Image Prep For Fuji Frontier

[robboh]

This is my first foray into getting digital prints done from my D70 and unfortunately, I dont really have a lot of time to get these organised and out the door, so Im hoping someone can help with some general workflow tips (specifically sharpening and what correction I should do and what correction I should let them do) for getting the best print results from a Fuji Frontier.

Just as a note, I also barely ever print at home as I only have a fairly cruddy HP DeskJet 5550. The ink fades something chronic after a couple of months, so Ive never really bothered doing much printing, so Im quite the neophyte when it comes to doing digital hardcopy.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Im starting with NEF's and my normal workflow is to disable all sharpening in Capture or PS-RAW and sharpen as last step.

Sharpening
For onscreen, i usually do a first pass sharpen of 300/0.3-0.7/0 in PS. The varience with the radius seems to mainly depend on the lens used. I then usually do a second sharpen to make it look good to the eye.

From what I have read, you are supposed to sharpen more for prints, but I cant really find any suggestions on approximately how much more to sharpen them up. Should you sharpen more or less for larger prints (ie 6x4 v's 8x10).

I realise that subject matter changes this, but can anyone give me some good general starting points for sharpening with the D70 / 18-70 for 6x4's / 5x7's and 8x10's. Subject matter for these prints are a combination of landscapes and portraits.

Resizing / Resampling
For a 6x4 print, should i just supply them the fullsized file and let the Frontier do interpolatio/resampling as it sees fit? Or should I prep the file to the correct size / 300dpi in PS?

I often notice when I downsize/resample pics, that slighly off-verticle or off-horizontal straightlines become quite pixelated and stair-stepped. If I should do the resize/resampling in PS, then are there any tips for helping avoid this?

Does the Frontier do any sharpening itself?

Colour Correction
Im presuming the Frontier doesnt do any WB style colour correction and that I will need to sort this myself?? What about things like skintones etc?? Do I get these right in PS and then tell them not to colour correct? Or does the Frontier do a good job of this?

Exposure / Brightness / Contrast / Levels
Does the Frontier do all this stuff automatically (and if so, does it generally do a good job) or should I, again, get all this right in PS first?? I do have a calibrated CRT.

General / Anything Else
I guess what Im trying to figure out is how much I should rely on the Frontier to do a good job and tell them to 'auto' everything like used to be the case with film prints. Or should I try to get everything as right as possible prior to giving them the CD with the files?

In other words, if I go through and set everything up how I think it should be and tell them not to correct anything, am I actually creating a rod for my own back and will end up with prints that arent as good as what the Frontier would have done auto-magically??

Any tips/tricks/suggestions/thoughts greatly appreciated!!!

Cheers
Rob.

[byrt_001]

hi rob

this is what i know about colour on the fronteir machine( print from film) they like to saturated the colours especialy the blues and reds.

recently send a cd for printing to a konica-minolta machine and the machine has two buttons one that they correct colours and one that prints the images as there are from the cd.

i supposed it is the same with the fronteir machine.

sorry not much information but hopes it helps..

christian

[robboh]

Thanks for that Christian.


Well, I set up 15odd pics for test prints last night. This is basically what I have done and will let you know the results:

* Cropped and resampled to the final print size @ 300ppi.
* Eyeballed exposure/brightness on my monitor (calibrated to D65, Gamma2.2)
* Created a series of tests of the same pic from different RAW converters (Lightroom, Aperture, PS CS, Nikon Capture). Aperture doesnt interpolate up to a pixel size (only %) and so I decided to use that one as a test of the Fuji interpolation. Ive asked for NO corrections to be done on these.

Guess we will see how it goes.

[spada]

Hi
I've just done about 600 picture 6*4 ( at 15c each) at Harvey Norman that have Fuji Frontier machine

I have to sharpen my picture at home, about the color as long as you use sRGB it will be fairly accurate, NO auto Exposure / Brightness / Contrast / Levels , so if your pic is dark the print will be dark too, so adjust your pictures at home .and Yes you can give them full size ( I did) and it print just fine ( in HN shop the original will be delete after print out ).
Hope this help.

Regards
spada

[robboh]

Thanks Spada!

Well, Ive got my tests back. Ended up going with a lab with a Noritsu due to locality.

Im pretty happy with the prints I specified no auto correction for. I also got them to run a few through auto-correction to see what the results were and wasnt so fussed. Colour generally is right, but they have seem to have dropped the density 1 point and have a AC flag, which googling suggests means AutoContrast. Most of these autocorrected prints have blown highlights

Colour and brightness are pretty close, but not exact. They match up with my display pretty well, though very slight colour differences (prints seem a tiny bit more red, especially in the skin tones) and they are a tiny bit darker than the display too.

Not sure how I would get them to match up any closer?? Nikon Capture doesnt appear to have any soft proofing capability, so unsure how I would get around this??

Had to wait til this morning to check the prints against the display properly as the lighting at home is that 12v halogen stuff, which isnt horribly dark and very yellow, so the prints were looking quite different last night, but much closer today in normal daylight.

While I think about it, does anyone have any quick tips for fixing slightly overly pink skin tones??

Edit: couple of extra comments / rephrasing queries

[SteveGriffin]

when getting prints I always specify to the lab not to make any corrections. Some Fuji kiosks have it as an option when you order the prints. My experience is that the results are highly variable if you allow them to do any auto type corrections but they print as supplied if you specify that