emt
New Member
Help! I've recently changed professional photo labs from K&K in Portland, OR (they went out of business after 5' years!) to Pounds labs in Texas. As if that wasn't enough, this past summer I began shooting in RAW and using Lightroom 2 to process my images. Prior to that I was shooting JPEGS and processing with Photoshop CS. And even then, I've only been using digital for 2 years, so I'm new to the whole game and having trouble pinning down the reason or reasons for my recent dissatisfaction with my prints. I'm hoping someone can help.
To be blunt, the prints I am getting just don't "pop" the way they used to. The colors are flat and dull compared to those I was getting prior to these changes. They seem accurate enough, but not what I would expect from a top lab. They are good everyday prints, but not what I want to give to my clients as examples of my best work presented in the best final form.
As the first "less than what I was used to" prints came from my first RAW+Lightroom images via K&K, I feel certain that the problem is on my end. Of course, I've read the relevant sections of the manual, and visited several forums searching for an answer to my dilemma. I found lots of threads that seem to suggest that other people have had dull prints out of Lightroom. Most of the posts, however, deal with similar issues but are focused on problems printing with inkjet printers directly from the print module in Lightroom. Doesn't anybody like to use outside Photo Labs anymore?
As I said, the colors seem accurate enough, but lack vibrancy. If I need to over-saturate or add contrast to the files prior to exporting them as JPEGS and sending them out in sRGB, Lightroom certainly makes that easy enough to do, but I was hoping for some guidance on specific controls, amounts, sharpening, etc. I can't be the first one to have had these types of problems, so I am going to the source looking for solutions.
Any suggestions would be very appreciated.
Thank you.
To be blunt, the prints I am getting just don't "pop" the way they used to. The colors are flat and dull compared to those I was getting prior to these changes. They seem accurate enough, but not what I would expect from a top lab. They are good everyday prints, but not what I want to give to my clients as examples of my best work presented in the best final form.
As the first "less than what I was used to" prints came from my first RAW+Lightroom images via K&K, I feel certain that the problem is on my end. Of course, I've read the relevant sections of the manual, and visited several forums searching for an answer to my dilemma. I found lots of threads that seem to suggest that other people have had dull prints out of Lightroom. Most of the posts, however, deal with similar issues but are focused on problems printing with inkjet printers directly from the print module in Lightroom. Doesn't anybody like to use outside Photo Labs anymore?
As I said, the colors seem accurate enough, but lack vibrancy. If I need to over-saturate or add contrast to the files prior to exporting them as JPEGS and sending them out in sRGB, Lightroom certainly makes that easy enough to do, but I was hoping for some guidance on specific controls, amounts, sharpening, etc. I can't be the first one to have had these types of problems, so I am going to the source looking for solutions.
Any suggestions would be very appreciated.
Thank you.
