I need to make some glossy 8x10s for a gift. I need them to look good. I'm wondering about Kodak online printing, Shutterfly, and the like, and if they make decent prints -- I don't really want to pay an arm and a leg, but I need good-looking prints. How good? Just good. Sorry I'm not being more specific, but any advice/experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Re: Prints! by Ron Lindeboom on Apr 18, 2008 at 3:07:11 pm
Hello Lucy and welcome to Creative COW.
I find that if I prepare my images, that most of my prints are fine. They run things through at high speeds and so all the settings are pretty much averaged to where the end picture can sometimes look a little "anemic" and desaturated to my eye.
So, what I like to do is take my images into photoshop and layer the same image on top of itself and use the Multiply blend/transfer mode on the top layer image and set its opacity to something that is usually in a range from around 10% to 25% maximum. It will look a bit dark but try one print this way and see what it looks like to you.
By starting out with images that are more saturated, I find that I get rich, impressive color and the images don't have those washed out pale colors that sometimes happens with inexpensive prints.
