Photobox printing - colour problems
Discussion
HELP!!!
Hi folks - I'll try and keep this brief (I could ramble on about it for 2 or 3 pages
)....
I've decided to return to using Photobox for my prints, but the prints I've been receiving from them have awful colourcasts and loss of contrast. ...and I don't have enough hair to pull much more out!
Some background: I have a Mac with Apple 23" Cinema LCD and hardware profiled with i1 Display 2 to 6500k 2.2 gamma. The uploaded files are sRGB with embedded default sRGB profile. And, having spoken to others and post-cal verification, I am entirely satisfied this is not a display calibration/profile issue. Further, printing the files at home on my old Epson 1290 produces beautiful, vibrant prints that match my screen in similar light. It's just that I want to use Photobox.
Take an example file. I sent them a larger version of this pic during my tests/investigations:-
but the 12'x8' glossy print is more like this
Ugly isn't it!
Note the posterization and colour shift of the Rizla hoardings. The print is worse than this simulation.
And... to completely rule out my workflow have a look at Photobox's calibration print here. They sent me their standard cal print of this - and it has the exact same colour shifts, eg. the dayglo green flippers are muted, lime green on the print.
On speaking to Photobox (who spent a good deal of time trying to solve the problem), they found the image would only print properly for them if they forced their printers to read the colour profile. Otherwise it was the same story as for me. They suggested that the colours were outside the printers' gamut. Fair enough, but in conflict with friends' experiences. It was suggested I use a "pro lab" for my printing, or to phone them every order to ensure it is manually printed - forcing their printers to read the embedded profile. If I download Photobox's supplied printer profile I get a perfect soft-proof of the horrid prints (but, only if I select to 'Preserve RGB colours' - which is an odd rendering intent, normal would be perceptual or colimetric????).
Whilst a lot of this makes sense... it simply doesn't tally with friends' experiences (I've had a fair bit of discussion about this with Fergus - thanks for your help
- and we're scratching our heads). Am I the only one having these problems?
I know lots of you use Photobox without this 'mare... so I'm hoping you can wade thourgh this rant/plea for sanity... and can shed some light
[crosses fingers'n'toes]
Jason
Hi folks - I'll try and keep this brief (I could ramble on about it for 2 or 3 pages
)....I've decided to return to using Photobox for my prints, but the prints I've been receiving from them have awful colourcasts and loss of contrast. ...and I don't have enough hair to pull much more out!
Some background: I have a Mac with Apple 23" Cinema LCD and hardware profiled with i1 Display 2 to 6500k 2.2 gamma. The uploaded files are sRGB with embedded default sRGB profile. And, having spoken to others and post-cal verification, I am entirely satisfied this is not a display calibration/profile issue. Further, printing the files at home on my old Epson 1290 produces beautiful, vibrant prints that match my screen in similar light. It's just that I want to use Photobox.
Take an example file. I sent them a larger version of this pic during my tests/investigations:-
but the 12'x8' glossy print is more like this
Ugly isn't it!
Note the posterization and colour shift of the Rizla hoardings. The print is worse than this simulation.And... to completely rule out my workflow have a look at Photobox's calibration print here. They sent me their standard cal print of this - and it has the exact same colour shifts, eg. the dayglo green flippers are muted, lime green on the print.
On speaking to Photobox (who spent a good deal of time trying to solve the problem), they found the image would only print properly for them if they forced their printers to read the colour profile. Otherwise it was the same story as for me. They suggested that the colours were outside the printers' gamut. Fair enough, but in conflict with friends' experiences. It was suggested I use a "pro lab" for my printing, or to phone them every order to ensure it is manually printed - forcing their printers to read the embedded profile. If I download Photobox's supplied printer profile I get a perfect soft-proof of the horrid prints (but, only if I select to 'Preserve RGB colours' - which is an odd rendering intent, normal would be perceptual or colimetric????).
