A question for Pako

[UrsaMajor]

Hello Pako,

Next month my wife and I are going to the wedding - near West Point - of the daughter of one of your local customers. In talking with the mother yesterday, she commented that she was going to be so busy that day that she would have no opportunity to take unposed photos of family and friends in attendance. They have hired a professional photographer for the conventional wedding photos, but - like me - she has a special fondness for candid photos to supplement the "normal" pictures.

I plan to take my Sony A700 and my Minolta A2 with me, and hope to capture some of the pictures that she would be taking herself if circumstances permitted. My question for you is whether Adorama has any system in place that would permit me to upload files from California and pay for the printing myself, but allow her to pick up the prints in person at your store? My intent is to make the prints a surprise after-the-event gift to the family from my family, as a supplement to the conventional housekeeping gift we are giving her daughter.

Thanks in advance for your response.

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[pakodominguez]

hello Tom,

yes, you can place an order and ship it to your friend/family adresss, or leave it for pick up at the store (you only need the order #)

Send me a PM with the order # and I'll take care of your prints.

regards

[UrsaMajor]

yes, you can place an order and ship it to your friend/family adresss, or leave it for pick up at the store (you only need the order #)

Thanks for the response. I think what I am going to do in the next day or so is to upload a few of my own family pictures using the printer profiles from the Adorama web site, and have the prints mailed here to see how well the results match my screen without any corrections by your equipment. That should tell me whether I should send "no corrections" files for the pictures I take next month, or if the results would be better if I let your equipment do the color balancing. (I want to get copies of some of the photos I took recently at my grandson's christening, so I'll be killing two birds with one stone by sending those files now.)

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[pakodominguez]

yes, you can place an order and ship it to your friend/family adresss, or leave it for pick up at the store (you only need the order #)

Thanks for the response. I think what I am going to do in the next day or so is to upload a few of my own family pictures using the printer profiles from the Adorama web site, and have the prints mailed here to see how well the results match my screen without any corrections by your equipment. That should tell me whether I should send "no corrections" files for the pictures I take next month, or if the results would be better if I let your equipment do the color balancing. (I want to get copies of some of the photos I took recently at my grandson's christening, so I'll be killing two birds with one stone by sending those files now.)

With best wishes,
- Tom -

Even if you have everything st up for doing your own corrections, I'll recommend you to choose "with corrections" -we don't "auto correct" anything, but we manually check and correct every single image if it need it.

This is a good post that explain the best way for soft proofing with Photoshop (it isn't mine and I don't know at all who the poster is, apparently a good customer...) http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=27922167" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Regards

[UrsaMajor]

Thanks for the response. I think what I am going to do in the next day or so is to upload a few of my own family pictures using the printer profiles from the Adorama web site, and have the prints mailed here to see how well the results match my screen without any corrections by your equipment. That should tell me whether I should send "no corrections" files for the pictures I take next month, or if the results would be better if I let your equipment do the color balancing. (I want to get copies of some of the photos I took recently at my grandson's christening, so I'll be killing two birds with one stone by sending those files now.)

Even if you have everything st up for doing your own corrections, I'll recommend you to choose "with corrections" -we don't "auto correct" anything, but we manually check and correct every single image if it need it.

Thanks for your note. I may choose "with corrections" the next time. On Thursday night I uploaded a couple of dozen images to Adorama and placed an order for a print of each with the "no corrections" option. I'll see how those compare with what I see on my supposedly calibrated monitor. Getting reasonably accurate skin tones is one of my goals, and that can be a challenge with family pictures, as we have a lot of ethnic diversity in my family - my son-in-law is Native American, my daughter-in-law is Vietnamese-American, and my son is much more fair-skinned than my daughter. Even knowing how everyone should look, it can sometimes be a challenge to get the image to come out right on the screen if I was shooting candids in tricky lighting . However, once I can get the screen image looking "right", the prints are normally acceptable when I use the profiled machine at my local Costco.

BTW, I see that Adorama has downloadable profiles for every paper you offer except the Endura Glossy. Is there is no profile for it by choice, or is it a new paper that you have just not profiled yet?

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[pakodominguez]

BTW, I see that Adorama has downloadable profiles for every paper you offer except the Endura Glossy. Is there is no profile for it by choice, or is it a new paper that you have just not profiled yet?

With best wishes,
- Tom -

The pro glossy is a brand new paper (for us...) they put it on line only one week ago. The profiles will be upon the website during this week.
In other hand, all the adoramapix profiles are very close to the standard sRGB, the most important part is converting your files to sRGB before printing -that is the only automtism we are considering to do, converting non sRGB files to the profile the customer order because the difference in color and contrast is HUGE when customers send AdobeRBG files.

Regards

[pakodominguez]

Thanks for your note. I may choose "with corrections" the next time. On Thursday night I uploaded a couple of dozen images to Adorama and placed an order for a print of each with the "no corrections" option. I'll see how those compare with what I see on my supposedly calibrated monitor. Getting reasonably accurate skin tones is one of my goals,...

Hi tom, How do you like your prints?

