Curse Digital Photo Printers

(not home printers, but places which develop film and normally will do prints from JPEG too)

CURSE YOU ALL.

I've a Canon EOS-300D, and that by default writes JPEG files using the "Adobe RGB" colour space. I don't know what the differences are, but Canon recommend Adobe RGB so Adobe RGB I use. However, when I take the files down to Jessops or Boots the prints are a little darker than I'd expect. On the basis that the developing staff in Jessops generally know something, I tried asking if their equipment handles the colour space specified in the JPEGs correct, and they don't know. They also don't know what colour space the equipment is working in. I'm not even going to bother asking in Boots, and I tried asking dlab7.co.uk to get this wonderful response:

Rgb images are best suited to our printers. We do not offer any colour management of your images. However I can suggest sending us some un 'touched' files for printing and colour match your computer to the prints produced by us.

So I've got to send RGB images, which is fair enough. I can't think of any digital cameras which take in CMYK, but I could have produced a CMYK file in Photoshop I guess. Tthey don't do colour matching, so I should send them a photo and then calibrate my monitor to match it, and then edit every image I want to get printed so that it comes out correct. Sigh.

So, does anyone know of a decent (and not expensive) British photo company which actually knows what a colour space is, and will convert the images if required? Of course if someone who actually knows these things can tell me that the machines all use sRGB, I'd switch straight away.

Update: I've done some research, and am not switching to sRGB. Ever.

NP: Best Of, Otis Redding

16:55 Tuesday, 26 Apr 2005 [#] [life] (4 comments)

Posted by Alberto at Tue Apr 26 21:59:05 2005:
Have a look at this "How To" by Mr. Petteri; there's a good overview of the problem.

http://194.100.88.243/petteri/pont/How_to/o_Color_Management/_Color_management.html
Posted by James Green at Wed Apr 27 02:41:31 2005:
I can't say for certain that they're experts on colour spaces, but Fotoserve.com seem to be pretty clueful, and have produced good results for everyone  I know who has dealt with them in the past. Could be worth talking to them, at least...
Posted by Paul Cooper at Wed Apr 27 17:34:43 2005:
I'm not sure if this is what you're after but www.photobox.co.uk have a calibration image and colour profiles for their printers on the website.
Posted by Ross at Wed Apr 27 17:36:15 2005:
I've been chatting today to Andy at Fotoserve, who actually have a clue about photography, and put an order in this afternoon.  I'll get the pictures tomorrow hopefully and will blog again then.

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