Whilst a lot of this makes sense... it simply doesn't tally with friends' experiences (I've had a fair bit of discussion about this with Fergus - thanks for your help
- and we're scratching our heads). Am I the only one having these problems?I know lots of you use Photobox without this 'mare... so I'm hoping you can wade thourgh this rant/plea for sanity... and can shed some light
[crosses fingers'n'toes]Jason
have to say I've only used them one and each image came back exactly as i hoped and matched the prints from my r1800
I know that is of no use to you but maybe it is something at your end? Try working the prints on a different os and processing tool to see what the result is if you intend to keep using them. I know for their 30x20s I will after my test batch but anything else I tend to do myself
I know that is of no use to you but maybe it is something at your end? Try working the prints on a different os and processing tool to see what the result is if you intend to keep using them. I know for their 30x20s I will after my test batch but anything else I tend to do myself
stigmundfreud said:
have to say I've only used them one and each image came back exactly as i hoped and matched the prints from my r1800
I know that is of no use to you but maybe it is something at your end? Try working the prints on a different os and processing tool to see what the result is if you intend to keep using them. I know for their 30x20s I will after my test batch but anything else I tend to do myself
heh - don't worry, you're not the only one who "just sends a file and gets WYSIWYG" I know that is of no use to you but maybe it is something at your end? Try working the prints on a different os and processing tool to see what the result is if you intend to keep using them. I know for their 30x20s I will after my test batch but anything else I tend to do myself
I appreciate your suggestions, thanks
...but the exact same thing happened when a friend processed the orig RAW on their PC using the same workflow they normally do to prep images for Photobox 
...and the calibration print was printed by Photobox entirely independently of my system. It's quite dayglo in any colour-managed viewer (the flippers & the colour scales), but the print they sent me is dull (eg. the colour scale is yellow ochre rather than the dsyglo of the orig).
Cal image original:
Standard cal print they sent independent of me:
Edited by jason-l on Thursday 27th September 00:04
Recently started using Photobox myself.
I've not delved into colourspaces and, with the images I've had printed by them, I've done nothing to them bar download from camera (mainly D80 although some from my K810i) and upload to PhotoBox (PCs run Win XP).
Results: mixed. Some prints have fairly true colours while others are dull or lacking vibrancy. As it's early days for me, I figured I'd wait til after calibrating to raise it as an issue.
Not sure that helps other than identifying that I've noticed an inconsistently similar issue. Happy to help if there's further info you'd like.
I've not delved into colourspaces and, with the images I've had printed by them, I've done nothing to them bar download from camera (mainly D80 although some from my K810i) and upload to PhotoBox (PCs run Win XP).
Results: mixed. Some prints have fairly true colours while others are dull or lacking vibrancy. As it's early days for me, I figured I'd wait til after calibrating to raise it as an issue.
Not sure that helps other than identifying that I've noticed an inconsistently similar issue. Happy to help if there's further info you'd like.
Hi Jason,
Don't worry, you're not the only one!
I've a reasonable amount of experience using colour profiled Windows and Mac systems, and gave up on using PhotoBox a while ago. Their results may be "good enough" for the average user, but they won't stand up to comaprison with printing on a properly profiled, full colour managed workflow, IMHO.
I just don't understand why they would use "preserve RGB colours" rendering intent - anyone who's spent anytime softproofing their images before printing will know thats wrong.
I currently use a HP B9180 at home, and find I have to softproof in order to choose between perceptual and relative colourmetric *for each print* as there's not one rendering algorithm that suites every image.
Unfortunately I think you are probably setting your standards too high for that service
I know I'll get flamed for this, as PhotoBox are thought of highly on here, and they do do a good job for their market, but in my opinion they are not competing in the fine art printing market...
Jonathan
Don't worry, you're not the only one!
I've a reasonable amount of experience using colour profiled Windows and Mac systems, and gave up on using PhotoBox a while ago. Their results may be "good enough" for the average user, but they won't stand up to comaprison with printing on a properly profiled, full colour managed workflow, IMHO.
I just don't understand why they would use "preserve RGB colours" rendering intent - anyone who's spent anytime softproofing their images before printing will know thats wrong.
I currently use a HP B9180 at home, and find I have to softproof in order to choose between perceptual and relative colourmetric *for each print* as there's not one rendering algorithm that suites every image.
