Hi,

I'm a new member to the Forum.  I'm trying to find out how QImage can help me to get better prints from commercial labs.

1. I do NOT own photo printer or QImage.  I use commercial labs to print enlargements - 16x20, 20x30, 24x36, 12x36, etc.
2. I use CaptureNX2, PS/CS5, PTGui, Photomatix, etc. for digital processing and ColorMunki for monitor calibration.
3. I do "soft-proof" (not the best option!) of lab-printer and my-monitor, if it's available from the commercial lab.

The bottomline: I can never be sure of the print results until I see the final prints (that's probably true in all cases.  But it would be nice to have some degree of confidence of the print quality during the image processing stage)

Question:  In my scenario, how can QImage help me to get more consistent and predictable prints?

Thanks for any suggestions

Hi,
As a start, look at this "learn by example" from the on-line help file.
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/help/lbe.htm#25a

This should give you some clues. You do need some information from your lab as to the resolution they require, the image profile preferred. Sometimes labs will supply a printer profile for you to convert to and embed in the image. It would be helpful to know what printer they use because to old "300ppi" is often not the best.

Can you be more specific about the things that do not come up to your expectation, colour, too bright/dark, definition etc?

Terry

That will always be the case to some extent because the screen is transmitted light whereas the print reflected light. Also, a print will normally has a smaller colour gamut than a monitor screen. Matt papers will be worse that gloss types.
This can happen when you print yourself; it's usually because the monitor is set too bright. Do you set the luminance value when calibrating the monitor? The "normal" value for a flat screen type is 120CD/sq M. Another approach is to set the brightness to look like a print but it may take several tests to get it right.
Terry