One of my customers is a professional photographer and he asked me a question I could not answer. (It was like a foreign language to me!) Here was his question:
I’m working on moving most of my 1:1 hard copy communication work flow to Send Out Cards and have a couple items that concern me an hope you can direct me to some answers.
1. Is it possible to have a grid appear when designing a card? It’s difficult to make sure everything is aligned properly without one and I can’t find an option to have one appear. [My response to this part: Print Preview will show you how the card will look when it prints, including some green dotted lines that show what will be cut off.]
2. My biggest worry is about color reproduction. Do you have any information about their calibration, whether they have color profiles available, or any accuracy metrics? I use a completely color calibrated workflow to insure accurate reproduction and when I upload logos and photos to Send Out Cards there are someextremecolor shifts. My guess is it’s just the application. But as my business relies on accurate color reproduction I’d really like to know how they go about insuring accurate color reproduction.
I know this may be a hassle but this is a huge deal to me and why I’ve always printed just about every portrait and 1:1 client communication piece. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
A SOC friend of mine has a customer who is also a professional photographer, and he has figured out the answer to the second question:
I created a shortcut to avoid need for soft proofing etc. It’s a different method, but comes in handy when leaving your closed loop.
1. Starting with the end in mind (end being the printer) I used a color shirley that I customized from a few past-used Kodak Endura-printing labs. I keep the shirley open to the side of my Lightroom window when editing, using it as a side-by-side reference as my controlled image.
2. I ordered a printed version of the shirley from SOC, and compared the results to the same print, as printed by my lab. (Bay)
3. I duplicated my original shirley (digital version) to match the printed version as close as possible (glancing from back-lit monitor, to print)
4. I layered the files, with the SOC version on top. toggling it on/off, making adjustments, (toggle ’n tweak) until I adjusted my SOC version down to look like my original shirley.
5. Then, I just created a set of numbers for the SOC cards to look like my portrait work. Roughly - Desaturate 10-15% (rare, yes?) and cool it down about 20% (another rare adjustment)
6. Then I reordered the shirley on another card which came out too close to mess with further. (I might have brightened another quarter stop to appease my color-obsessed conscious.
Honestly, off of my phone photos, they look pretty accurate, which is likely why they’ve set their colors where they’re at.
That might seem more involved than an icc profile for their printer, but I’ve been using this system for several years for clients who buy files, and it works great.
(Costco clients: Down with the red, up 15% saturation, and then I’m less embarrassed for them to say they bought the photos from me.)