hi guys,

i cant seem to find anything on the web regarding a "for dummies" explanation of getting better print outs using the photo labs all around the metro.

any links out there?

Oh and a question.

Ive seen articles that say that before sending off your pictures to print, you should convert to their printer's ICC profile. Is it possible to initially convert the picture even before you start editing it and then do all your edits so that you keep the colors within the profile's color gamut?

Also, what if after I softproof i see a lot of changes to the colors and lets say overall brightness levels? I have to redo all the work right? Just thinking about it, it might be easy to fix the brightness difference but what if lets say after you softproof your red turns brown and your orange turns blue, how would youstart fixing that?

sorry for the stupid questions, iim really clueless....

Not all photo labs know what an ICC profile is - especially the one hour labs.

I wouldn't recommend converting the file prior to editing it. What if the same image had to be printed at another lab or printer? It would be best to use the soft proof feature or PS.

(This is the part where it gets a bit tricky.) IF I had the ICC profile of the lab for the paper that I will be using (ICC profiles for output are printer and paper specific), I would use the soft proof feature of PS while editing. I would use adjustment layers in PS to tweak the image. This would prevent having to start over from scratch. I would then save the file with all the layers intact.

Afterwards, I would convert the color profile of the image to the lab's profile for the paper that I would be using (IF I actually had the ICC profile).

Your safest option is to edit the image as best as you can (preferably with a calibrated and accurately profiled display. Convert the image to sRGB - but don't even bother to embed the profile. I will admit that the suki factor plays a huge role in this workflow. I always go to the same one hour lab because the technician knows how I want the colors and the brightness of my prints to appear.

Or, you could have your images printed at a lab like DPI that is religious about color management. They regularly update their ICC profiles which you can download from their website.

@ Christopher

You might also want to read this thread:

http://www.digitalphotographer.com.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=1902

thanks sir jo. i wish some sort of standard is developed to make the prints a lil bit more predictable.

There is already a standard. Anything that can display or output an image makes use of color profiles.

It is the implementation of the use of ICC profiles that is the problem :D

"for dummies" workflow for photolabs:
Don't color manage anything. Stay on default/ or auto for everything.
Everything about the jpegs that come out of the cameras are as good as it gets for photolabs.

You still need to have good exposure and white balance.
but if you start playing around with different color spaces, like adobe RGB, cmyk, and at any point in your workflow and profiles somehow got a conflict, or not able to go back to the original sRGB color profile. you really risk being dissapointed. Even if you shot raw and didn't convert it properly, you risk not doing the conversion properly.

In my humble opinion, for 1 hour labs, No color management would be better than wrong color management. You'll be surprised how No color mangement method achieve 95% very good results. Like Jo said, just befriend the photolab printer and you'll be happy most of the time.

If you're not planning to manage everything, and that goes to the very small details including printing on a profiled monitor, printer, paper, it's better not to start color managing at all. The improvements would be small. Do it WRONGLY and the disadvantages would be far more obvious.