Photographic prints from your digital files

Preparing files in Photoshop: Starting and Finishing

Color balance

Choosing a digital camera

Tradeoffs between using Photoshop (or other editing software) and on-line editing

Stitching images together to increase the pixel count and/or the field of view.

Tradeoffs between high quality ink jet (the kind we use) and traditional photography

Color Balance

Until the last few years, there was a lot of variation in monitors and in video cards.  As a result, monitors usually needed to be calibrated.  Unfortunately, the calibration programs sometimes did more harm than good.

Today, there is great consistency between CRT monitors and between video boards.  New equipment (with the possible exception of plasma displays), at nominal settings, will usually show color quite accurately.

If a new monitor is "calibrated", it is unlikely it will be more accurate after the calibration step.  Although this would not have been true even a year or two ago, the most reliable color is usually obtained from new equipment operated at default or nominal settings.

 In evaluating color, it is difficult to compare what one sees on a CRT (a transmissive device, using red, green, and blue emitters) and a print (a reflective object, using yellow, magenta, cyan, and black inks).  The colors seen in the print may vary considerably, depending on room illumination.

Please keep in mind that if you decide to adjust your monitor to make your files look good, you haven't changed the files -- only the way they look on your monitor.  Our prints are based on your files, not on your monitor.

We've found that nearly all digital cameras, with well-illuminated subjects, without any subsequent editing, produce color which looks good.  

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for flatbed scanners or slide scanners.  We've found that most flatbed scanners which are sold do not have good color.  One of the common problems is that the glass on a scanner reflects quite a bit (an unpredictable amount) of light, so the scanner has difficulty differentiating between dark gray and black.  Worse yet, any fingerprints or dust on the glass will show up conspicuously for the darker colors.  Most scanners handle this problem by simply making anything that is darker than a dark gray show up as black (red = 0, green = 0, blue = 0).  This hides

 the fingerprints, the dust, and the reflection off of the glass, which usually varies from place to place.  Unfortunately, you probably don't want to lose most or all of your shadow detail.

Another problem with flatbed scanners is that the illumination is not uniform.  A perfectly uniform white piece of paper will show up on the scanner lighter in some places than others, simply because the lamp and associated optics are not perfect.  The scanner manufacturer doesn't want to get complaints that white backgrounds show up differently from place to place, so the scanner makes anything lighter than a very light gray show up as white (red = 100%, green = 100%, blue = 100%).  Unfortunately, you probably don't want to lose most or all of your highlight detail.

Slide scanners have similar problems, the result being that getting good results is often difficult.

The bottom line:  it is best if you can do one of the following: 

• Use a digital camera, and avoid the need to use a flatbed scanner or slide scanner, or

• Purchase professional equipment (a good flatbed scanner may cost more than $2,000), or

• Get a good drum scan from an imaging service bureau.

This relates to getting good artwork in the first place.  What about editing?  The first piece of information you need is whether your monitor will predict accurately what you will get from our printer.  We recommend that you obtain from us a Free Sample.  One of the prints you will get contains the image below.  If this image looks very much like the sample you've received, expect other prints you order to look like what you've seen on your monitor.  If not, you might consider adjusting your files to reflect the differences.  Note the differences in color, lightness, and contrast between the image below and the print, and try to edit your photos to have the same tendencies.