Monitor Calibration and Mpix

[Worm324]

I recently sent a bunch of pictures over Mpix for the first time.* In fact its the first time I sent pictures to a real print place!* I've only used Walmart and*Kodak before this and all I can say is WOW!!*

The pictures I got back blew me away!!* Such vivid color and contrast,* They actually look like the pictures on my monitor which has never happened before

I've been leaning towards buying a monitor calibrator for a while now and just haven't yet, but what I did do was calibrate my monitor based on your pictures * *I looked at several members pictures along with some photography magazines and calibrated my monitor based off that info. I then adjust my pictures and compared the colors/contrast to a couple of professionals on this board.* When the colors look good I'm done and my monitor is calibrated.

I know this is a half assed way of doing it and I plan on getting a calibrator eventually,* but in the mean time this method work Great for me !!* And I couldn't be happier with my prints.* I also checked the "do not color correct" option on Mpix's site to insure they didn't fix any color probems.

I got a few pictures printed on the metallic paper as well, because I've never seen it before. Basically if you don't know its like a high gloss pearl coat finish and its amazing!!!* I highly recommend getting a few to see for yourself

1 question I had was do you all adjust your pictures differently for print then for web?* color and contrast wise?* *

Thanks,
Jay

[Mr. Pickles]

Color and contrast? I don't. Some do sharpen them differently however.

[ohenry]

Sounds like you calibrated your monitor much like my wife calibrates the color on our TV....unfortunately, not to my eyes but hers.

The only thing that I do differently for print than I do for web display is the way that I sharpen. I use both a hardware calibrated and profiled monitor as well as a custom printer profile.

[Worm324]

Thanks for the replies

I was curious if you could explain the sharpening difference??

Thanks,

Jay

[Mr. Pickles]

I think some sharpen web images more than print images. The reason would be size, I guess. The smaller you make an image, the more it needs sharpened to look, well, sharp.

If you throw something like 150, 1 , 4 on a "full-size" image, and then shrink it for the web to 800 or 1024 on the long side, it will "lose" some sharpening. Yes, you can use Bicubic Sharpen when shrinking in PS, but it maintains the sharpen, more than enhances it.

So lots of people think you sharpen the image and save it as a full size. Then you resize the image, and apply some more sharpening.

If you have a one pixel "halo" around details when it is full size, and you resize it way down, the one pixel is gone pretty much (maybe it remains in spots?). So you want to sharpen some more to get back to some level of a halo....

make sense?

[Worm324]

I see what your saying Mr Pickles. That makes total sense. I actually never resharping after I make the file smaller for the web? Maybe I should consider that. Usually I just just get the full size as good as I can then resize (bi-cubic sharper) for the web. I'll have try resharpening after I resize next time to see if I can notice an improvement.

I was concerned that for print people were either not sharpening as much or over sharpening to compensate for ink or something

Thanks for the detailed explanation

Jay

[jfrancho]

Jay, take a look at the tail end of my work flow for some useful info on resizing and sharpening for the web: http://www.photocamel.com/index.php/topic,19170.0.html. As far as contrast changes, none. Though by sharpening after the resize, a little gets added, though at the edges and not to the overall image.

[Worm324]

Thanks Jfranco!!!* I'm going to go through the whole tutorial!!! The TRL sharpening tool looks really cool from a quick glance.

Jay