robert G. Fately |
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Marian, it seems to me you are confusing some terms here. YOur title says 'film development' - I presume this implies you use a film camera. So the answer to the question of where can you get 'good' print quality would be a good photo lab. If there are no professionally oriented labs in your area, you could try A & I Labs in Hollywood, CA - they have mailers (you can buy from B&H Photo) and they do outstanding work. None of the above has anything to do with RGB, which is more of a digital/computer term. You can have the negatives scanned (or do it yourself with a film scanner) - that's when you start thinking about things like RGB. Now, just so you understand (I hope, anyway) - RGB stands for Red/Green/Blue, and this pertains to the technology of monitors. That is, the computer screen you look at is delivering colors to you based on each colored dot (picture element, or pixel) have a certain amount of those three primary colors. A pixel made of 100% R would be red, 100% of all three would be white, and 0% of all three would be black (or at least as dark as the screen itself can be). Digital printers - indeed, ANY printer - use an entirely different technology to produce the prints you can hold in your hand - CYMK. These letters stand for the ink colors Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black, and they form what's called the subtractive color process. That is, each ink absorbs light of it's color, so if you shine white light on an image that's been printed on white paper, the light passes through the ink and reflects off the paper, and along the way the cyan ink removes the cyan coor of the white light. So taken together, if you put 100% ink coverage on a pixel, you get black - everything is absorbed. If you put 0% ink on a spot - you get white - the color of the paper underneath. So. If you use Photoshop, you are working in RGB, 'cause that's the way your screen is showing you the image. The printer drivers (for your printer or a lab's printer) do the job of converting those RGB numbers into CYMK numbers. That said, if you want the colors on your screen to match the colors on the print, you must calibrate these items using special software and gear. If you don't you cannot be sure that making the screen image a bit redder will have that same effect on the final print. Is that a decent start, at least?
January 06, 2006
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