Can't get good results with my D70

dwhockey said:

I printed a bunch of shots today that I thought were good until I
saw them on paper. They are awful. The shots from my old Oly P&S
that were printed in this batch look great, and the D70 shots all
look subpar, at best. They are generally washed out looking and
some have a ridiculous green cast. I'm shooting almost entirely in
RAW. In-camera setting vary, but I generally use Fotogenic P&S
curve, Hue -3, Saturation enhanced, sharpening +1. I thought this
sat/hue combination was supposed to produce vibrant colors without
a green cast. I've done some shots with everything set to the
defaults, and they generally look poor to me, and I'm no PP wizard,
so I lean toward the above settings. I preset white balance with a
gray card and if I have time, I'll pop off a few test shots,
observe the histogram and highlights preview, and adjust aperature,
shutter speed, ISO, EV, or a combination of these to push the
histogram as far to the right as possible without blowing
highlights.

I'm fairly sure my monitor is misleading me greatly, even after I
used Gamma to calibrate it. The folks at the camera store told me
to load a Fuji Frontier profile, but I can't find it on the web.
I've looked into a hardware calibration solution but don't know
much about them yet. I work in a room lighted with standard
incandescant bulbs.

I've been basing my output on the histogram, mostly, making sure
that I have it spread over as much of the X-axis as possible, and
using the NC features to watch for blown highlights and/or shadows
(can this be done in PS? How?). I sometimes use the sliders under
curves in NC to adjust, too, depending on what I can/cannot do with
adjusting EV. Before I left the house today, I was experimenting
with D-Lighting, which seemed to make the shots look better rather
than worse (I thought this feature was largely useless before I
upgraded to a new computer with a larger monitor and more RAM). I
noticed the histograms were mounded higher through the middle of
the X-axis, which I would suppose = a better shot with more
midrange - no? Once I am done here, I save as a jpg and move to
PS7.

In PS7, I usually just do Fotogenic's autoflow after cropping or
other minor tweaks because I don't trust my monitor. I did a
couple shots (that I'll post later when I get home) by setting the
levels myself and these are the two that look particularly horrid -
and I need to get them looking good, because they're wonderful
shots that I'd like to frame for myself and send to my family.

I realize you probably won't have much advice for me until I get
the pictures posted, but I felt like getting this thread started
now. I've been largely following Blake Haber's website
( http://members.aol.com/bhaber/D70/p...ng/process.html ) as a
starting point for my NC and PS workflow. Perhaps someone will be
able to point out an obvious flaw in my technique as I've described
it that I'm unaware of.

Thanks in advance for any tips/suggestions!

--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

dwhockey said:

I printed a bunch of shots today that I thought were good until I
saw them on paper. They are awful. The shots from my old Oly P&S
that were printed in this batch look great, and the D70 shots all
look subpar, at best. They are generally washed out looking and
some have a ridiculous green cast. I'm shooting almost entirely in
RAW. In-camera setting vary, but I generally use Fotogenic P&S
curve, Hue -3, Saturation enhanced, sharpening +1. I thought this
sat/hue combination was supposed to produce vibrant colors without
a green cast. I've done some shots with everything set to the
defaults, and they generally look poor to me, and I'm no PP wizard,
so I lean toward the above settings. I preset white balance with a
gray card and if I have time, I'll pop off a few test shots,
observe the histogram and highlights preview, and adjust aperature,
shutter speed, ISO, EV, or a combination of these to push the
histogram as far to the right as possible without blowing
highlights.

I'm fairly sure my monitor is misleading me greatly, even after I
used Gamma to calibrate it. The folks at the camera store told me
to load a Fuji Frontier profile, but I can't find it on the web.
I've looked into a hardware calibration solution but don't know
much about them yet. I work in a room lighted with standard
incandescant bulbs.

I've been basing my output on the histogram, mostly, making sure
that I have it spread over as much of the X-axis as possible, and
using the NC features to watch for blown highlights and/or shadows
(can this be done in PS? How?). I sometimes use the sliders under
curves in NC to adjust, too, depending on what I can/cannot do with
adjusting EV. Before I left the house today, I was experimenting
with D-Lighting, which seemed to make the shots look better rather
than worse (I thought this feature was largely useless before I
upgraded to a new computer with a larger monitor and more RAM). I
noticed the histograms were mounded higher through the middle of
the X-axis, which I would suppose = a better shot with more
midrange - no? Once I am done here, I save as a jpg and move to
PS7.

In PS7, I usually just do Fotogenic's autoflow after cropping or
other minor tweaks because I don't trust my monitor. I did a
couple shots (that I'll post later when I get home) by setting the
levels myself and these are the two that look particularly horrid -
and I need to get them looking good, because they're wonderful
shots that I'd like to frame for myself and send to my family.

