Costco printing/monitor calibration

[ahcappella]

I am told Costco does a nice job of printing. My problem is when I receive my prints the color is all wrong. Greenish faces, bad stuff. They recommended I go to a site called Dry Creek Photo to calibrate my monitor. It is terribly confusing and I'm stuck. I'd like to have a photo book made for my daughter for a Christmas gift and really need to get going on the project. Dry Creek does not offer a phone number, only email. Can anyone help me with this dilemma? Thanks, Susan

 

[Guillermo Shashte]

Open the Control Panel on your Windows 7 machine and select color management.

Click the "Understanding Color Management" link to get a basic color management overview.

If you have not calibrated your monitor the manufacturer probably has a usable monitor profile that you can install.

You can use the "Calibrate Display" option on the Color Management Advanced Tab to learn about monitor calibration and to calibrate your monitor.

In your image editor make sure that you are setting the white balance correctly.

When you prepare your file sfor printing make sure that the files are using sRGB color Space.

Avoid using your image editor to change colors (except for white balance) as this may create color problems when you print.

If you editor allows to preview your images with a printer profile you can download the printer profiles for your Costco store from Dry creek. As long as you are using sRGB as your color space and don't use editor tools such as hue/saturation you don't need to this.

--
GS

 

[LordOfThirds]

If you feel intimidated by the complexity of using Dry Creek profiles, it's a good
idea to first experiment with sRGB as the other poster suggested.

Once you are more comfortable with the process, you can try with the Dry Creek
profiles. To do that, you have to go to the site:

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/

and find out which profiles you local Costco uses. They usually have more than
printers for different printing jobs. You can talk to your local Costco photo
finishing guy to make sure you download the right printer profile(s) for your
needs.

Once you have downloaded the profile(s), you need to load it to the photos
you want to print by following the instructions here:

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/profiles.htm

Hope this helps.

I am told Costco does a nice job of printing. My problem is when I receive my prints the color is all wrong. Greenish faces, bad stuff. They recommended I go to a site called Dry Creek Photo to calibrate my monitor. It is terribly confusing and I'm stuck. I'd like to have a photo book made for my daughter for a Christmas gift and really need to get going on the project. Dry Creek does not offer a phone number, only email. Can anyone help me with this dilemma? Thanks, Susan

 

[mallen39]

To correct the geen cast --there is a section that asks whether you want glossy or luster-on thaty page -there is a place that you can turn off the auto correct --just click off --on auto correct --they add a green tint to all photos that do not have that auto correct clicked off--That should correct your problem ..

 

[PenPix]

Out of curiosity, did you edit the colours of the photos yourself before you took them in to Costco? If you did, you might want to try printing pictures directly from the memory card of the camera and see how they look.

There is not quite enough information to determine if it's your monitor, camera, or Costo that is out of balance…. but the monitor is usually the culprit.

 

[laurasan]

Actually, that's not true. I never have them autocorrect my images and still struggle with the green cast. I'm working on recalibrating and trying other options, but I wanted to post just in case others have tried this option and been frustrated. I took three families' (friends) pictures this fall, two in the same location at the same time of day. Many of one family's photos have this green cast, the other family's didn't. The family with the green cast is also wearing an olive green and navy color combination, I suspect a white balance problem. Between that and Costco's constant greenish tint it's been maddening! Thanks to those more experienced who take the time to comment and help out.

 

[mike earussi]

Actually, that's not true. I never have them autocorrect my images and still struggle with the green cast. I'm working on recalibrating and trying other options, but I wanted to post just in case others have tried this option and been frustrated. I took three families' (friends) pictures this fall, two in the same location at the same time of day. Many of one family's photos have this green cast, the other family's didn't. The family with the green cast is also wearing an olive green and navy color combination, I suspect a white balance problem. Between that and Costco's constant greenish tint it's been maddening! Thanks to those more experienced who take the time to comment and help out.

In order to get accurate color (that matches your monitor) from Costco you need to first color calibrate your monitor using at least a Color Munki, then download their ICC profile from Dry Creek, and finally make sure Costco's Auto Correct is turned off when you print.