Printing Advice Needed

General questions about Indigo, the scene format, rendering etc...
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Whaat
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Printing Advice Needed

Post by Whaat » Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:54 am

Hello,

I am looking for some advice on preparing renderings for print.

I know that calibration is important so I recently purchased a Pantone Huey Pro and I believe it is working fine.

I have a very cheap $50 printer at home but I was pleasantly surprised with how well the printed image colors and brightness/contrast matched what was on my screen (not perfect but pretty good for a cheap printer)

However, I took my images to a 'professional' print shop and asked them to print some proofs without any color or brightness correction and I was horrified with how dark the prints were. All detail was lost in the shadows, highlights were blown out and colors were clearly off. (They printed on 11x17 80lb glossy paper with their 'best quality' printer and specs, apparently)

This was quite disturbing to me so I wanted to try again. I took the images to the Walmart Photo Center and got 11x14s printed off on glossy photo-paper with no corrections. The images looked much, much better showing decent colors compared with my screen and cheap home test-print. There was good detail in the shadows but overall the image was still noticeably darker than I expected, definitely darker then my home test-print and 'calibrated' screen.

This whole experience has left me with a complete distrust of commercial printing businesses. My questions are thus:

1) Where does my responsibility end in preparing images for printing? Can I trust that most quality printing services will print a proof and then properly adjust the exposure and colors as necessary for it to look like it should. What should be the proper workflow? What do you do?

2) Do I need to ask my clients what printing service they intend to use to print the images and then try to calibrate my monitor to match the output provided by these various companies? (seems like an impossible task)

3) Should I simply expect that commercial printing will typically be darker then my 'calibrated' system and then apply some extra image brightness to compensate? (The result however, might be an image that looks overexposed when viewed on a computer screen.) Or, do I provide the client one image that is good for screen viewing and other image file that is suitable for printing.

I would be very interested to hear how you professionals deal with these issues. Thank you very much.

Dale

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by tar_gniK » Tue Mar 06, 2012 5:56 am

I have to prepare A LOT of images and renderings for print -- first port of call is to ensure that any images for professional printing are converted to CMYK rather than using RGB. This will ensure that colours are kept intact and not blended together -- hence the dark prints, because the printers were using a CMYK colour method instead, while your images were most likely still RGB. (I'm guessing, because you did not specify).

This will solve most of your problems (if you haven't done so already that is).

RGB - Additive colour
CMYK - Subtractive colour.

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by StompinTom » Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:15 am

tar_gniK wrote:I have to prepare A LOT of images and renderings for print -- first port of call is to ensure that any images for professional printing are converted to CMYK rather than using RGB. This will ensure that colours are kept intact and not blended together -- hence the dark prints, because the printers were using a CMYK colour method instead, while your images were most likely still RGB. (I'm guessing, because you did not specify).

This will solve most of your problems (if you haven't done so already that is).

RGB - Additive colour
CMYK - Subtractive colour.
Quite interested in this as well, because I've been printing loads lately, and the images always come out seemingly darker than on-screen (of course, I don't necessarily have a calibrated screen or anything like that!).

Does converting to CMYK in Photoshop make such a difference when printing an image? I will have to try it, but I'd like to know if that's a good technique to keep in mind!

Thanks for the tips!

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by Whaat » Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:55 am

tar_gniK wrote:I have to prepare A LOT of images and renderings for print -- first port of call is to ensure that any images for professional printing are converted to CMYK rather than using RGB. This will ensure that colours are kept intact and not blended together -- hence the dark prints, because the printers were using a CMYK colour method instead, while your images were most likely still RGB. (I'm guessing, because you did not specify).

This will solve most of your problems (if you haven't done so already that is).

RGB - Additive colour
CMYK - Subtractive colour.
You are right that my images were not converted to CMYK. I was not sure how much of a difference that would make. I thought it might produce a slight color shift but I didn't expect that it would affect the overall brightness. I will have to try this.

So when you are handing the images over to the client, do you only give them the CMYK version or do you deliver multiple versions. I think multiple versions would confuse most clients.

BTW, just found a great article here that addresses many of my concerns:
http://www.mcpactions.com/blog/2011/01/ ... trategies/

According to this, only sRGB images should be handed over to customers. Makes sense.

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Printing Advice Needed

Post by Headroom » Tue Mar 06, 2012 8:34 am

What separates a really professional print shop from just any, say, Walmart print shop is that they should be able to tell you what you need to supply to them and not the other way around!

It certainly is an interesting subject that I am interested in as well and gathering some knowledge in the subject will certainly be helpful, but my question is at what level would one call a service professional ?
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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by Voytech » Tue Mar 06, 2012 8:59 am

My $.02

1. If you're on a mac, check the gamma of your screen. It's usually 2.2 which is higher than the 1.8 used on PC's. This alone will make your pictures look nice and bright on your screen, but dark as hell everywhere else. Use the histogram to help you.

2. Download the free beta of Lightroom 4 from Adobe. It now features a "Soft Proof" feature, which simulates the look of the print. Many pro labs will give you a color profile for their printers/process which you can load into LR and work towards your goal.

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by FakeShamus » Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:41 am

I work at a digital print studio in New York, we do mainly fine art printing where color is very crucial. in my experience there are labs that have a very good color management workflow and others where they just kind of wing it and adjust color, brightness, etc. based on what comes out in the print. so quality varies a lot!

if they are a good lab, they should be able to take whatever you give them and convert to their own printer profiles and get something very close to what you see on a calibrated monitor (it's never ever a perfect translation, though). the main thing that is important in any case is to embed your working RGB or CMYK profile when you save the file for print. if the profile is not embedded (in other words, if it's "untagged") the image will look different in different color workspaces. so even a color-managed system will not know how to correctly display your image. the Mac vs PC gamma thing is reversed below, by the way, but that also won't matter if you embed the profile. find out if the printer is using in-house profiles and if you can get them sent to you. then you could convert and embed the profile in photoshop before sending the files to print.

it would help to know how you are currently prepping your files in order to help you further.

