Digital print question

ray writes:

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.

If its Walgreens, then yes, my $150 HP printer will print better shots than the
drug store, assuming I use HP inks and Ilford Classic Pearl paper. Now, the HP
printer isn't water resistant, and the paper/ink combination for 4x6 is more
expensive.

The paper Walgreens uses (at least in this area) is not that good, and they use
the auto-correct features that tends to blow the highlights and muddy the dark
colors. Walmart used to make good prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, but
they too have started auto-correcting. In fact, Walmart started going downhill
when the experienced people behind the counter started disappearing, and were
replaced by the deer in the headlights staff that they now seem to hire.

If you want good, go to mpix.com.

--
Michael Meissner
email:
http://www.the-meissners.org

"Little Juice Coupe" wrote in message
...
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


Cheeky *******.

I do understand English, I have spent some 66 years living in Scotland where
they speak better English than the English.

Once Colour Management is set up, printing becomes very quick and easy, you
just select the profile for whichever paper you have in the printer, and
Accurate Colours come out of the printer.

To set up CM.
You DO NOT match the Screen to the Printer. You set-up the screen so that
it shows accurate colours, just the same colours as any other Calibrated
Screen would show.
You then profile the Printer so that the colours it produces are the same as
on the Screen.

It is not all that difficult, and for most photographers, it is well worth
doing.

If you are happy to display prints where the colours are an approximation of
what they should be, then so be it.

Roy G

I am finding the discussion here very educational - though some confusing
views are presented. I am glad I asked the question here. I knew my
assumption may be overly simplistic where I had assumed that images are
represented by collections of pixels where each pixel stores color
information with well defined standards (formulas?) like CMYK, RGB, PMS; then
the printer software would get these values as data from a JPG file and
instruct its controler to mix right quantities of inks, toners, chemicals to
reproduce each color pixel on paper. Nothing should be left to imagination.
If the printer gets data pixel to reproduce PMS130 then it will reproduce
PMS130, it does not care if the person looking at the print is color blind.
This seemed very logical. Now perhaps I see flaws in my logic? According to
the discussions here it seems that PMS130 color pixel on one printer may not
be identical to PMS130 on another printer, though close enough to be
acceptable. Per discussions here I think these variations may result from
variations in inks, chemicals, and papers used or from wrong calibration of
the printer. I am not clear though on how and why calibration would be needed,
again using my overly simplistic logic all printers should be factory
calibrated to be able to work with standard color notations (RGB, CMYK, PMS,
etc.). Same would be true for monitor screens too. I am not going to worry
about these now.

So for now, I think the answer to my question is, it will be beneficial for
me to test different print services to find the one that satisfy my taste.

I also have a Epson color inkjet printer that produces excellent prints, even
borderless ones with the bleed option. Lately I am beginning to wonder though
if this is cost effective, since the ink and papers are very expensive. It is
very ink thirsty particularly when printing photographs. What has your
experience been working with Epson so far? Typicaly how many photos can you
print per replacement of ink toner cartridge?

Charles Schuler wrote:
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
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.

--
Message posted via PhotoKB.com
http://www.photokb.com/Uwe/Forums.as...photo/200612/1

I just now visited the mpix.com site, they do provide an impressive line of
services. How did you find them? Before using them did you try Snapfish,
Ofoto, Shutterbug or other services? How do they compare?

Here Costco - a warehouse store like Walmart - uses Fuji Crystal Archive
paper and charges $1.50 for 8X10 print.

At Walmart I used the Kodak kiosk once that used Kodak Extralife paper. 8X10
print cost $5. Ouch!

Walgreens here use standard Kodak paper and charges $3 for 8X10 print.

As far as quality goes, my Epson printer is better but similar to your HP
printer toner/paper combination cost per print is high. How does your HP
print quality compare with mpix.com ? 4X6 print cost of $0.29 is reasonable
but I find the 5X7 price of $0.99 (more than 3 times the price of 4x6) very
odd at mpix.com .

Michael Meissner wrote:
Since the digital image pixels accurately store brightness and color
information, am I right in assuming that all printers will output same
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
$300 printer will make prints as good as the commercial ones worth several
thousand dollars - assuming they are run correctly.

If its Walgreens, then yes, my $150 HP printer will print better shots than the
drug store, assuming I use HP inks and Ilford Classic Pearl paper. Now, the HP
printer isn't water resistant, and the paper/ink combination for 4x6 is more
expensive.

