Thursday News Stuffage
Hi gang: Here’s what up:
I love Bill Fortney
If you read the comments posted about Bill Fortney’s Guest Blog yesterday, it’s clear to see that people love Bill Fortney (shown above with me at a workshop we taught together in the Great Smoky Mountains). They love his photography (which is amazing—you really need to see his portrfolio to appreciate it), but they love the man behind the camera just as much, and it really comes through in your comments. Thanks Bill—we love you!
My MPIX Pro Journey
OK, so last week I signed up for MPIX Pro (see the link here for details on why), and one part of the process is to upload five images to the MPIX Pro web site, then they print them as 8×10s and send you back printed proofs, so you can compare them with your monitor (and your monitor calibration) and see if any adjustments need to be made (for the record; the color was spot on, but the prints came out a bit darker than my MacBook Pro’s monitor, but I usually keep my brightness turned all the way up, so I know to dim it down about three or four notches—not exactly sure which yet, but I will after my first print job. I’m going to start with three steps down and see from there).
The quality of the printing, as expected, was excellent, but what I was most impressed with was (and this might sound silly), was the quality of their welcome kit. It was very smartly designed, and put together like you’d hope it would be, complete with a calibration test print, and access to an online course for how to calibrate your monitor to work with MPIXpro. I’ll be placing my first order this weekend, and I’ll let you know more when it comes in, but so far—I’m very impressed.
Corey’s New Online Class Breaks New Ground in 3D
This week we released a new online class on Kelby Training on working with 3D from Photoshop wizard Corey Barker called “Outrageous 3D with Photoshop CS4 Extended.” The stuff Corey has figured out to do with 3D in Photoshop is just absolutely mind-boggling (stuff I haven’t seen anybody doing anywhere), and if you’re into 3D–you’ve got to see this! Here’s the link to the lesssons he covers.
Tomorrow’s the last day to get your Photo Walk t-shirt
Well, it’s not technically the last day; it’s just the last day to make your purchase worth $10 a shirt to the Spring of Hope Kenya Orphanage. Do it now—it’ll make you feel better than anything else you’ll do all day. Here’s the link.
The Photo Nomads review Down & Dirty Tricks
I just ran across a review of my Photoshop CS4 Down & Dirty Tricks book over at the Photo Nomads blog. Here’s the link (By the way; although it’s called the “Photoshop CS4 book” about 95% of the techniques work on Photoshop CS3 as well. Here’s the link to the book on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, ya know…just in case).
That’s it for today, folks
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you guys have your best Thursday ever!
-Scott
Just a note on Mpix Pro. If you don’t live in the United States, it’s not accessible for us. I was excited to try it out, applied, was accepted went to upload the prints, and then…. the only available to the States. Slightly annoying. Why approve if the address I give is in Canada?! But just a heads up for those of us that use Mpix but don’t live in the States.
if you already have your monitor profiled with good equipment (like a colormunki), do you have to delete that and only use the Mpix profile to get proper prints? It seems like that would negate your monitor profile for your local printer then. Is it a case of “make your choice” or is there a way to have separate profiles- one for local inkjet printer and one for Mpix? What are you doing for this situation? Cheers, -M
Hey Mr Kelby. Many thanks for mentioning the Photo Nomads on your blog. We’re a small bunch of old blokes and young ladies (!) with cameras hanging around in Lincolnshire (UK). Your mention has really made our day. Best Wishes. Richard
Hi, I had a good time @ our photowalk. I checked out the t-shirts for sale, but declined to buy one because the design is only on the front of the shirt. The shirts are ok for guys, but I like a plain front. Hopefully next year we can have a choice, front or back.
Thanks,
Jan
For us gals…designs on the back work much better…especially if your full grown
Dear Mr. Kelby,
I love, love, love your brand of humour and style of teaching. I’m chuckling myself silly through 2 books of yours, i.e. The Digital Photography Book and Mac Os X.
Mpixpro is great. I have completed the 5 photo thing and have already completed a 16×24 gallery wrap of Wormsloe for display here and sent 4 16×24 prints via drop ship to CA. From upload of images to delivery of product took all of about 2 days … wow, I don’t think I could have done it that fast here in-house.
Thanks for the info there Mr Kelby…….
I recieved my prints from them a couple of days ago. I was telling Dave C. on twitter that the only thing I wish it would have had (and this is just nit picking) is a price sheet. You can go online and see the current pricing so it’s not a big deal. My prints came back slightly darker than my monitor as well, but I attribute that to the monitor being backlit… Color was spot on. I too am placing my first order this week(Friday) so we’ll see how it goes. I expect all will be fine though. Also I just made an order with Artistic Photo Canvas for a Pano I did. I’d been looking for a place that did quality canvas pano work. Thanks!