Unfortunately I think you are probably setting your standards too high for that service
I know I'll get flamed for this, as PhotoBox are thought of highly on here, and they do do a good job for their market, but in my opinion they are not competing in the fine art printing market...
Jonathan
Reading my last post it comes across as a bit too negative on PhotoBox - let me add some more info and hopefully explain why I find it not suitable for what I'm trying to do.
Please excuse me if I'm covering old ground here...
All input (cameras, scanners) devices and output (printers, monitors) devices have a certain range of colours (gamut) that they can produce. If your output device has a bigger gamut than the input device, then there's no issue and everyone's happy.
Unfortunately, the real world situation (at present) is that most printer+paper combinations will have a smaller gamut than your DSLR or scanner can produce (of course not all scenes will require the full gamut, in which case there may not be a problem). This means we have to find a way of representing our image on paper that is acceptable to us.
Mapping these out of gamut colours to ones that can be printed is what the rendering algorithm is doing (the "rendering intent" ). Here's a Photoshop's description of the common intents:
'Perceptual: Aims to preserve the visual relationship between colours so it’s perceived as natural to the human eye, even though the colour values themselves may change. This intent is suitable for photographic images with lots of out-of-gamut colours.
Relative Colorimetric: Compares the extreme highlight of the source colour space to that of the destination colour space and shifts all colours accordingly. Out-of-gamut colours are shifted to the closest reproducible colour in the destination colour space. Relative Colorimetric preserves more of the original colours in an image than Perceptual.'
As you can see, it becomes an artistic decision how you are going to treat these out of gamut colours, which is why I use the softproofing feature in Photoshop to help decide on an image by image basis which one to use.
Of course, if you don't try to print images with a gamut larger than can be handled by the Photobox printers (or if your monitor isn't capable of showing these out of gamut colours in the first place), then there isn't a problem.
My main problem with Photobox is that they never published accurate profiles of their printers, so I was unable to softproof (and make any necessary image adjustments) to produce the result I wanted. This complaint also applies to some other online printers.
James has a display that is capable of displaying a quite large gamut, which might also be why he notices more of a problem matching prints to screen? (actually you can never completely match a print side by side to the screen because one is emits light, the other reflects it and although the colours may be accurate the luminosity will appear different).
I hope that might be of use,
Jonathan
Please excuse me if I'm covering old ground here...
All input (cameras, scanners) devices and output (printers, monitors) devices have a certain range of colours (gamut) that they can produce. If your output device has a bigger gamut than the input device, then there's no issue and everyone's happy.
Unfortunately, the real world situation (at present) is that most printer+paper combinations will have a smaller gamut than your DSLR or scanner can produce (of course not all scenes will require the full gamut, in which case there may not be a problem). This means we have to find a way of representing our image on paper that is acceptable to us.
Mapping these out of gamut colours to ones that can be printed is what the rendering algorithm is doing (the "rendering intent" ). Here's a Photoshop's description of the common intents:
'Perceptual: Aims to preserve the visual relationship between colours so it’s perceived as natural to the human eye, even though the colour values themselves may change. This intent is suitable for photographic images with lots of out-of-gamut colours.
Relative Colorimetric: Compares the extreme highlight of the source colour space to that of the destination colour space and shifts all colours accordingly. Out-of-gamut colours are shifted to the closest reproducible colour in the destination colour space. Relative Colorimetric preserves more of the original colours in an image than Perceptual.'
As you can see, it becomes an artistic decision how you are going to treat these out of gamut colours, which is why I use the softproofing feature in Photoshop to help decide on an image by image basis which one to use.
Of course, if you don't try to print images with a gamut larger than can be handled by the Photobox printers (or if your monitor isn't capable of showing these out of gamut colours in the first place), then there isn't a problem.
My main problem with Photobox is that they never published accurate profiles of their printers, so I was unable to softproof (and make any necessary image adjustments) to produce the result I wanted. This complaint also applies to some other online printers.
