Calibrating monitor and printing photos

[KenRC51]

I just printed some photo from costco that I ordered online through the website. On my monitor the colors looks great but when I got the pictures it was a little bit darker and colors are not as vivid as my monitor.

What would you suggest for me to do to get these color and lighting correct?
Do I need to get a monitor calibrator like Spyder 3? and a gray card for my camera?

[BCampbell]

A calibration tool will get you 99% of the way there. Don't worry about grey cards yet, that's for your white balance. The Spider and Huey have good solutions in the $100 range.

If you want to try a 90% solution that's free, you can adjust your monitor based on the prints you made. Usually the main issues are brightness and contrast, so adjust your monitor until the pictures look like your prints. This isn't a real solution but it's usually good enough for most of us, and if you're using a consumer-level flat panel any difference is pretty much academic.

[KenRC51]

Originally Posted by BCampbell

A calibration tool will get you 99% of the way there. Don't worry about grey cards yet, that's for your white balance. The Spider and Huey have good solutions in the $100 range.

If you want to try a 90% solution that's free, you can adjust your monitor based on the prints you made. Usually the main issues are brightness and contrast, so adjust your monitor until the pictures look like your prints. This isn't a real solution but it's usually good enough for most of us, and if you're using a consumer-level flat panel any difference is pretty much academic.

I was thinking about adjusting my monitor until it match my picture. I like the idea of the Spyder 2 better so I went ahead and just ordered a Spyder3 pro.

Thanks for the advice.

[vegepunkstr]

I wouldn't adjust my monitor compared to pictures printed at Costco. I would do it compared to pictures printed at a pro lab if you wanted to do it that way. I have never had pictures printed at costco but I do know that at places like walmart or walgreens the picture quality from place to place can differ greatly and their printers aren't always calibrated correctly or often enough. But I think going with the spyder was the best choice!

[KenRC51]

Originally Posted by vegepunkstr

I wouldn't adjust my monitor compared to pictures printed at Costco. I would do it compared to pictures printed at a pro lab if you wanted to do it that way. I have never had pictures printed at costco but I do know that at places like walmart or walgreens the picture quality from place to place can differ greatly and their printers aren't always calibrated correctly or often enough. But I think going with the spyder was the best choice!

You know, after you mentioned that I remmeber that I had printed pictures from shutterfly before and my pictures did not turn out as dark as it did from costco.

Would you think shutterfly would be considered a lab? I was happy with the results from my printes from shutterfly. This was my frist time using costco because I need the pictures for my projects and couldn't wait for shipping.

[BCampbell]

Vegepunkstr has a point. I'm always a fan of finding a local and locally owned lab, with real staff you can walk in and talk to.

The best place to start is finding out if a service supports ICC profiles -- this is a sort of across the board standard (and a baseline your Spyder will be calibrating your monitor for). I poked around shutterfly and found this, hopefully this link works.