Help with printing please

[bebebabe702]

Hi all im new to the sight and i need help bad!.
ok so heres my problem: i have a sony a100 and a cannon when i take any picture it looks great on the camera and on the computer but when i print it at any lab like cost co walgreens cvs etc what i see on my screen is not what prints up , i also use photoshop cs4 and even got printer profiles for cost co but it still doesnt print exact. what am i doing wrong??? how can my pics print like whats on my screen??

[Anbesol]

You don't need profiles for costco, just stick with sRGB.

[Medley]

how can my pics print like whats on my screen??

The question is incorrect. The correct question is "How can I get my screen to display what the printer prints?"

Google "monitor profiling" and you'll be on your way.

- Joe U.

[Spjak]

Hi,

Have you tried taking your pictures to a camera store with a photo lab?
I'm not sure what is available in your area? In Ohio, there is a Dodd Camera and Vans Photo near me.
Both of these locations have photo technicians that can work with you and your picture files to help get the results you are looking for.

[freygr]

Do you have a personal color printer? Does the output of the printer match your display? If you don't, does a friend have a printer you can print a sample on? So your can check the color on your display?

If the check prints of the color printer match your computer display, then the Walgreens, CVS,or Costco photo printer has the the auto color correction enabled. and when the image is lacking the default elements the software looks for, the color balance gets very strange!

[bebebabe702]

thank you all for the help ,
I already have my camera set to sRGB, and tried printing with just the sRGB printing yikes it did not come out well lol but I will look at it again.

I will also try the google monitor profiling - thank you

I tried to find actual photo labs but all the old ones I went to in Vegas are no longer in business I so wish I could find one

I dont have a personal working printer lol but I do have a friend that has one didnt even think about it thank you, and I always take the auto correct off , with it on its just really not good haha,

I just know im doing something wrong lol , I used to work for a photographer out here and the screen always matched what we printed either on the personal printer or costco.

Really thank you all for the help , I cant wait to try some of these maybe I wont have to pull my hair out after all lol

[Anbesol]

Excuse me, srgb was based on the assumption you were using a windows setup. If you are using mac, AdobeRGB is the default colorspace, on Windows its srgb. This is particularly important when printing from photoshop. I had to juggle this when jumping from a windows to mac workspace, I ended up just sticking to the original raw and converting again to adobergb.

When I print AdobeRGB on windows, it will always look faded and muted.

[Photo-John]

The key thing here is that your monitor needs to be correctly profiled or you aren't really seeing what your images look like. You can't ever trust the LCD on your camera and you can't trust your computer monitor unless it's been properly calibrated. If you've edited your photos on the computer and your monitor isn't calibrated then you may have made a mess of the color and levels. The first step to predictable, accurate color is proper monitor calibration. The best way to get that done is to buy a color management package with hardware and software. once you have that done, then you can be confident that the problem isn't on your end.

[Lori11]

Also if you are editing on a laptop make sure your screen is not tilted to far back (I know it sounds silly) I had the same problem, every thing was calibrated correctly and yet printing was "off".