How best to preview before using a printing service?

[smorgasbord]

Subject pretty much says it all.

I have a few photos that I believe are good enough to print fairly large. But color spaces for printing can be a tangled web to sort. What do people here do? For something large and expensive, I was thinking of taking a crop of the photo and getting that printed the exact way I would, except as a small size, like 4x6, or something affordable. Then maybe tweak and reprint?

I don't have a fancy monitor anymore, just on a Mac laptop right now with a cheap Canon ink jet printer.

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

Subject pretty much says it all.

I have a few photos that I believe are good enough to print fairly large. But color spaces for printing can be a tangled web to sort. What do people here do? For something large and expensive, I was thinking of taking a crop of the photo and getting that printed the exact way I would, except as a small size, like 4x6, or something affordable. Then maybe tweak and reprint?

I don't have a fancy monitor anymore, just on a Mac laptop right now with a cheap Canon ink jet printer.

Short answer

IMO instead of getting a 4x6" print of a small crop, maybe get like an 11x14" print of the full image, from the same service, on the same paper, etc. Unless and until you check and report what the service you intend to use accepts, it's premature to discuss sRGB versus Adobe RGB versus other color spaces; and/or JPEG versus 8-bit TIFF versus 16-bit TIFF.

Full answer

Alas, what you in particular can realistically do will not get anywhere close to the best way to preview before using a printing service.

The best way to preview before using a printing service is to use one sophisticated enough to let you:

(1) download an ICC printing profile for the specific one of their printer + inks + driver settings + paper combinations that they will use to print your photo;

(2) use it to soft-proof your photo on your calibrated and profiled monitor;

(3) with that, pick the rendering intent of your choice, and black point compensation or not, based on what you think looks best, and maybe even tweak your photo to get the most out of what the print can actually show;

(4) perform a convert-to-profile with those chosen settings; and

(5) send the service your file encoded in their ICC printing profile, and tell them 'no corrections'.

Historically laptops have had quite mediocre screens, although that has changed somewhat for the better in recent years, and maybe your Mac laptop has a serviceably-good one. Historically most monitors came far from 'correctly' set, although that has changed somewhat for the better in recent years, and maybe your Mac laptop will be pretty close even without being calibrated and profiled.

IMO the problem with a small crop is that it isn't good for judging much besides detail, sharpness, and noise in that part of the image. It's not often good for judging overall color balance, contrast, etc.

 

[Dan Berg]

The easiest way to do it is send me the image on my free uploader and let me look at it. I can tell very quickly the quality and how it will print. Not sure it is really necessary to go through all that proofing unless it is a large print. (over 24x36) What paper and size are you looking for? I look at hundreds and hundreds of images and can tell pretty quickly how it will print out.

Go to uploader page and attach image.

www.bergsprintstudio.com

--
Dan Berg
http://bergsprintstudio.com/workshops/
Printmaking and Photo Mounting Workshops

 

[smorgasbord]

Subject pretty much says it all.

I have a few photos that I believe are good enough to print fairly large. But color spaces for printing can be a tangled web to sort. What do people here do? For something large and expensive, I was thinking of taking a crop of the photo and getting that printed the exact way I would, except as a small size, like 4x6, or something affordable. Then maybe tweak and reprint?

I don't have a fancy monitor anymore, just on a Mac laptop right now with a cheap Canon ink jet printer.

Short answer

IMO instead of getting a 4x6" print of a small crop, maybe get like an 11x14" print of the full image, from the same service, on the same paper, etc. Unless and until you check and report what the service you intend to use accepts, it's premature to discuss sRGB versus Adobe RGB versus other color spaces; and/or JPEG versus 8-bit TIFF versus 16-bit TIFF.

My first choice, since it's local to me (I can drive to pick up prints) is Bay Photo in Scotts Valley, CA. However, I've read good things about Nevada Art Printers for their Lumachrome. I shoot RAW in Adobe RGB and have Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photolab Elite.

My MBP is the last of the Intel chip models, 16" screen. 2019. I do have a circa 2018 iMac Pro that also has an external monitor that was supposedly pretty decent at the time. And I do have color calibration device, but it's like 2015 vintage and don't know if the software still works.

Good point on the 4x6 depending on the crop. If I did something larger for a proof, I'd actually split the image so that it was full as you suggested, but had an insert crop. That, of course, makes it non-useful on its own, but I've seen issues with full-size versus scale downs in the past.

I plan on easing into this slowly. Thanks.

 

[smorgasbord]

The easiest way to do it is send me the image on my free uploader and let me look at it.

Thanks!

I'll take you up on that, but it'll be a few weeks before I get my shots together.