External lab profile

[Caravans2]

How can I apply my external photo lab profile to my finished image in elements 15. My external lab have offered to do this in house but I do not get to see the finished image before printing, not ideal situation. The lab says they get many complaints on this matter. With a lot of people using external labs I thought this would be a basic requirement. I wondered if you could use an app to enable you to do this. After talking to adobe technical I was shocked to find they could not give a straight answer to a very simple question. HOW DO I APPLY EXTERNAL LAB PROFILE TO FINISHED IMAGE BEFORE PRINTING. If you can not do this in elements 15 then it is obvious that elements 15 is of no use to anyone who wishes to use outside labs for the images they produce. I am sure that must include a lot of people. This should be made clear before you make the purchase of this product. Looking forward to some constructive conclusion to this basic requirement from anyone who can help.

David

[99jon]

Hi David

Elements permits the use of ICC profiles and rendering intent in the print dialog but it is designed for home usage e.g. for a specific printer, paper and ink combination. I doubt that you would gain anything from embedding the lab profile as you will always be viewing on an RGB monitor.

It is probably best to let the lab do the conversion but I would recommend doing a small batch of test prints to ensure you are happy with the prints. This is often necessary, even with home printing, as some computer screens are set too bright, resulting in darker prints.

Set up color management

[MichelBParis]

To add to 99jon good advice, I would suggest that you read that old technical paper about lab profiles:

Using Printer Profiles with Digital Labs

You seem to find natural that you have to:

HOW DO I APPLY EXTERNAL LAB PROFILE TO FINISHED IMAGE BEFORE PRINTING.

even in Elements which is a consumer product, a photographer product, not an editing and printing software for the internal use of labs.

I believe that once you understand the ins and outs of color management, the task of the photographer is to provide a digital image containing the best and most faithful color information to the printing lab, and the task of the printing lab is to make the most out of it to reproduce the image the best they can on a paper output which is severely limited in colors and totally dependent on the printing techni

que, the paper and ink quality. Only the lab has all the parameters in hand. If the lab does not want to take that responsability and asks you to prepare the print for the limitations of their software/hardware, it may offer you to do the job at a small price.

An existing requirement for demanding photographers printing at home on quality printers is to get a controlled printer ICC profile from specialists. The 'advanced' section of the printing module of Elements lets you choose a printer profile installed on your computer, either one of the many profiles listed or your 'custom made' profile.

If you want to try the free conversion utility provided by Drycreeek in that paper, have a look at:

Profile Converter

I don't need such an option like most Elements users, so, I can't tell you how it works really.