[UrsaMajor]

Thanks for your note. I may choose "with corrections" the next time. On Thursday night I uploaded a couple of dozen images to Adorama and placed an order for a print of each with the "no corrections" option. I'll see how those compare with what I see on my supposedly calibrated monitor. Getting reasonably accurate skin tones is one of my goals,...

Hi tom, How do you like your prints?

I have not seen them yet. Adorama was closed until Sunday, and I live in California, so the prints have not yet arrived here, although It is possible that they will be waiting for me when I get home tonight. However, I am going from work to dinner with a friend, and then to a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so it will be late tonight before I see the prints, even if the Postal Service has delivered them today.

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[Dr. Harout]

to a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony...
- Tom -

Wow, I love that.

[UrsaMajor]

Hi tom, How do you like your prints?

The prints were waiting for me at my home last night. They were very satisfactory, and I was stunned by the box in which the prints were packed and shipped. It was much larger and provided much more protection against damage in shipment than I would ever have expected. Clearly Adorama does not regard shipping as a profit center.

I now have another question for you - or for anyone else who knows the answer.

I do not remember ever seeing prints on any of the Kodak Endura papers. The Adorama web site states that they are excellent for photos of people - and says this about all of the different Endura papers. Is there any one Endura paper that you would say is the best choice for pictures of people? Not formal wedding photos, but candid pictures of people socializing at a wedding reception - ideally taken in available light with minimal use of flash, but I won't know if that is practical until I get there.

Thanks in advance for the help.

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[UrsaMajor]

to a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony...
- Tom -

Wow, I love that.

It is one of my favorite pieces also, and this week it shares the program with a relatively new choral work (Morton Lauridsen's "Lux Aeterna") that has moments which raise the hair on the back of my neck - and I normally do not care for choral pieces. Additional info about the concert can be found at:

http://www.pacificsymphony.org/show_det ... p?shid=199

It's particularly enjoyable because the PSO performs in a theater (the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall) with superb acoustics that opened in the fall of 2006. We were also fortunate enough to subscribe to especially good seats - although I do not think that there are any seats in this hall that are not good. FWIW, there is some info about the hall at:

http://www.ocpac.org/home/default.aspx

If it is of any interest, the Saturday night performances of the Pacific Symphony are usually broadcast over the Internet by KUSC, starting at 2000 hours Pacific Time - which would be early Sunday morning on the Eastern side of the Atlantic. The KUSC web site is at:

http://www.kusc.org/classical/

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[pakodominguez]

Hi Tom,

Basically, I'll use Endura luster for portraits and events (professional work or my niece's birthday party) and the new Pro Glossy or Endura Metallic for fashion, landscapes and any sort of image that get favored by contrast and sharpness (technical stuff by example) The Metallic can blow highlights sometimes...

I don't have anything against matte paper or the regular glossy (butt he new one looks much better) or the silk paper. The Silk paper can give you a "vintage feeling" because the texture of the emulsion. Te paper we use for the books, the Fuji Christal Archive, is a nice luster/perle-like paper but the paper itself is really thin -works if you mount it or for our photobooks.

Don't hesitated to send a PM if you want me to take care of your prints -I'm expending more and more time doing the photobooks, but I still do correct regular prints, most of the times on luster surface.

Regards

[UrsaMajor]

BTW, I see that Adorama has downloadable profiles for every paper you offer except the Endura Glossy. Is there is no profile for it by choice, or is it a new paper that you have just not profiled yet?

The pro glossy is a brand new paper (for us...) they put it on line only one week ago. The profiles will be upon the website during this week.
In other hand, all the adoramapix profiles are very close to the standard sRGB, the most important part is converting your files to sRGB before printing -that is the only automtism we are considering to do, converting non sRGB files to the profile the customer order because the difference in color and contrast is HUGE when customers send AdobeRBG files.

I see that the Adorama web sites lists new paper profiles, so I just downloaded them. However, the Adorama web site still lists only one printer profile for glossy paper, even though you offer glossy prints on both Kodak Royal paper and Kodak Endura paper. The profile for glossy paper does not state whether it is for Royal or for Endura. For which paper is the glossy profile intended?

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[pakodominguez]

The Glossy Pro paper profile is on line
direct link: http://www.adoramapix.com/downloads/ado ... os_509.icc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Regards

[UrsaMajor]

Basically, I'll use Endura luster for portraits and events (professional work or my niece's birthday party) and the new Pro Glossy or Endura Metallic for fashion, landscapes and any sort of image that get favored by contrast and sharpness (technical stuff by example) The Metallic can blow highlights sometimes...

Don't hesitated to send a PM if you want me to take care of your prints -I'm expending more and more time doing the photobooks, but I still do correct regular prints, most of the times on luster surface.

How did the color seem to be on the prints I ordered last week? I used the posted profile for Endura Luster and attempted to get the colors reasonable, especially the skin tones, but there were a number of the pictures that were taken in very mixed lighting and presented a real challenge. I don't think the mother of the bride has picked up the prints yet, but she is the type of person who would say very nice things about the prints even if she actually thought they were terrible, so I would appreciate an objective opinion of how they turned out.

With best wishes,
- Tom -