Digital print question

Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary. Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

--
Message posted via http://www.photokb.com

Not all print labs are the same. You need to try a few images with a couple
of them until you find one that produces prints you like the look of. For
example the upload service SnapFish which is owned by HP tends to print my
images at least with too little saturation. I like my images with a bit more
color punch. Otherwise for the price they are ok.

I tend to do my own printing as it gives me the most control.

As for your question, I think color calibration and color profiles are going
to prevent the printing process from being easy. You have to match the
screen to the printer, to the ink, to the paper. Personally, I don't bother.
If blue comes out blue fine. I am more concerned with exposure (too light or
too dark) color saturation and things like that.

Personally, I think people that print at home that spend hours worrying
about getting exact colors on their printers that they see on screen are
just fools. Get it close and get on with it.

ljc


"Dolu via PhotoKB.com" u30292@uwe wrote in message
news:6b60cce9c9afa@uwe...
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the
pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary. Should
I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

--
Message posted via http://www.photokb.com

"Little Juice Coupe" wrote in message
...
Not all print labs are the same. You need to try a few images with a
couple of them until you find one that produces prints you like the look
of. For example the upload service SnapFish which is owned by HP tends to
print my images at least with too little saturation. I like my images with
a bit more color punch. Otherwise for the price they are ok.

I tend to do my own printing as it gives me the most control.

As for your question, I think color calibration and color profiles are
going to prevent the printing process from being easy. You have to match
the screen to the printer, to the ink, to the paper. Personally, I don't
bother. If blue comes out blue fine. I am more concerned with exposure
(too light or too dark) color saturation and things like that.

Personally, I think people that print at home that spend hours worrying
about getting exact colors on their printers that they see on screen are
just fools. Get it close and get on with it.

ljc


"Dolu via PhotoKB.com" u30292@uwe wrote in message
news:6b60cce9c9afa@uwe...
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from
the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the
pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary.
Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use
the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

--
Message posted via http://www.photokb.com



Rubbish.

The whole point of Colour Management is so that what you see on screen is
what comes out of the Printer. Your own Printer or any other Calibrated and
profiled Printer, even the Print Machines in the Labs.

Not having a Colour Managed system means spending rather a lot of time
fiddling with the Printer Controls, in order to get the result you want, and
mostly failing.

Roy G

Dolu via PhotoKB.com wrote:
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary. Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

--
Message posted via http://www.photokb.com

The problem is that an ink print uses inks with only a single
reflectance value for each color. In order to print varying
shades/intensities they create a tiny pattern of varying area. How
well this "dithering" is done affects quality of ink prints.

Dye subs put down a varying amount of ink, but the number of different
levels varies from brand to brand of printer, limiting quality.

The best results come from a so-called screen printer or CRT based
system that actually uses real photographic process to "photograph" a
monitor screen. This is a complicated machine, and again qualities
vary.

So you DO need to shop around, and test each service with a "standard"
test image.

Very true, but if you read what I said and you understand English I said
that I don't feel all of the whoop jumping is worth the hassle. Having to
have color profiles for each paper and each ink and each printer, etc. Is
just a major waste of time for any desktop inkjet printer. That is my
opinion and I get very fine prints without jumping through all of the hoops.

Now if someone like Adobe would like to make this whole process easier so
that it can be done in less than 3 minutes great. Until then I am not going
to bother as long as dark blue comes out dark blue and skin comes out
looking like skin I could give a rats ass if the shade of dark blue is off
by 2 shades.

ljc


"Roy G" wrote in message
...

"Little Juice Coupe" wrote in message
...
Not all print labs are the same. You need to try a few images with a
couple of them until you find one that produces prints you like the look
of. For example the upload service SnapFish which is owned by HP tends to
print my images at least with too little saturation. I like my images
with a bit more color punch. Otherwise for the price they are ok.

I tend to do my own printing as it gives me the most control.

As for your question, I think color calibration and color profiles are
going to prevent the printing process from being easy. You have to match
the screen to the printer, to the ink, to the paper. Personally, I don't
bother. If blue comes out blue fine. I am more concerned with exposure
(too light or too dark) color saturation and things like that.

Personally, I think people that print at home that spend hours worrying
about getting exact colors on their printers that they see on screen are
just fools. Get it close and get on with it.

ljc


"Dolu via PhotoKB.com" u30292@uwe wrote in message
news:6b60cce9c9afa@uwe...
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from
the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the
pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary.
Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use
the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

--
Message posted via http://www.photokb.com



Rubbish.

The whole point of Colour Management is so that what you see on screen is
what comes out of the Printer. Your own Printer or any other Calibrated
and profiled Printer, even the Print Machines in the Labs.

Not having a Colour Managed system means spending rather a lot of time
fiddling with the Printer Controls, in order to get the result you want,
and mostly failing.

Roy G

The fact that you say and I quote "Dye subs put down a varying amount of
ink" tells me you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Dye sub
printer do not use ink. They use a translucent film. Nothing inky or wet
about it. Also, like in binary where you have either a zero or one dye sub
printers either put down some film or they don't. It doesn't put down half
or one quarter or three quarters of the film. It either all goes down for
the dot in question or none goes down. Now it may layer another color over
that (which is why the film is translucent) but it either puts the color
down in a given location or it doesn't. There is no different levels of film
being put down.

ljc


"Don Stauffer in Minnesota" wrote in message
ups.com...

