Photo print bad quality

Nikkon

Senior Member
When I upload a photo to make a print, something bad happens to the colours and brightness.

This is the original:
photo 1
syrian-goed.jpg

and this is how it looks when it is printed:
photo 2
syrian-slecht.jpg

It doesn't matter if I upload it as TIFF or JPG, a larger format or upload to a cheap photoservice or more professional one. I never had something like that before.

What goes wrong?
 
Last edited:

Pretzel

Senior Member
Tell them you want a "clean" print, as most machines are set to try and post-process to get a more pleasing look for the general masses. Most of the time, you should be able to get a knowledgeable print shop staff to print "as is, no edits" with a quick override.

Hope that helps!
 

Nikkon

Senior Member
is your monitor calibrated correctly?
Probably not, but that's not the problem as you can see in the pictures above. As soon as I upload it, it already looks different, even on my monitor (photo 2 is actually a screenshot of the preview function in the upload program).
 
WE need more information. When you say you are uploading it to print, exactly where are you uploading it to print? Are you printing it on your own printer or a company website for them to print and mail back to you..

Give us the details.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Nikkon

Senior Member
WE need more information. When you say you are uploading it to print, exactly where are you uploading it to print? Are you printing it on your own printer or a company website for them to print and mail back to you..

Give us the details.

upload to a cheap photoservice or more professional one.
I thought that were enough details. A company website, they print it and I pick it up a few weeks later.
 

Dave_W

The Dude
I thought that were enough details. A company website, they print it and I pick it up a few weeks later.

I'm a little confused, what exactly is your question? Whether or not this "company website" wants you to send them TIFF files or JPG? Or is it why this "company website" made a crappy print for you? I'm not really sure what you're asking us.
 

Nikkon

Senior Member
I'm not sure if I understand your counter question.
The problem is that the printed photo from that shop, doesn't look like the original photo (photo 1) I uploaded to them, see the difference above. As soon as I upload that photo, regardless the format, it looks like photo 2 (which I can preview after the upload in a browser window). And if they print it, it also looks like the crappy photo 2.
 
I thought that were enough details. A company website, they print it and I pick it up a few weeks later.

What site. if you want us to check then we need to know the details. Give us the web address and then we can see how our photos do when we upload them and tell you if it is the site or you
 

Dave_W

The Dude
My guess would be that the image review that you're basing your opinion on is being rendered using a different color space than the image on your computer monitor is. In addition, I would also think the resolution on your monitor would be significantly higher than the resolution of the review image on the printers site, both of which would lead to a different looking image. I'm sure you looked through the FAQ's section on the website and are submitting the photo in the same format as they suggest using the same color space, right. I do my own printing and I know how difficult it really is to get a print to match the look it has on the computer screen so before I paid these people any money for a print I would want to talk to them directly and understand exactly how they're rendering these images before they print them.
 

Nikkon

Senior Member
I think I found the solution (not the problem...:rolleyes:). If I export it from lightroom as JPG it looks like photo1 but as soon as I upload it it looks like photo2. The same with PS. However if in PS I choose "save for web and devices" and then "optimized", the photo looks like photo1 and after upload it looks the same. If I choose from PS "save for web and devices" and then "original" it doesn't look like the original but it looks already like photo2.

Somewhere in my workflow something happens, I don't know yet what and where.:confused:. I am not that familiar with postprocessing or colourprofiles etc.

I'm going to try and upload it again, then wait 2 weeks for the result...:p

Will cost me another €10 :mad:
 
I would not use the save for web option since it is designed to cut the quality down for the web/monitor and you are wanting a print which needs to be of much higher quality.
 

Nikkon

Senior Member
In the save dialog I change the quality to 100%. Visually I cannot see any quality difference between the "save as" jpg and the "web" jpg. But there should be a normal way to save it at the highest quality possible without getting crappy?
 
Last edited:
In the save dialog I change the quality to 100%. Visually I cannot see any quality difference between the "save as" jpg and the "web" jpg. But there should be a normal way to save it at the highest quality possible without getting crappy?

Look at the file size between the two. The save for web is much smaller. Looking at it on a monitor you want see the difference. That is what it was designed for. But if you print you will see a big difference. The best way to save for printing is to save as JPEG at the highest quality you can.
 

WayneF

Senior Member
Save For Web really only does one thing.. It strips out all the bytes of Exif data, to make the file a tiny bit smaller, without it. It is sort of a historical option, back to use of dial up modems when a byte was a byte. Today with broadband, it doesn't make much difference. One thing in the Exif data is the dpi declaration, but the web and monitors have no use for that. Whereas Save As JPG retains the Exif data.

There are a few more options. Both ways let you specify convert to sRGB, but your image should already be sRGB. You said once though that you saw a difference here, approaching your original problem. My guess is that sRGB is all that could do that?

And the JPG Quality scales are weighted differently. Save For Web numbers are better quality than same Save As JPG numbers. But JPG Quality is something different than your original problem.
 
Top