I never printed a photo. I usually develop my photos in darktable, export them as JPEGs, and look at them from a monitor. But now I want to ask a lab to print some of them, on photo paper, or even aluminium or whatever.
What should I consider to get a good result? Should I change anything in my edits? And what file format should I deliver to the lab? JPEG?
Here is one example. I would like to keep that light vibrance also in print.
raw.zip (14.2 MB)
Find a good print shop to start with (here in the UK, I use Loxley Colour. Their website contains information on their requirements for images, including format, resolution and colour profile. Use this to determine what to change, if anything, in your editing and exports.
Many print shops offer a material sampler set. That’s very helpful to figure out what print material would look best for your picture and the spot you want to display it.
Then, whatever material you choose, order a test print. It will always look different in the intended lighting situation and surroundings. Some print shops offer discounted proof prints. But if not, just order a tiny print.
In my experience, all the printing profiles and proof views are good to have, but they can’t compensate for the surroundings and lighting, so always plan to print a proof before the real print.
the output from labs really varies, you can send them a jpeg and you’ll get a pretty good result, probably if you use a smaller or independentally owned lab you can send them a TIFF as well, a bigger place might turn it into a jpeg before printing, some places correct each image manually, some printing machines do this automatically, which can lead to unexpected results
maybe the easiest is to order smaller batch of small prints and see how the results compare with what you see onscreen, I tend to make images more contrasty than I would normally if I’m printing them but this is optional, small c prints are quite cheap so easy to experiment, there are some pro labs which don’t charge very much, and certain sizes can be much cheaper than others, paper comes on rolls of certain sizes, like 4 inch, 8 inch etc and if you hit certain widths they can be much cheaper, like 5x7 can cost much less than 6x8 but the impact is fairly similar
The questions you have asked here are best answered by the print lab doing the work. This is especially true if it is a professional print shop. The professional printer in my city profiles a color profile to match his printer.
I just received my calibration test prints (they offer a few test prints for free), and are much more colorful than what I see on my MacBook Air monitor. And have a yellow/orange tint.
It’s not clear to me whether they where color corrected. They offer a color correction service, and you are not supposed to flag that option when ordering test prints. However the checkbox was marked and greyed out, so I did not manage to uncheck it.
