Opinion of color balance

[rick_bouthiette]

I am having a problem getting this photo printed (offset printing). Could you please look at it on your monitor and give me your opinion?

http://www.pbase.com/rick_bouthiette/image/40396008[/code]

[neovolatile]

Here is your original:


Here is it adjusted on my monitor for curves. Hope this helps:



I may be way off base. You tell me.

Sincerely offered,
Ellsworth Weaver
http://www.pbase.com/neovolatile

[neovolatile]

Less blue and more natural balance using Unsharp Mask at
Amount=20
Radius = 250
Threshold = 0 pixels

Will take these down if you wish.

Just a neat challenge,
Ellsworth

[ckimmerle]

Rick,

Your overall color balance looks very good, but the contrast is a bit low. There was no black point, and the white point was limited to the specular highlight in the hair.

I had good results with the following: in levels, slide the black slider in to 10 to give a better black, and the white slider in to 230 to bump the highlights a bit without blowing out any highlights (except a bit of the hair light). Next, go into curves, select the middle, and brighten the midtones just a very small amount. You'll see that when you do this the face gets more saturated and you lose a lot of that cyan that made her look rather dull.

Now when you say you're printing via an offset press, does that mean you're convertingto CMYK yourself? If so, what profile are you using?

Nice pic, by the way.

Chuck

[rick_bouthiette]

Thanks to everyone for the help here.

Chuck - I tried your suggestions and I agree it does look better. The added contrast makes the difference.

I had business cards printed at 2 different facilities and both had dramatically different results. With one the tones were very dull. At the other the skin tones were dark and had a red tint. But the logo which prints PMS 201 was identical on both.

The file is created in Illustrator with the phot placed. Phot is converted to CMYK and I use Photoshop 5 Default CMYK.

[hdwiv]

COLORS

Before...



... and after.

[bchalifour]

I am having a problem getting this photo printed (offset printing). Could you please look at it on your monitor and give me your opinion?

http://www.pbase.com/rick_bouthiette/image/40396008[/code]

\

Rick,
The original is perfect on my monitor (I have reservation about the somewhat "constipated" smile though. The modifications submitted look aweful on my monitor (high contrast, loss of details in the highlights, color shift. What was your problem exactly?