DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Last November I lamented the demise of PhotoAccess, an online photo-printing service that I’d used for years. I found a few recommendations for alternative printing services, but the prospect of actually testing them was terribly uninviting.

But the picture-taking continued, even if the print-making did not. We had hundreds of images to review, print, and arrange in albums. The backlog was daunting.

Finally I reread the Printers and Printing forum at dpreview.com and concluded that either White House Custom Color or MPIX.com would meet my needs. That particular evening, the whcc.com site was flaking, so MPIX got my business, despite the site’s awful FAQ and help-text sections.

Unfortunately, I know more about color correction than most digital camera owners, in part because my old camera (a Nikon Coolpix 995) had a nasty habit of turning faces into tomatoes. So I assumed that if I simply uploaded a bunch of unretouched images, I’d get lousy results — color casts, oversaturated skin tones, compressed dynamic ranges, exaggerated contrast, and so on.

Therefore I spent that first evening researching color workflows, ICC profiles, and monitor calibration, in an effort to set up my laptop to give me a realistic preview of the prints MPIX would produce from my images. Net.wisdom proclaims that it’s impossible to get good color from any of these print services without using a $100-$200 hardware device to calibrate one’s monitor — and also that “serious” color work requires a CRT, not an LCD.

Hardware calibration may make sense for pro photographers (despite the fact that Dan Margulis has taught color-correction to people who are colorblind), but it’s an unnecessary expense and a waste of time for me. I just want to see flesh tones that don’t make my friends look like they’re seasick, jaundiced, or enduring third-degree sunburn. (Note: ditching the Coolpix 995 was an important first step.)

So, I used the software display-calibration routine built into OS X (within the Displays pane of System Preferences, click the Color tab, then the Calibrate button). Starting with the sRGB profile, which is 10x too bright on my old Powerbook, I went through the Calibration process, setting all the controls as directed. I used a Gamma of 2.2 and a color temperature of 6500°.

Next I set up Photoshop’s “working space” to match my camera: within Photoshop’s Color Settings dialog, set the RGB profile to match whatever color profile your camera uses. (If there is no matching profile, you can have Photoshop use the “embedded” profile when opening image files.)

Next, I got a copy of the .icc profile of MPIX’ output device, from MPIX tech support. Within Photoshop, I configured the “Proof Colors” feature to use this profile.

As a sanity check, I got a “calibration kit” from MPIX (they’ll send you one upon request). This consists of an 8x10 print of their in-house test image, and a CD-ROM containing the original image file. This allowed me to view the file (onscreen) and print side-by-side to confirm whether Photoshop on my laptop was showing me anything close to what my MPIX prints would show. To my eye, the colors were practically identical.

The next step is turning on Photoshop’s “proof colors” mode (⌘Y), which simulates the printed colors via MPIX’ .icc profile. When I toggled this on, the display barely changed. This suggests that my non-hardware calibration routine was very effective at producing true-to-life color settings.

I’ve just received my first order of prints from MPIX.com, and overall I’m very pleased:

• Color reproduction is great, as expected.
• MPIX’ 4''x5'' print size is a much better suited to my camera’s 4:3 images than most printers’ 4''x6'' default. Your mileage may vary, but this print size ended up being a great solution to the crop/border problem PhotoWorks created for me.
• The MPIX ordering process works pretty well, despite the fact that uploading relies on a clunky JAVA applet.
• Prints have filenames stamped on the back — a huge benefit when organizing prints from a large order.
• Turnaround time was impressive: images uploaded Thursday night arrived in the mail Tuesday.
• My order was shipped in a rigid cardboard box that not even the local post-office Neanderthals can mangle.

My only gripe is minor: MPIX’ standard paper has a matte finish. I would prefer glossy.

(MPIX does offer a glossy-finish metallic paper, but it’s twice as expensive. I printed a dozen test images on this stock, and the results were disappointing, considering the price: the colors are fine, but not a significant improvement over the matte paper. The metallic sheen is visible from an angle; it’s distracting. And the images lacked sharpness; as compared to the matte prints, the metallic prints were much softer.)

So, despite the difficulties of getting set up, I’m happy with the results from MPIX. And I didn’t have to spend a dime on hardware calibration.