital image if you look really hard, but the photo itself, the composition, the lighting and what the image represents is more important than the media used to record the image IMHO. The benefit of digital is that you can take many shots until you get it right, get immediate results and don't spend a fortune in the process.

The optimum resolution used to print an image is 240-300 dpi (the human eye won't notice a difference beyond this resoloution). However, dpi (or pixels per inch to be more correct) is not a factor when capturing an image - it only applied to output devices. A camera doesn't actually *record* 72dpi or 300dpi. 72dpi is ideal for computer monitors, 240dpi is ideal for prints. So the higher the number of pixels your camera or scanner supports, the larger the print you can make from the image.

DadaKopf

Digital photography is different to film like digital video is to film. The quality is excellent but it's different. Everything's different - sensitivity to light, colour values, sharpness. It's easy to say "ooh, I only like film, it's warm, its sensual" blah blah. Neither is better or worse, they're just different. Obviously digital has massive advantages - the money aspect is one, Photoshop is another. Then there's the possibilities of manipulation. I'm quite sure digital is going to take over, anyway.

LonglynX

Bad colour on digi prints (particularly on red/orange and flesh tones looking flourescent -oversaturated) is often due to the image decoding and exposure software on the digital minilab. This was a common problem up to last year but now some of the minilab manufacturers have released new software versions that have sorted the problem (obviously not Fuji). The "Gretag masterflex D" is a fantastic machine for printing your digital images up to 12"x8" and the latest software version has the dodgy colour problem licked.
Try to find a pharmacy that has one of these machines, or use Spectra Photo (they use them in the main laboratory in Kerry for their digital work).

I will also add that sometimes it can be down to the camera, you really get what you pay for where digital cameras are concerned. The cheaper the camera, the poorer the quality of the end result.

>LonglynX<<

PH01

Just thought I'd give ye an update on my bad prints dilemma.

We'll I sent off the pics to http://www.Bonusprint.ie and I got them back yesterday. It took a while to get them back but the quality is very good I have to say. Much better than the first batch I got done by the local crowd. And at 20c per 4x6 pic was 5c cheaper too.

I recommend this service.