You already got a lot of sound advice, but let me add something else based on my experience with minilabs:
1. The final print "appearance" depends on the light source aging and its calibration on a given moment, plus, the chemistry condition on a given moment, plus, the paper type the lab is using on a given moment.
These complex combination of factors, plus the fact that there are not two machines alike, (same brand, same model), makes custom profiles to be a very vague reference.
2. To check who is the best lab for you, look in the first place for a store owner or a minilab operator with a very strong customer service attitude.
Photofinishing is a cut-throat competitive business and the new breed of DSLR users is a new market segment that, though still amateur, is a lot more demanding than the regular snap-shooter they are used to.
3. Convert 10 to 15 of your NEF files to the highest quality JPEG, taking care to select conventional images. Meaning, not too hight contrast, very good exposure, most daylight and a few indoors with flash.
DO NOT MAKE ANY CORRECTION, just take the files as they came out from your D-70.
4. Take those files to as many minilab sites you have around. Ask them to turn off all corrections, INCLUDING sharpening.
5. Compare all the sets and choose the one that you like the most. Then,
use the prints in your choosen set to do a visual adjustment of you monitor.
6. Do all the processing you need to the original NEF files, save them as
highest quality JPEGs, and ALWAYS in the sRGB color space.
7. Take the files to the lab that printed the "best" set, and also give a second chance to the second "best". If either is able to keep a consistent quality along time, then you made a good choice.
Somebody mentioned that MLVA driven minilabs print more "photo look" prints. This is not exactly accurate as the print final look depends on the machine settings and a miriad of other factors.
I got excellent results from MLVA driven Noritsu minilabs series 27xx and 29xx with this print engine, but its technology is obsolete and these machine models are discontinued.
The newer machines use laser print engines and technically speaking, you cannot do anything better than this.
Photographic paper is the best printing media because of its continuous tone properties, and it's also the most unexpensive. To get the best results you'll need to do some shopping around and demand the quality you are looking for.
Today's minilabs, most well above a quarter of a million, are amazingly sophisticated and automated, but the final touch is quite a human factor thing.
Wish you good luck.
Steven
I am new at all this so any help would be great. I have bought Tom
Hogans book, Capture 4.1, ps cs, and Scott Kelby's book photoshop
cs for didital photographers. I am still confused by some of the
workflow. What I need to do is take my collection of D70 Photo's
(kids, vacation, soccer, etc) to the local Frontier for 4x6 prints.
I have about 300 pictures all shot in nef. What I am thinking of
doing is seting sharpening to medium high and running batch
processing. Also in the destination section of batch I am going to
save in a new folder as jpeg's. Is there any other overall setting
you would add to a large variety of pictures in capture. Is this a
decent methed to get the photo's on paper quick. my wife is
getting a tad upset as I read all my new material and she has
nothing to show family. Also since the Frontier is my final
destination is there any difference saving to jpeg vs tiff for a
4x6 print?
--
Steven, from Canada
