Thread: Soft proof / calibration help please!

I know I've been MIA lately ... we were at a family reunion, which took 8 days out of our lives. Now I'm trying to play catch up in a major way - I hope to spend time replying to recent threads over the next few days. Meanwhile, I'm in panic mode!

I just had my first client order with WHCC and my photos came back with a lot of red. I'm calibrated (with Spyder 2 Express) but for some reason, the reds are haunting me. The woman I've been corresponding with at WHCC has been helpful, but I still have questions. She suggested that I adjust my whitepoint to a lower temperature to reduce the reds. I haven't done that yet because I'm not sure that's the right route to go just yet.

I confess, I didn't use the color profiles from WHCC to soft proof my photos. The client wanted glossy and I always order lustre. So today I downloaded the glossy profiles, and viewed the proof colors with them. I'm seeing the reds for sure when I do that. So now what? I don't know how to adjust my images based on the soft proofing ... do I pull out reds in my working copy and then verify with the soft proof that it's good?

Just seems like a lot of extra work if I'm going to have to do that to all of my images from here on out. I'd like to get my colors right from the getgo. How do I have my working images match the soft proof all of the time?

Can you see me pulling out my hair from where you sit? *sigh*

Thanks for the help in advance.

I just calibrated again for kicks (I had last calibrated on June 25th) and I'm not seeing the reds so much with the soft proofing. This is so frustrating! I need my prints to match what I see on screen, and it's not happening.

I also need to tone down the brightness of my monitor, as my prints always come back darker when I don't. Yet Spyder tells me to reset my monitor to factory defaults. What should I really be doing with the brightness?


I'd post this on ILP but I NEVER post there so I don't think I'd get much in terms of replies. then again, I really need help so I guess I will go for it anyway.

Hey Gwen. I've been doing a lot of research lately on pro print labs and calibration. I've read reviews of WHCC prints being very bright in color and having extra red in them. I can't say for sure (because I haven't sent out for my test prints yet) but it sounds like that's just how their print machines are?

I wish I had more advice for you, but I haven't calibrated yet and I haven't printed there. I'm resaying what I've read...

Good luck and I hope you get some responses!

I'm no help, Gwen. But I wanted to reply and bump this up in case someone else can help.

Not that I want to add more work, but have you tried it w/ another lab (Color, Inc., maybe?).

Hope you get some help soon!

GiGi

Hmmm... this is odd. I have been sending prints to WHCC and been very happy with the result. I order both in lustre and glossy. I hope you find the solution. Let us know.

I'm no help. I just signed up with WHCC. It sounds so frustrating what you are going through though. Argh! I hope you figure it out. I still have yet to get some test prints.

No answers here Sorry, that sounds like a real pain. Maybe its your monitor? Shouldn't spyder adjust the brightness properly?

well, it's not my monitor as the other prints aren't red like the storyboard. WHCC offered to reprint (with color correction) at a discount, but I don't know what the discount is. My client paid for the prints, so I'd have to eat the cost out of pocket. I'm not happy with it, that's for sure, and I'm tempted to have it printed somewhere else. I've done the soft proofing with the WHCC profiles, and it still doesn't look like the print. So I really don't know what's going on at this point. I've spent a good part of my day on this and I hate losing time like that.