Digital Light & Color

I know this is simple for most of you, but I'm having problems. I'm trying to design a workflow to make a simple print at my local Costco, but, so far, my results are pretty bad. After I have the image looking the way I want in 48 bit SMPTE-240M color on my monitor, I resize to 5x7, then convert to 24 bit color, and finally change the color profile to the one I obtained from Dry Creek Photo. Changing the profile gives me an image that is very different from the one I started with.

So what am I doing wrong, and how do I use the profile for Costco?

Thanks very much,
Cliff

Could you describe what's different between the screen image and its print in more detail (e.g. is it lack of contrast, less saturated colours, colour tint, colour's shifts, lack of details in shaddows (or highlights), 'blocked'/posterised regions?). What profile is embedded in the file the printer gets?

What light (illuminanance and colour temperature) do you compare the print in (e.g. shadows, sunlight, tungsten/incandescent/fluorescent ?).

Thanks for the reply Maciej,

I wasn't very clear. I haven't actually made a print yet. My concern is that the image looks so different and awful after I change the color profile. It gains a lot of red and orange.

The profile was obtained from Dry Creek Photo. http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/

I'll try making a print and see what happens.

Thanks again.

Hello Cliff

Are you sure you have to convert into their profile and embedd it ?
I know it that the profile from the print service is a proofing profile and should be set as that in the Color Management Dialog in the File Menue.
The printing services (at least most of them here in Europe) want the pictures in sRGB, the better ones wo support full color management in any given working colorspace (like AdobeRGB or Chrome2000).
I have the profile for the paper I inted to use as Proofing Profile set in Color Management and edit the image till it is ok in the proof and normally it is ok then as print too.

Are you sure you have to convert into their profile and embed it ?

I guess that's a big part of what I'm asking. Somewhere in one of Jonathan's White Papers I read that using a Proofing Profile could introduce artifacts, so I haven't been using one. Also if I don't plan to print an image, I don't want a profile to influence the way it looks. Does that mean I need to keep changing the Proofing Profile to None and back again? That seems pretty awkward, and it couldn't be saved as a workflow.

I should be able to pick up my test prints today or tomorrow. Thanks very much for your interest.

What version of PWP do you use, Cliff ?
In 5.x there are 2 Icons in the Toolbar to switch proofing on and off, they look like a printer with a white resp. red sheet of paper.
In earlier versions you indeed have to go to the Color Management settings abd toggle from proofing profile to none and back.
It's hard to guess over the pond what they really need but it would surprise me if they would request their profile to be embedded in the pictures, just because of the fact that many (probably the huge majority) of hobby photographers have neither the knowledge or the software to do such.
They just have their pictures out of the cam, maybe make a little editing with a non cm-capable software and just want nice prints of their pictures.
So, just from a logical point of view, it would be contraproductive for a printer who is offering to the mass market (this has no negative co-notation, is just a fact) to require to embedd a specific profile.
I do not know how it is the US, but in my area here i know 3 labs who offer full CM, 2 in Germany who offer online service too and one a local printshop in town who offers online service without CM (assuming images in sRGB) and CM just on special request when you brin the images personal or send by mail.
All others that are for the mass market assume that the pictures that come in are in sRGB.

Thanks, Dieter, for the very informative reply. I had totally forgotten about the Proof Profile icons at the top of the window. That answers a big part of my question. I'm a new user of PWP 5, and the software I've used in the past wasn't very sophisticated with regard to Color Management.

So now I think I know how the profiles work, but is it necessary to convert from 48 bit color to 24 bit color?

I've used the mail order print service at Adoramapix.com a few times. You might want to try them when you can wait for prints in the mail, because you can submit files as TIFs or JPGs up to 60 MB.

Adorama takes sRGB, and you have three options: instruct them auto-correct or not auto-correct, and in the latter case choose whether to send them a .JPG embedded with a color profile, such as one they provide that is customized to your choice of paper. I believe their auto-correct is mostly that they apply the profile for the paper.

After a rough start, my novice eye is happy with the results at 8 x 10 and 11 x 14.

And their prices are reasonable.

Cliff, i suppose you will deliver your pictures as JPEG files, and JPEG is only capable of saving 24 bit images.
48 bit is only possible with TIFF, other formats (like PNG) i am not sure now, but there are chances the print service will not accept such "exotic ;-)" formats.
And, for my personal opinion, i have doubts that those printer are able to reproduce the 48 bit color on paper, i mean in a way that you see any difference to a 24 bit picture. I see the advantage of 48 bit in editing, to avoid unpleasant "holes" in the histogram when making substatial changes, but not in printing.

BTW, PW automatically converts to 24 bit when saving a picture as JPEG or any other only 24 bit file format, so i guess you do not have to convert explicit (The same works of course for 16 bit B&W).

I just mentioned B&W above, so please allow me a short word on that too.
I always print B&W as color images, means converted to 24 bit color, because CM is not possible in PWP with 8 or 16 bit B&W and I use a full CM workflow with my home printer and for "quality prints", but I also use 24 bit color in sRGB when going to a mass printer, but as far as I know the images are converted to 24 bit in the machine autmatically if there should be 8 bit images.