I realize you probably won't have much advice for me until I get
the pictures posted, but I felt like getting this thread started
now. I've been largely following Blake Haber's website
( http://members.aol.com/bhaber/D70/p...ng/process.html ) as a
starting point for my NC and PS workflow. Perhaps someone will be
able to point out an obvious flaw in my technique as I've described
it that I'm unaware of.

Thanks in advance for any tips/suggestions!

--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

Jd3 said:

DW:

anyway, post some photos (and let us know about rgb vs srgb) and
we'll go from there....
best,
Jd3

Click to expand...

Robert Peters said:

EXIF?

If you want a generic Fuji Frontier profile go to
drycreekphoto.com. The Fuji Frontier will accept anything you
throw at it. All it cares about is the numbers in the file. You
will get better results if you "Convert to Profile..." using the
Frontier profile before having the images printed.

Click to expand...

Robert Peters said:

In what color space are your images when you have them printed?

Click to expand...

dwhockey said:

I printed a bunch of shots today that I thought were good until I
saw them on paper. They are awful. The shots from my old Oly P&S
that were printed in this batch look great, and the D70 shots all
look subpar, at best. They are generally washed out looking and
some have a ridiculous green cast. I'm shooting almost entirely in
RAW. In-camera setting vary, but I generally use Fotogenic P&S
curve, Hue -3, Saturation enhanced, sharpening +1. I thought this
sat/hue combination was supposed to produce vibrant colors without
a green cast. I've done some shots with everything set to the
defaults, and they generally look poor to me, and I'm no PP wizard,
so I lean toward the above settings. I preset white balance with a
gray card and if I have time, I'll pop off a few test shots,
observe the histogram and highlights preview, and adjust aperature,
shutter speed, ISO, EV, or a combination of these to push the
histogram as far to the right as possible without blowing
highlights.

I'm fairly sure my monitor is misleading me greatly, even after I
used Gamma to calibrate it. The folks at the camera store told me
to load a Fuji Frontier profile, but I can't find it on the web.
I've looked into a hardware calibration solution but don't know
much about them yet. I work in a room lighted with standard
incandescant bulbs.

I've been basing my output on the histogram, mostly, making sure
that I have it spread over as much of the X-axis as possible, and
using the NC features to watch for blown highlights and/or shadows
(can this be done in PS? How?). I sometimes use the sliders under
curves in NC to adjust, too, depending on what I can/cannot do with
adjusting EV. Before I left the house today, I was experimenting
with D-Lighting, which seemed to make the shots look better rather
than worse (I thought this feature was largely useless before I
upgraded to a new computer with a larger monitor and more RAM). I
noticed the histograms were mounded higher through the middle of
the X-axis, which I would suppose = a better shot with more
midrange - no? Once I am done here, I save as a jpg and move to
PS7.

In PS7, I usually just do Fotogenic's autoflow after cropping or
other minor tweaks because I don't trust my monitor. I did a
couple shots (that I'll post later when I get home) by setting the
levels myself and these are the two that look particularly horrid -
and I need to get them looking good, because they're wonderful
shots that I'd like to frame for myself and send to my family.

I realize you probably won't have much advice for me until I get
the pictures posted, but I felt like getting this thread started
now. I've been largely following Blake Haber's website
( http://members.aol.com/bhaber/D70/p...ng/process.html ) as a
starting point for my NC and PS workflow. Perhaps someone will be
able to point out an obvious flaw in my technique as I've described
it that I'm unaware of.

Thanks in advance for any tips/suggestions!

--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

dwhockey said:

Robert Peters said:

EXIF?

If you want a generic Fuji Frontier profile go to
drycreekphoto.com. The Fuji Frontier will accept anything you
throw at it. All it cares about is the numbers in the file. You
will get better results if you "Convert to Profile..." using the
Frontier profile before having the images printed.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll look there.

dwhockey said:

In what color space are your images when you have them printed?

Click to expand...

I forgot to mention this in the original post - I've been using
AdobeRGB.
--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

dwhockey said:

These have both been post processed a good deal. I used Fotogenic
"save for web" to make the smaller sizes you see here.

Now that I'm finally home and comparing my monitor to the prints
(which were done at the camera shop in their $billion Fuji
machine), I can confidently say that my monitor is WAAAYYYY off.
The farmer boy picture looks fine on my monitor and atrocious on
the print. Since I've already tweaked the Dell 1702FP driver with
Gamma, I'm not sure where to go next to resolve this issue, short
of buying another monitor.

One thing that seemed to help (but just doesn't seem right) was
when I turned the monitor resolution down ALL THE WAY, the monitor
gets fairly close to the print.