Dolu via PhotoKB.com wrote:
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from
the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the
pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary.
Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use
the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

--
Message posted via http://www.photokb.com

The problem is that an ink print uses inks with only a single
reflectance value for each color. In order to print varying
shades/intensities they create a tiny pattern of varying area. How
well this "dithering" is done affects quality of ink prints.

Dye subs put down a varying amount of ink, but the number of different
levels varies from brand to brand of printer, limiting quality.

The best results come from a so-called screen printer or CRT based
system that actually uses real photographic process to "photograph" a
monitor screen. This is a complicated machine, and again qualities
vary.

So you DO need to shop around, and test each service with a "standard"
test image.

Dolu via PhotoKB.com wrote:

Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary. Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?


What has been written so far in the thread I think is confusing,
so I'll try my explanation.

Our eyes have a certain spectral response for red, green,
and blue. What we perceive in color depends on the
spectral response of the light source and the subject,
as the two combined can result in more limited or
unusual spectral profiles. Then to add to the confusion,
the human eye system does not respond linearly, and it
actually subtracts some colors from other colors
(e.g. some blue is subtracted from red). Then another
factor is the perceived color depends on how large
the color subtends to your eye.

There is no way for inks or phosphors, of plasma screens,
etc to exactly duplicate the way our eyes work, so
everything is a compromise. What color management
does is try to approximate the eye's response and
mitigate the effects. Every ink/dye in a printed
medium has slightly different spectral response, so the
combinations of ink used to reproduce a particular color
the way the eye sees it under certain lighting conditions
must be calibrated. To produce a certain skin tone,
for example, the amount of ink used in different printers
will vary because the spectral response varies between
those inks. The closer the ink's spectral response is to that
of the eye will mean smaller differences, but regardless
of how close the spectral response becomes, the non-linearity
and negative response of the eye can never be achieved
in reality, but can be modeled with software adjusting the
amounts of ink applied. That adjustment is the color
management. Whole books are written on this subject.

Applying color calibration in your digital work flow is
not that difficult.

Roger

On Wed, 27 Dec 2006 08:40:03 +0000, Dolu via PhotoKB.com wrote:

Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary. Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

I suggest you submit some digital photos at the local Walgreen's kiosk and
see if they are good enough for you. If not, proceed to look at print
services. One point I've seen made is that it's naive to expect that your
$300 printer will make prints as good as the commercial ones worth several
thousand dollars - assuming they are run correctly.

"Dolu via PhotoKB.com" u30292@uwe wrote in message
news:6b60cce9c9afa@uwe...
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the
pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary. Should
I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

The camera sensors store charges in individual photo sites. There is no
color information until these charges (voltages) are processed. Generally,
a Bayer demosaicing algorithm is applied in the camera (when shooting JPEGs)
or later in a computer when shooting RAW. Taking the JPEG case first, it is
very important to have the white balance set correctly. Auto white balance
is convenient, but often fails miserably. Shooting RAW gives you
considerable latitude to adjust the white balance ... but, your monitor must
be calibrated or you will probably not achieve the desired results.

Accurate print colors are actually difficult to attain and most folks look
the other way (ignore the subtleties and minor errors).

I shoot with custom white balance when the color is very important. Often,
I just ignore the errors like most folks.

I get much better color accuracy with my Epson printer at home than I get at
local retail outlets.

Accurate color prints demand quite a bit of effort.

But on the other hand those devices that pro labs use are designed to high
speed and massive amounts of prints per month. Beyond that I seriously doubt
that any pro level printer these places use are any better in the print
quality than that of a good quality consumer inkjet. The difference as I
said is that the consumer printer is much slower and designed for far few
prints per month (light duty). That is why most printer makers except
commercial use of consumer printers from their warranty coverage. You can't
take a printer designed for a duty cycle of 200 prints per month and have it
crank out 20,000 and expect it to hold up. It wasn't designed for that.

But, then if you are talking about chemically processed digital images that
doesn't use a printer at all. But, it does use a computer controlled
contraption that makes most of the choices as it processes the images. So
you can end up with lack luster images if it doesn't make the correct
choices. Few automatic image correction things do make the correct choices
often enough to be of any use.

ljc


"ray" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 27 Dec 2006 08:40:03 +0000, Dolu via PhotoKB.com wrote:

Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
quality prints since all they need to do is read the pixel values from
the
image and trigger ink or static charges or whatever to reproduce the
pixels
on paper? No guess work, or manual adjustments would be neccessary.
Should I
shop around to find a good digital print service, or should I just use
the
nearest drug store photo service to get my digital prints?

I suggest you submit some digital photos at the local Walgreen's kiosk and
see if they are good enough for you. If not, proceed to look at print
services. One point I've seen made is that it's naive to expect that your
$300 printer will make prints as good as the commercial ones worth several
thousand dollars - assuming they are run correctly.