I'm so disappointed in my printed pictures

[Essy]

I don't usually print many photos...just usually share them with family and friends on facebook and flickr. But I had a cousin's First Communion this past weekend and wanted to present her with some prints. I got them done at Costco because I had heard that they were supposed to be good. I had done Walgreens before and they had turned out way too dark. Unfortunately these weren't much better. What am I doing wrong? They look pretty good to me on my screen, but the colors are really off on print.

Here's an example (please don't mind the flash on her glasses...I still don't have that figured out)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/essy/57...in/photostream

Does the white shirt look white to you? It does to me in my monitor, but in the printed picture it doesn't.

[JFSanders]

It doesn't look bright white but it does show as a white. Has a blue cast.

Take your best file on a usb flash drive and go to a real camera shop with a print service. Tell them that the photo printed dark from the box store. They will probably have a tech that can work it over for you.

Jim

[teaking]

Is there anyway to post what the image looked like when printed so we can compare it to the original.

And is there any information about the file, did you take a jpg, was it in a specific colour space etc etc.

And have you any monitor calibration even if its manual using test images. For example if you hold a white sheet of paper in your working environment is the white in the picture the same brightness.

If its a recurring problem at different places it could be linked to the file your handing in.

[karen_s]

My first prints from digital were bad. They were dark and yellow.

First thing I did was alter my screen brightness (made it darker) and that seemed to help a great deal. I also got in the habit of using the histogram for each photo so I could see where the blacks and whites were clipping. This is hard data so I'm relying less on my monitor settings.

As far as the yellow cast, I calibrated my monitor by trial and error. (There are devices with software that will do it for you and are probably more accurate, but the eyeballing thing has worked well so far.) I took my first set of dark yellow prints, then matched my monitor to them. I then ordered another set of prints (from the same local lab) and they still weren't quite right so I tweaked my monitor settings again. By the third set of prints, I was getting pretty much what I wanted. My screen is dark with a yellow cast but I am happy with my prints.

There are other factors too. Teaking noted color space and that can most certainly be an issue. Another factor is the lab. I found a great local lab where I get consistent results. I now use them for all of my printing.

Just start pecking away at the variables and read up on color space and monitor calibration. It's not as hard as it sounds and you will eventually be getting prints you like.

[user4574]

I came across a similar issue this weekend. I took pictures of a communion. In the group shot in Photoshop CS5 everything looks fine. Looked at it on two separate computers and monitors, one a laptop and one a desktop. When I opened it in any other program the over-saturation of red was horrendous. When I printed them out everyone looked like they had undergone hours of spray tanning. I recalibrated the monitor and that helped some. But even when I over exposed the shot in Photoshop and bumped the brightness way up it still came out way too dark and orange.

[kirbinster]

It looks fine on my monitor which is calibrated. The white shirt looks just like the white background in Flickr. It could be a calibration issue, if you have this set for one profile and they color correct it could be the issue. I always check the box for them not to color correct as I know my colors are right.

[Essy]

Originally Posted by kirbinster

I always check the box for them not to color correct as I know my colors are right.

Yep...that is EXACTLY what the problem was. I disabled the auto correction option and perked up the brightness a bit more for the next batch I had printed and they look great now. Thanks everyone.

[ororockcrawler]

go to a print lab that has the option to not color correct the image, or auto correct them. I ran into this before, image looked way off when printed. Had it printed without the autocorrection and turned out very nice, you have to ask them not to autocorrect, just print whats on the card