I couldn’t agree more about MPIX Pro on all counts. I loved the presentation and the care in shipping of my test prints. My prints looked about a stop too dark as well. Looking forward to getting dialed in and rocking some prints out the door…
Cheers,
Jeff
>(for the record; the color was spot on, but the prints came out a bit darker than my MacBook Pro’s monitor, but I usually keep my brightness turned all the way up, so I know to dim it down about three or four notches—not exactly sure which yet, but I will after my first print job.
You can also RAISE the print viewing conditions. FWIW, driving a display max luminance only guarantees you’ll be buying a new unit sooner. There’s a balancing act between setting the cd/m2 of the display to match the viewing booth (you got one by the display right?). The better Fluorescent units have digital dimmers. Or Solux for ideal illuminant, then just move the lamp closer or farther away to result in a match.
I received my 5 prints Tuesday and they were also darker than my monitor. I turned my monitor down and will see how it works. I thought I needed a calibration unit but the color is correct. So, I will just adjust and see how that works. My first order came back and looked fantastic.
One other thing to keep in mind. How do other prints, maybe those you output using good ICC profiles and soft proofing look? Lets say you have an Epson printer and you’re using their canned paper profiles which are quite good for newer, Pro printers. IF the screen to prints match well, but the MPIX are darker, that’s a problem. Also, you can soft proof in Photoshop using the Epson profiles or for that matter, any ICC paper profile you have. You can’t do that with MPIX unless they are providing you good output profiles and those profiles reflect the conditions of the printer. In Photoshop, you want to soft proof and view the print where the soft proof is set for Paper White and Black Ink simulation! So while I would certainly suggest you alter the display calibration and/or print viewing conditions for a match, be sure you do this while soft proofing (ideally in Full Screen mode with a black bkgnd; hit the F key twice). What you don’t want to do is start altering your display or print viewing for one output device or vendor unless that’s the only vendor you’re using. You want to set this all and have everything vendor/printer agnostic and with proper and well built paper profiles, all should match reasonably well. Note too, better displays these days have the ability to control the contrast ratio of these devices. A glossy print may in best case, have a 250:1 contrast ratio, most display have far higher (800:1+) contrast ratio’s. This is not useful for image editing! This is also why, when you toggle on the paper white and ink black simulation, everything appears muddy. Photoshop is scaling the dynamic range of the soft proof. Far better to do this internally with the display. So for example, my NEC 2690 and 3090 LCD’s with their software driving the calibration allow me to build multiple targets at multiple contrast ratio’s. I can toggle on the fly from 250:1 for glossy ink jet to 150:1 for matt papers.
Thanks for the honest reviews. I always appreciate hearing the good/bad/and more.
Sounds like MPix Pro is worth trying out.
Also, I’m happy to report Amazon sent me an email saying my pre-ordered Digital Photography 3 book is on it’s way.
Can’t wait to get my hands on it!
On subject: Mpix Pro sounds like a good deal, especially for the bigger size prints they offer.
Off subject, here is a neat video of a 3D Projection on a building. The future looks incredible to me. It’s based for architecture, but think towards the future when this is upon all buildings in a city.
http://vimeo.com/5677104
Hey Scott, Just wanted to chime in and tell you of my experience with Mpix Pro. I signed up on day one and got my 8×10 proofs the next day. As in the case with your experience the print quality was just fantastic and right on the money. I have already received my first order from them as well using the ROES Pro software. The ROES is neat at what it does as far as ordering, but its got some pretty quirky bugs in the software. Overall I am very pleased with it, but would like to see some improvements in the ROES software. And after the news today…looks like I need to sell my D300 so I can get the “s”.
Scott, all i really want to say is thank you for the heads up on mpixpro. i sent in my 8×10s and they were dead on including the exposure (i keep my laptop light at mid level). i also sent away for a 16×20 that was killer and another 8×10. i am in love and the thing that is great is how quick you get them back. the customer service is great and quick. had a problem with roes download but was able to email (i prefer a human voice) and get responses back almost immediately. the whole mpixpro experience has been great and i am excited that i am one of their customers.
Again, thanks… not just for mpixpro but really for all that you do to be a major blessing to all of us. you are appreciated my many and i consider you my cyber mentor…lol.
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I recently received my proofs back, and they were spot on. Would definitely recommend them.
Hey all – especially related to “regular MPIX” as MPIX Pro seems to provide additional information regarding calibration, did they suggest a preferred white point for you to use when calibrating? I set mine up for a brightness target of 120 as recommended by x-rite (Eye-one Display 2) for LCDs, a gamma of 2.2 as also recommended, and then I leave the white point at “native” which calibrates at around 7000 K. I’ve seen some comments that one should use 5000K, and others that say 5000 is only for dark rooms and 6500K is better for normal viewing conditions, and others that say “use the native”. A lot of the folks above, including Scott, indicate spot on color, so I’m curious to know what you set your white point at when you are calibrating. Thanks for the input.