Colour Profile for sending to printer

zedbra

zedbra

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Geoff
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I'm about to give DSCL a go for some prints, and have found their ICC colour profile. After installing it and doing some research, it seems that Elements 4, that I use (and am stuck with for about another month) isn't capable of using any profile but Adobe RGB and sRGB.

In one place on the DSCL site it mentions that images must be provided either in sRGB on their own profile. So if sRGB is fine, why provide their own profile too? I want my prints to look as 'perfect' as possible of course, but I get the impression that sRGB is considered 'ok if you have no option'.

Any tips or info on this would be appreciated. :)
 
I first used them a while ago...and in the boredom of editing the photos, forgot to change some to their profiles, leaving them on sRGB....lo and behold, I couldn't tell which were which when I got the prints :)
 
purpleclouds said:
I first used them a while ago...and in the boredom of editing the photos, forgot to change some to their profiles, leaving them on sRGB....lo and behold, I couldn't tell which were which when I got the prints :)
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Well that's reassuring for me, thank you! :) It would be interesting to compare some prints that are exactly the same apart from the colour profile. There must be a difference because they even have separate profiles for Glossy and Lustre.
 
There probably is...send off a sample order maybe? A few different photos on different sizes/finishes??

Then again...maybe don't send one..I sent them 3 photos to be printed on 3 different sizes and finishes, and somehow got 2 of the photos back (one photo was repeated)...yet on the paper I had requested!

I didn't let that put me off though...and now have had 3 weddings and a couple of christenings printed with them, plus some studio work and no further hiccups :)
 
Just leave the shots in sRGB, the profile is most useful for proofing shots on screen.

Think about it for a second. You could convert the shots to the DSCL profile and upload them or upload them and let them convert at print time. What's the difference?
 
pxl8 said:
Just leave the shots in sRGB, the profile is most useful for proofing shots on screen.

Think about it for a second. You could convert the shots to the DSCL profile and upload them or upload them and let them convert at print time. What's the difference?
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They don't convert them at print time though, but ask that they are provided already converted.
 
Paul-H said:
Hi

If its a print profile then I would have thought its only for soft proofing.

Mind you I am probably wrong as I usually am
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Hi Paul. I'm honestly not sure what you mean by 'soft proofing'? I'm no expert on colour profiles at all. :) All I know is that on the website they say to use their own profiles.
 
zedbra said:
They don't convert them at print time though, but ask that they are provided already converted.
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From their website:

Here at DS COLOUR Labs Ltd we use Fuji Frontier 570 printers. All images should be supplied as SRGB or with our own profiles as JPEG files at 300 dpi and sized to the correct output size required.
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px18 - Yes thank you I read that on their site too. As I said though, they must provide their own profiles for a reason. Also, they provide different profiles depending on whether you want Gloss or Lustre. So therefore sRGB cannot be exactly the same as both of those.
 
If you send sRGB the printer converts using it's built in profiles. If you send their profile the printer doesn't manage the colours. Potentially their profile might show some slight differences from sRGB but unless their printer profile is way out from the baseline to start with I doubt most people would be able to spot it. If they're printing on fuji stock with the right inks the baseline profiles should right to start with.

The real benefit of the profile is being able to soft proof before sending the file off so you can check for colour shift, out of gamut colours, etc. But soft proof isn't perfect and you should still expect some differences between screen and print.
 
Px18 - That's very useful information, thank you for that. I've never had to worry about colour profiles before apart from calibrating my monitor. So I'm learning a bit about it now and will relax about using sRGB. I guess I'll know for sure when I see the prints. :)
 
Oakey and Simon - Ok that's good to hear, thanks. I'm in the process of tarting up some photos before sending off for prints and then will make the order. I'm very much looking forward to seeing them after all the positive comments I've heard about this company. :)
 
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