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by tar_gniK » Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:10 am

^^ Agree 100% with FakeShamus there.

The print company I use have some printers with colour profiles, so they are able to take RGB prints and preserve the colours no problem. For larger sizes, they often use only printers without any colour profiling. Thus, in the latter instance, when I need something above A2, I make it a number one priority to convert to CMYK -- although I convert to CMYK regardless of size, anyway.

With regards to handing over images to clients, for digital files, embedded colour profiles will ensure that the image is as you intended colour-wise.

Physically, it would be the CMYK version (or an RGB that has been converted with the printer's profiles) that you would hand over.

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by galinette » Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:39 am

Yes, it should be the job of the printing service to convert the image to whatever format is required.

However, you should embed your color profile in the file you send to them, so that they know what they are reading. RGB values alone basically mean nothing, RGB is relative to a color space. If you use a non-calibrated workflow with images from Indigo, embed the standard sRGB IEC profile from photoshop (Indigo generates images in this color space, and this is the most common one)

Then, rule n°2, the printer service should be able to provide you a color profile corresponding to the harware/paper combination(s) they use. An example of a good printing service providing icc profiles (sorry, this is in french) : http://www.vision-360.net/profils/index.php.

So:
- You need to embed a profile in the image to be sure that the company does not guess it for you (sRGB IEC)
- The company should be able to provide you with a color profile (otherwise, do not trust them)
- There is no need to convert your image format if you embed the profile. That's the idea behind color management : the tools do it for you as long as all profiles in the chain are well specified.
- If you have a calibrated monitor, you can have a preview of the printing colors using photoshop (proof colors preview). However, they will be more or less clamped depending on your monitor gamut.
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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by FakeShamus » Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:50 am

I've requested this before, but Indigo should really have the option to embed profiles on output. Maybe the default should just be sRGB with the capability to select others if someone wants.

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by Whaat » Wed Mar 07, 2012 2:20 am

FakeShamus wrote: it would help to know how you are currently prepping your files in order to help you further.
Currently, I am embedding the sRGB profile in the file. I am using a Huey Pro to calibrate my monitor. I work in Photoshop using sRGB and always remain in this mode.

So, what I am hearing is that as long as the profile is embedded in the file, a good print shop with a properly profiled setup will be able to reproduce what I see on screen fairly accurately. (I guess I need to find that 'good print shop')

If I can get my hands on the print shop's profiles, I can load the profile into PS and get a preview of the colors as printed.

Of course my main concern is that I will usually not be the one in charge of printing. The client will usually decide when and where to print, along with what size. Scary thought...
Galinette wrote:- If you have a calibrated monitor, you can have a preview of the printing colors using photoshop (proof colors preview). However, they will be more or less clamped depending on your monitor gamut.
By 'calibrated monitor' do you mean one that is simply calibrated with a Huey or Spyder or is there another step involved?

Thanks for all of the great advice so far!

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by Whaat » Wed Mar 07, 2012 2:21 am

FakeShamus wrote: it would help to know how you are currently prepping your files in order to help you further.
Currently, I am embedding the sRGB profile in the file. I am using a Huey Pro to calibrate my monitor. I work in Photoshop using sRGB and always remain in this mode.

So, what I am hearing is that as long as the profile is embedded in the file, a good print shop with a properly profiled setup will be able to reproduce what I see on screen fairly accurately. (I guess I need to find that 'good print shop')

If I can get my hands on the print shop's profiles, I can load the profile into PS and get a preview of the colors as printed.

Of course my main concern is that I will usually not be the one in charge of printing. The client will usually decide when and where to print, along with what size. Scary thought...
Galinette wrote:- If you have a calibrated monitor, you can have a preview of the printing colors using photoshop (proof colors preview). However, they will be more or less clamped depending on your monitor gamut.
By 'calibrated monitor' do you mean one that is simply calibrated with a Huey or Spyder or is there another step involved?

Thanks for all of the great advice so far!

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by Voytech » Wed Mar 07, 2012 5:51 am

galinette wrote: - If you have a calibrated monitor, you can have a preview of the printing colors using photoshop (proof colors preview). However, they will be more or less clamped depending on your monitor gamut.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was the print/paper medium that had the smaller gamut of color. Unless you have a really low quality monitor...

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by FakeShamus » Wed Mar 07, 2012 7:11 am

the paper will have the smaller gamut. if any colors in your file are outside the paper's gamut, Photoshop proof preview can give you an on-screen estimation of how your image will translate in print.

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Re: Printing Advice Needed

Post by galinette » Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:42 am

Voytech wrote:
galinette wrote: - If you have a calibrated monitor, you can have a preview of the printing colors using photoshop (proof colors preview). However, they will be more or less clamped depending on your monitor gamut.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was the print/paper medium that had the smaller gamut of color. Unless you have a really low quality monitor...

Absolutely not. Printers often have a wider gamut in the cyan for instance, very visible in blue sky or shallow clear sea (which are the weak point on RGB systems)
CYMK is much better than sRGB for this.

This is the main interest of AdobeRGB color space, it includes most of the CYMK gamut. Many consumer monitors are roughly including sRGB but not AdobeRGB

Ex: http://www.google.fr/imgres?q=cmyk+gamu ... =111&ty=91
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