Getting more 'punch' out of my prints

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evad1962

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Hi All

I've had my M8 for about 3 months and am wondering if anyone has any useful tips on getting more 'punch' or 'zip' out of my images when I send them to print. I'm a pro shooting mainly weddings and just last Sat shot a wedding with the M8 and 2 contax G2's (film). Looking at the printed results, the M8 images are really sharp but seem to be flat and lacking 'zing' in comparison to the film output. Is this something inherent with digi that I'm just gonna have to live with, or is it my lack of expertise in processing the digital images? I'm using C1 LE BTW and the film was processed & printed at my usual lab who generally do excellent work. Any suggestions on improving my M8 output would be greatly appreciated. BTW, the M8 is my first venture into digital, so I realise I'm on a bit of a learning curve.

PS: my apologies for throwing about terms like punch, zip and zing, but I guess I'm trying to achieve a more dynamic look to the prints without sacrificing too much at the highlights end.

Cheers,
Dave
 
Dave:

Have you calibrated and profiled your monitor to match your lab? Did they give you specs as far as recommended color space for print, etc...

IMHO, you should not have lack of 'zing' with the M8 or any other decent camera (asumming you have a good image to begin with) and in digital is all about good post processing skills (once again, assuming you have a good image to begin with)

Are you shooting RAW or JPEG? If you need a lab, I highly recommend White House Custom Color (www.whcc.com). I am also a wedding photographer and they are my lab of choice.

Hope this gets you on your way to better prints.

Regards,

Riccis
 
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do the files lack punch or do the prints? prints have less dynamic range than what you camera can capture, so you usually have to 'compress' the image a bit by increasing contrast to get a more lively prints. google 'local contrast enhancement' for a cool photoshop trick that might help you.
 
Dave,

Your experience in the leap to "serious" digital with the M8 in some ways mirrors my own progression from M4, M6 and M7 cameras to my current M8. Before the M8, I would confidently shoot Fuji color negative film, digitize the negatives with a Nikon film scanner and routinely produce exciting, punchy prints through my trusty duo of Canon printers: S900 and i9900 models.

Shooting a digital-only wedding with the M8 this past May resulted in many more hours of work after the wedding day to get the photos whipped into some sort of acceptability before transmitting them to Bay Photo where the bride's proof book was made. The proof book turned out OK -- the bride's family was delighted! -- but all the extra hours I slaved over the keyboard has sunk the entire venture into unprofitable territory. (Ah, much longing for those simple days of film weddings when my local lab did all the really hard work!)

After taking a color management workshop at a local photo school, I now have the intelliectual tools to improve everything and start reaping some of the promise of the M8 platform. Having custom printer drivers made for several different photo papers is the next step together with some needed software purchases. All this metamorphosis takes cash, so the part-time photo business goes on hold until the day job produces the necessary coinage to make the next investments.

There's a lot more to moving to the M8 than just buying the device itself. Give yourself a year to make the necessary infrastructure changes before you start seeing consistent, positive results. Moving your business to 100% digital at the pro level is non-trivial and requires many "Aha!" moments along the way.

-g
 
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I agree with Grober, buy a digital camera and get on the internet for a year, at least, to figure how to get it to work. Then start buying more software and hardware, and spend more time learning how to use it. It never ends, or maybe go back to film.
 
charjohncarter said:
I agree with Grober, buy a digital camera and get on the internet for a year, at least, to figure how to get it to work. Then start buying more software and hardware, and spend more time learning how to use it. It never ends, or maybe go back to film.
Click to expand...


Exactly, spend a year learning it, then sell the obsolete clunker, get the new model and start again. 😉
 
Thanks all...

Thanks all...

for your contributions - Riccis, yeah I am shooting raw (wouldn't shoot anything else) and that point about getting the monitor set up correctly is well taken - it's pretty good at the mo' but I'm sure it can be improved. Grober, I agree, it's a big learning curve but I'm getting there..slowly. CJC cheers for that tip on using the unsharp mark tool for local contrast enhancement - excellent..I'd seen that before somewhere months ago but had forgotten all about it.

Just yesterday I dropped some raw files on a CD into my lab to see what sort of prints they can get out of them - if the results look good I might just leave it up to them (at least the proofs) - some weddings I've got 600 or more images to process so obviously there's a time factor as well (ie: lack of it)

Anyroad, thanks again all.

Dave
 
I get punch out of the fridge.

It's a long learning path, but I'll synthesize: color profiling, monitor color calibration, and always convert to sRGB right before printing if you want to make your life easier.

The saturation is a long, nonlinear, arduous process. If you don't want your photos looked like they baked in Barney-land (or heaven forbid, look like Andy Warhol discovered HDR)
 
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