I would say that if you give the job of color-correcting an image to someone else, you are always giving up your own personal creativity and style. That said, when it comes to color correction for print, taking the paper into account can have a keen impact on the quality of printed color. There probably is not a single, globally correct answer here, as every lab will use different equipment and have different people with different levels of skill. I would think that a lab's color-correcting quality is dependent upon the lab and the skill of the technicians.
So - if you are a pro (as in get paid for taking photos), you're main product is prints and you don't sell or care about digital versions (point 1) and you don't care about reprints (point 2) and you take boring pictures (point 3) then you should absolutely let the lab color correct your pictures. If the picture is not a standard "well exposed" middle-of-the-road image then you can't let the lab co color correction because they don't know what you want to picture to look like (and this will probably completely throw off any automatic correction they might use ). If you want consistency and repeatability (that is, be able to re-print the image and get exactly the same printed image) then you can't let the lab do it - you can't be sure you will get the same technician and that the technician will make the same choices if you reprint months or years from now. If your output is digital files + prints you have to do the color correction yourself anyway fro the digital version so there's no point in letting the lab do it. This will help with family photographs edited on non-color-profiled screen but probably a bad idea for fine art, pros or any picture with anything special (deliberate under or over exposing, extreme color effects or even an unedited photo of a subject with unusual colors)Įdit: dpollitt's comments got me thinking - if your output is only prints (not digital files) it makes perfect sense to outsource the tedious and thankless job of color correction to the lab - especially if you are a pro and you can earn more money when taking pictures then when color correcting them. No quantity pricing is available for other paper surfaces.Letting the lab do color correcting (assuming its a good lab that does good job with color correction) is like using the auto mode on your camera - the lab will make sure everything comes out ok and correct the obvious mistakes but you will lose creative control. Any product within ¼" of length or width of the published size fits within our tolerances and will not be remade.Īpplies to 6 or more identical copies on Lustre paper. Any product within ⅛" of length or width of the published size fits within our tolerances and will not be remade.ĭue to variances and tolerances in paper widths and production processes, canvas prints will be slightly undersized. Visit ourĭue to variances and tolerances in paper widths and print sizes, most of our mount boards are slightly undersized. Any product within ⅛" of length and/or width of the published size fits within our tolerances and will not be remade.ĭue to continued increasing costs, many of our print, mounting, and wall art prices will be increasing. *Due to variances and tolerances in paper widths and print sizes, most of our mount boards are slightly undersized. Price is for the finishing service only and does not include the required photo print.