Topic: Photo printer help

[stirinthesauce]

just wanted to update this.  I've decided, once again, to outsource my prints.  I want to publicly thank phanophish for the mpix recommendation and for the pantone huey recommendation.  I have finally recieved prints that I am truely happy with.  I was very anxious with opening the mail tonight as I was hoping for a decent pics.  They turned out perfect!  Extremely pleased.  Still yet to have checked with white house custom, I have to send in some test images so I will be doing that soon. 

Thanks phanophish for the excellent recommendations!   

+t

When you say perfect, does that mean the prints look exactly like, or very close to, what you see on your screen?  With my my photo printer I always have to do some additional tweaking after the first print.  Maintaining a consistent color-space from shooting to printing is a bigger challenge than I expected.

Exactly like what I see on my screen, except for more detail in the prints than on the screen (I'm on a 19" LCD).  The Pantone Huey really helps.  I noticed an instant difference.  My pics, which used to look correct, were then proven to be a bit overexposed (I boosted the brightness) and color and contrast off just a bit.  So I went back and re-edited and then sent it. 

I checked the no color correction box when I ordered since my pics were color corrected by me.

[phanophish]

just wanted to update this.  I've decided, once again, to outsource my prints.  I want to publicly thank phanophish for the mpix recommendation and for the pantone huey recommendation.  I have finally recieved prints that I am truely happy with.  I was very anxious with opening the mail tonight as I was hoping for a decent pics.  They turned out perfect!  Extremely pleased.  Still yet to have checked with white house custom, I have to send in some test images so I will be doing that soon. 

Thanks phanophish for the excellent recommendations!   

+t

No probelm, glad you liked them as much as I do.  MPix and WHCC are both about equal for print quality.  Where WHCC is nice is for larger orders and more professional types of output such as press printed books, large volume proofs and that type of thing.  Their interface/ordering system is much less consumer oriented than MPix which can be nice at times and frustrating at others.  For me the choice between the two is less one of price/quality than of workflow/process.  The reason WHCC does the test images is so you can compare color accuracy.  Nice touch in my opinion.  You can't go wrong either way though.

[phanophish]

just wanted to update this.  I've decided, once again, to outsource my prints.  I want to publicly thank phanophish for the mpix recommendation and for the pantone huey recommendation.  I have finally recieved prints that I am truely happy with.  I was very anxious with opening the mail tonight as I was hoping for a decent pics.  They turned out perfect!  Extremely pleased.  Still yet to have checked with white house custom, I have to send in some test images so I will be doing that soon. 

Thanks phanophish for the excellent recommendations!   

+t

When you say perfect, does that mean the prints look exactly like, or very close to, what you see on your screen?  With my my photo printer I always have to do some additional tweaking after the first print.  Maintaining a consistent color-space from shooting to printing is a bigger challenge than I expected.

Maintaing accurate color is tough.  It's whe real reason I gave up on trying to print myself.  If you get a Huey (or other monitor calibration tool) it allows you to just get it "right" on screen and print, no trying to guess at the correction for a good print.  Saves a ton of time and ultimately $$ that you don't waste on reprints.