Wolf Camera - Photo Printing

[laawaaris]

I had to create a demo print very quickly so I went to Wolf Camera and created a 16x20 print with a Matte finish.

The photo is a portrait and they ended up rolling it in a tube.

It was printed on a large Epson printer which looks like it had a really large spool of printer paper fed into it.

I looked at the photo (briefly) and it seems very "halo-ish". That is it looks like there are halos or oversharpening all over the edges of the eyes, arms, face and anything else that has a defined edge.

I have not looked at it enough (will in a few hours), but what the heck is going on? If I got the same photo from Miller's lab on their Lustre paper, I doubt there would be any halos.

I think this is because of the photo paper - again I have not spent enough time with the print - but I'm sure I would have this question even if I had it in front of me.

What kind of photo paper is it that goes into the Epson printer? Is it supposed to create halos? I imagine you have to view the print from further away to see it cleaner and smoother - I'm not so sure I like that.

[ramblinray]

Not that it's an excuse for poor printing but a photo that large is meant to be viewed from a distance and not right on top of it. It may be that visually the halo disappears when viewed from the proper distance. If that doesn't happen then there are too many factors that could have caused the effect you describe to be solved here.

[Phototx]

I recently had 2 - 24x36 prints printed at Wolf camera and they turned out great for both sharpness and color. I did all of the pre-processing in Photoshop CS3, sized it to 24x36 @ 300dpi, and instructed them to print as is.

Glen
http://www.phototx.net

[Hogleg 44]

My wife uses them for poster sized prints, and has always been happy with the results. One time they screwed up on the size, so they reprinted it properly, and gave her the misprint, no charge!

[d2creative]

I've never seen paper cause halos.
Maybe their software did some automatic sharpening.

[toverman]

As for paper, I've found Epson printers work really well with Epson papers.

We used Wolf for a 16x20 print, too, and didn't have a halo. Looks OK, although blowing it up (from a 10 mp file) made it look a little softer than it should have. That should be plenty of pixels to render an image as sharp as it was from the camera!

[laawaaris]

thanks for the info guys, maybe "halo" is not 100% the right word ... but Wolf had another photo from a different order that was already printed hanging in the printer ... it simply had not been cut from the roll

i remember looking at that other picture and thinking it looked a little bit strange - the edges and so forth were a little too sharp ... i simply did not like it and did not want my photo to turn out that way ... unfortunately my photo had the same look when it came off the roll

anyhow, i am going to get a 16x20 print from the same file from miller's or somewhere else and see how it comes out

[bondarnes]

Keep in mind that the Epson is an inkjet printer and prints on inkjet paper and Millers prints on silver halide photograic paper.

[threesistersphotography]

The software that prints to the epson machine does not auto sharpen or auto enhance at all, did you edit the image at all?

Mickie

[Christopher Mac]

Wait a minute, I've had this happen. Did you load the image into their onsite PC before sending it to print? If so, some of Wolf's software will automatically sharpen and adjust contrast. I've seen oversharpened images and blown highlights. I've only used Wolf in emergencies, so my experience is limited, but I had pretty good results when I hand across the CD and ask them to print it with no adjustments and ALL autocorrections turned off.

[threesistersphotography]

If you auto enhance from the kiosk, then yes. However the image intelligence is not an automatic feature. You have to choose it at the kiosk or the lab operator can put it on. Otherwise there are no automatic enhancements made. I work at a Ritz (Wolf Camera owned by the same company) and I work in the lab so I am aware of the software and its limitations. I am sorry if you have had a bad experience with the printing. However the machines are calibrated each morning before opening and I have found that often times people have made adjustments to the photo on their home computer, which is not calibrated to the stores machine of course and the print comes out differently then they saw on the home computer monitor.
If you hand me a CD and say no adjustments, it is the same as if you sat down at the print bar and did it yourself. It is loaded on the same machine same system.

Mickie

[CobyPhoto]

It definitely isn't the paper that is causing the "halo" you referr to. I have prints as large as 60" from Pro Epson printers (11880) and they are photo quality and the only way you will tell the difference is if you get right up on it with a magifying glass and look. What you describe certainly sounds like software or processing issues.

I have no idea what software Ritz/Wolf uses, but I do know that alot of the people working in the labs (no offense Mickie - I have never used your stores lab) of these place think they are the definative expert on how your image should look. If you want to insure you have no issues, do all your own proccessing, call the store and ask the model of the printer and what paper it will be printed on and soft proof your image to with those settings and see what it will look like.

As far as papers go, the key is excellent profiles for THAT printer, THAT paper, THAT specific ink set. I use other brands of Epson paper regularly with excellent, consistent results. Kodak Professional Lustre is my personal favorite over anything that Epson makes.

CJ

[pbyd]

Coby is very right, I have been printing on a 24 inch Epson printer with Epson inks for over 8 years for all of our studios prints and what you are describing has never happened with any of our prints. The biggest difference with in-house printing and sending your work out to a lab (or local camera store) is that we use Rip Software and we know how to send to the Rip to get the images we expect. When you use other than a Pro Lab or in-house lab you are going to have a hard time getting constant results. This is not a slam on any store, as I have used Sam’s lab to get mass amounts of cards printed (very cheep price) and they have been acceptable. I did use the word acceptable and not what we would expect for a Clients images. As a full time portrait and wedding studio our clients expect work that is better than they can receive from a camera store, it is one of the things that let us charge a more profitable amount for our work and separates us from the majority of photographers that must have other jobs to support themselves with. I would really recommend finding a lab (such as Millers, Pounds or one of many other pro labs out there).