James has a display that is capable of displaying a quite large gamut, which might also be why he notices more of a problem matching prints to screen? (actually you can never completely match a print side by side to the screen because one is emits light, the other reflects it and although the colours may be accurate the luminosity will appear different).
I hope that might be of use,
Jonathan
Edited by JonathanP on Thursday 27th September 08:57
the only problem I have with photobox and other printers that use fuji frontiers is they come out a bit dark. to solve this I push the laptop monitor back a bit and it matches the print. so all I do when I go to get prints is bring up my test image in photoshop and push the monitor back till I ge the correct change. works perfectly for me. I use an R2400 for my own printing with no problems with the screen tilted in the normal position. I save files for upload as sRGB and adjust them in that colour space
jason-l said:
They suggested that the colours were outside the printers' gamut.
Jason
This is the issue. Jason
Even 'Pro Labs' have this problem, with every output device from the basic Polielettronica through to top-of-the-line Durst Lambda machines.
Basically, a Pro retoucher could tell you within seconds which areas of an image are outside the gamut of their in-house output devices, and
can perform necessary retouch adjustments (at roughly £100 per hour) to reproduce the image as faithfully as possible - ie, as close as you're ever gonna get in print form.
There isn't a 'golden rule' with images like this - the accuracy of reproduction is dependent on many variables, each image is subjective and most require localised correction
rather than adjusting the entire image every time you print.
As said before, Photobox is a 'High Street' business - if you want to go to the top-end, pay a visit to www.metroimaging.co.uk
World-class award-winning retouchers, and the largest Durst Lambda in Europe...
Many thanks for all your responses, folks.
Well, erm... it's not though. For 2 reasons:
1 - The images - if rendered in PS to their print profile using a suitable intent and NOT just 'dumped' to Preserving RGB Numbers) - are not out of the gamut/abilites of their printers at all. The examples above exist only if no rendering intent is used. And I've seen with my own eyes prints from friends who don't deviate from the workflow I've used (ie. sending them sRGB IEC61966-2.1)... and the colours match. So the machines must have used a rendering intent for theirs!?!
2 - Phobox themselves can match my images with their prints simply by manually instructing their printer to read the embedded sRGB profile. They have clearly stated to me none of their printers read embedded profiles as standard nowadays.
To simplify... if all of their clients received prints like I've been receiving (from holiday snappy-snaps to great landscapes like some of the guys here produce) NOBODY would use them.
This is the bit that's making my head hurt
190Evoluzione said:
jason-l said:
They suggested that the colours were outside the printers' gamut.
Jason
This is the issue. Jason
1 - The images - if rendered in PS to their print profile using a suitable intent and NOT just 'dumped' to Preserving RGB Numbers) - are not out of the gamut/abilites of their printers at all. The examples above exist only if no rendering intent is used. And I've seen with my own eyes prints from friends who don't deviate from the workflow I've used (ie. sending them sRGB IEC61966-2.1)... and the colours match. So the machines must have used a rendering intent for theirs!?!
2 - Phobox themselves can match my images with their prints simply by manually instructing their printer to read the embedded sRGB profile. They have clearly stated to me none of their printers read embedded profiles as standard nowadays.
To simplify... if all of their clients received prints like I've been receiving (from holiday snappy-snaps to great landscapes like some of the guys here produce) NOBODY would use them.
This is the bit that's making my head hurt
Edited by jason-l on Thursday 27th September 10:44
jason-l said:
I'm hoping someone out there who uses Photobox with success and none of this hassle can add their thoughts....
..cos my experience and what they've told me simply does not add up when speaking to others.
could you not try swiching to Adobe space and firing it off as their processors might then look to get a better match. If presently you send srgb and thats what they expect, the printer probably does nothing to check...cos my experience and what they've told me simply does not add up when speaking to others.
JonathanP said:
stigmundfreud said:
actually reading your post came across as condescending to be honest
Sorry, that wasn't the intention I was just trying to explain why these problems of printing out of gamut colours exist and why there isn't a "one size fits all" rendering intent.Jonathan
I do think changing to the adobe colour space might be a good trial. I take it sRGB isnt standardised over every system? Another question is your post processing possibly changing the colour space when you save??
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