I'd post the EXIF, but it seems that ViewEXIF will not allow me to
copy/paste.
--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

dwhockey said:

--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

dwhockey said:

I printed a bunch of shots today that I thought were good until I
saw them on paper. They are awful. The shots from my old Oly P&S
that were printed in this batch look great, and the D70 shots all
look subpar, at best. They are generally washed out looking and
some have a ridiculous green cast. I'm shooting almost entirely in
RAW. In-camera setting vary, but I generally use Fotogenic P&S
curve, Hue -3, Saturation enhanced, sharpening +1. I thought this
sat/hue combination was supposed to produce vibrant colors without
a green cast. I've done some shots with everything set to the
defaults, and they generally look poor to me, and I'm no PP wizard,
so I lean toward the above settings. I preset white balance with a
gray card and if I have time, I'll pop off a few test shots,
observe the histogram and highlights preview, and adjust aperature,
shutter speed, ISO, EV, or a combination of these to push the
histogram as far to the right as possible without blowing
highlights.

I'm fairly sure my monitor is misleading me greatly, even after I
used Gamma to calibrate it. The folks at the camera store told me
to load a Fuji Frontier profile, but I can't find it on the web.
I've looked into a hardware calibration solution but don't know
much about them yet. I work in a room lighted with standard
incandescant bulbs.

I've been basing my output on the histogram, mostly, making sure
that I have it spread over as much of the X-axis as possible, and
using the NC features to watch for blown highlights and/or shadows
(can this be done in PS? How?). I sometimes use the sliders under
curves in NC to adjust, too, depending on what I can/cannot do with
adjusting EV. Before I left the house today, I was experimenting
with D-Lighting, which seemed to make the shots look better rather
than worse (I thought this feature was largely useless before I
upgraded to a new computer with a larger monitor and more RAM). I
noticed the histograms were mounded higher through the middle of
the X-axis, which I would suppose = a better shot with more
midrange - no? Once I am done here, I save as a jpg and move to
PS7.

In PS7, I usually just do Fotogenic's autoflow after cropping or
other minor tweaks because I don't trust my monitor. I did a
couple shots (that I'll post later when I get home) by setting the
levels myself and these are the two that look particularly horrid -
and I need to get them looking good, because they're wonderful
shots that I'd like to frame for myself and send to my family.

I realize you probably won't have much advice for me until I get
the pictures posted, but I felt like getting this thread started
now. I've been largely following Blake Haber's website
( http://members.aol.com/bhaber/D70/p...ng/process.html ) as a
starting point for my NC and PS workflow. Perhaps someone will be
able to point out an obvious flaw in my technique as I've described
it that I'm unaware of.

Thanks in advance for any tips/suggestions!

--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

papabear2 said:

goodmorning,

I feel your pain, and the tips from the other guys should be
pouring in soon.

I had similar problem, not as bad, so found a David Chin check list
and went through it,

first turn off in-camera sharpening, it sharpens your noise

put saturation back to normal,

white balance -3 auto

shoot either in program or aperture priority

keep it simple, start again, and read the manual re menus

P. Bear

Click to expand...

dwhockey said:

These have both been post processed a good deal. I used Fotogenic
"save for web" to make the smaller sizes you see here.

Now that I'm finally home and comparing my monitor to the prints
(which were done at the camera shop in their $billion Fuji
machine), I can confidently say that my monitor is WAAAYYYY off.
The farmer boy picture looks fine on my monitor and atrocious on
the print. Since I've already tweaked the Dell 1702FP driver with
Gamma, I'm not sure where to go next to resolve this issue, short
of buying another monitor.

One thing that seemed to help (but just doesn't seem right) was
when I turned the monitor resolution down ALL THE WAY, the monitor
gets fairly close to the print.

I'd post the EXIF, but it seems that ViewEXIF will not allow me to
copy/paste.
--
Dave
Iowa

Click to expand...

Tony Hodges said:

There is nothing wrong with those images color-wise that I can see.
Try printing them elsewhere like Shutterfly but make sure you turn
off vivi-print.

Hint: Take one of the bad prints and adjust your monitor to match
it. Then correct the image so it looks good and try it again.

I set my monitor according to what lab I'm using and I get pretty
decent results.

Good Luck!
Tony

Click to expand...

ianR said:

Yes, as others have said, if you are using AdobeRGB they need to
know that. They will look very dull and green in AdobeRGB if the monitor or
printing device is expecting sRGB
Is your monitor profile based on AdobeRGB? If it is they should
look ok on your monitor but if it's based on the Dell profile you
mentioned, it will be based on sRGB and that won't be helping you
at all.

Click to expand...

ReedW said:

I've had the same problem with several photofinishers. I had 20
images printed at a local Wolf Camera and (oddly) about 1/3 of them
came out green. They couldn't explain it so they called their tech
folks and the only thing they could say was to save the files as
sRGB as their printer couldn't seem to handle the aRGB embedded in
the file. The odd thing was that some of the images did print OK,
yet all were aRGB.

Also had the same thing happen with a Fuji printer at a WalMart,
except that every print was green.

I'd agree with the others that said save them as sRGB before having
them printed, unless you're doing it yourself and know how to make
it work with your equipment.

Click to expand...