The paper Walgreens uses (at least in this area) is not that good, and they use
the auto-correct features that tends to blow the highlights and muddy the dark
colors. Walmart used to make good prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, but
they too have started auto-correcting. In fact, Walmart started going downhill
when the experienced people behind the counter started disappearing, and were
replaced by the deer in the headlights staff that they now seem to hire.

If you want good, go to mpix.com.


--
Message posted via PhotoKB.com
http://www.photokb.com/Uwe/Forums.as...photo/200612/1

Little Juice Coupe wrote:
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



Depends on the printer. Yeah, I should have said something other than
"ink". Typically it is a dye dissolved in wax. Depending on the type,
the amount of heat used in a strike does indeed vary the amount of
dye/wax left on the paper.

HOWEVER- the "shades" or variations in the amount of color deposited is
not enough to create photo quality images. Some are for graphic arts
only, others do a dither to get more shades, but because there is
already some shading from the basic process, their "halftone" or dither
cell does not have to have as many elements as an all-or-nothing
printer.

BTW, the simple one color films you describe are more generally called
dye/wax thermal printers rather than dye sublimation. Dye sub implies
heating the wax to the boiling/sublimation temp- it is not a mechanical
process.

ray wrote:

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.


Hello, Ray:

I beg to differ. My $70 Epson "Stylus Photo 825" can spit out gorgeous
4"x6" glossy prints, as well as those costly "commercial ones," even
using third-party ink and paper.

Haven't tried any 8"x10" or matte stuff, yet, however.


Cordially,
John Turco

Roy G wrote:
"Little Juice Coupe" wrote in message
...
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


Cheeky *******.

I do understand English, I have spent some 66 years living in Scotland where
they speak better English than the English.

Once Colour Management is set up, printing becomes very quick and easy, you
just select the profile for whichever paper you have in the printer, and
Accurate Colours come out of the printer.

To set up CM.
You DO NOT match the Screen to the Printer. You set-up the screen so that
it shows accurate colours, just the same colours as any other Calibrated
Screen would show.
You then profile the Printer so that the colours it produces are the same as
on the Screen.

It is not all that difficult, and for most photographers, it is well worth
doing.

If you are happy to display prints where the colours are an approximation of
what they should be, then so be it.

Roy G

But nearly as good as English as we Yanks speak.
--
Gator Bait

"Dolu via PhotoKB.com" wrote:

heavily edited, for brevity

I also have a Epson color inkjet printer that produces excellent prints, even
borderless ones with the bleed option. Lately I am beginning to wonder though
if this is cost effective, since the ink and papers are very expensive. It is
very ink thirsty particularly when printing photographs. What has your
experience been working with Epson so far? Typicaly how many photos can you
print per replacement of ink toner cartridge?

edited

Hello, Dolu:

My Epson "Stylus Photo 825" was a mere $70 (on closeout), and yet, it
produces professional-quality prints. That, in fact, is despite using
cheap, third-party ink and photo paper, with it.

Although, Epson models seem more prone to clogging, than those of other
brands. Also, their "chipped" cartridges (i.e., they contain electronic
chips, which track the amount of remaining ink) are somewhat hard to
refill.

Regardless, those problems can be overcome, and your perseverance shall
be richly rewarded. Epson photo printers are simply the best, warts and
all.

Good luck!


Cordially,
John Turco

On 31 Dec 2006 10:26:54 EST, John Turco wrote:


My Epson "Stylus Photo 825" was a mere $70 (on closeout), and yet, it
produces professional-quality prints. That, in fact, is despite using
cheap, third-party ink and photo paper, with it.

A print produced with "cheap third-party ink and paper" is never going
to be a professional quality print. It might resemble a professional
quality print, - it might serve a useful purpose as a proof, but it is
NOT going to last like a professional quality print.

jc

--

"The nice thing about a mare is you get to ride a lot
of different horses without having to own that many."
~ Eileen Morgan of The Mare's Nest, PA

JC Dill wrote:

On 31 Dec 2006 10:26:54 EST, John Turco wrote:

My Epson "Stylus Photo 825" was a mere $70 (on closeout), and yet, it
produces professional-quality prints. That, in fact, is despite using
cheap, third-party ink and photo paper, with it.

A print produced with "cheap third-party ink and paper" is never going
to be a professional quality print. It might resemble a professional
quality print, - it might serve a useful purpose as a proof, but it is
NOT going to last like a professional quality print.

jc


Hello, JC:

I stand by my original statement, as I'd meant sheer image quality,
not archival attributes.


Cordially,
John Turco