I think this may have been addressed peripherally a while back but I have a question about getting accurate prints from printing houses, in my case, Pictopia. I downloaded their ICC profile and when I proof my pictures in Photoshop with it, much of the brightness in the highlights (especially in the magenta region) goes away and the picture looks dull. I realize there are differences in how you view something on a monitor (in effect, projected light) and on paper (in effect, reflected light) but my question for you is this: Do any of you bother with further image editing once you proof the photo using their ICC profile?
Thanks,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Since the print is a reflective media, it won't look as punchy as it does on your monitor, and when you proof it with the Pictopia profile, it's showing what you'll get. I think that's really cool.
I DO make changes after proofing a photo, sometimes bring up saturation and brightness/contrast so that the print will look like what the photo looks like on my computer. You may also see that the sunball will look even worse when you Proof, so keep that in mind and try to correct it.
Cheers
James
Having seen that the profiled monitor and softproofing with the Pictopica profile did indeed give me an accurate representation of the print, I have taken to adjusting the verison that goes to Pictopia based on the soft-proof. The resulting file often looks horrible if subsequently viewed in an environment that is not colour managed, but the prints look good.
