[Paul B]

you can also get the student edition for even cheaper (£55).

[Paul B]

After having a bit of a 'mare with Photobox and trying to ascertain what they were actually doing with my image at their end (including endless emails with my eventually convincing them that colourspace can indeed be embedded) I decided to look elsewhere.

Is anyone (cofe, johnny that guy with G.OO5E), using Peak-imagings ICC profile for soft-proofing?

I've downloaded and installed it but from what I gather its a display profile and LR4 therefore wont allow paper/ink simulation? Maybe its time just to buy a printer then I can screw around with things until I get fed up of getting it wrong.

[Johnny Brown]

HAHAHAhahahah. Peak Imaging's 'profile' is just the standard sRGB profile. IE a fucking joke.

If you buy a decent printer, you need to be using it weekly or it will clog up like mine. My advice is to go to Inframe in Woodseats. A printer you can't afford, properly set up and running daily with a RIP and a WYSIWYG monitor.

[cofe]

Have you thought about buying a better camera P-Ben?

[dave]

I don't use peak anymore for printing as like jb sez the profile situation is laughable, but whats worse is results are inconsistent. I did manage to get them ti give me a proper profile for their gloss paper but the end result was still bollocks. I actually got a closer result for the last thing I sent to them for printing by sending the slide to somewhere doing cibachrome, got a print done then phoned em saying 'can you make it a bit bluer'.

At least photobox are quite consistent in my experience. You could try bpd pgotech in warrington, they seem ok to me. Either way you want to get a hard proof done of anything you're bothered about.
 
Oh and a more expensive camera won't hurt either.

[Paul B]

Have you thought about buying a better camera P-Ben?

It never crosses my mind really...

HAHAHAhahahah. Peak Imaging's 'profile' is just the standard sRGB profile. IE a fucking joke.

That explains a few things. So Peak for development, inframe for printing. Can you make any adjustments whilst you're there?

[Johnny Brown]

bpd photech in warrington,

Used to use these for Ciba's in the film days, they were just round from my Dad's office. Very good, and heard decent things more recently.

inframe for printing. Can you make any adjustments whilst you're there?

They've always let me proof first if I want, though I've got a decent monitor so there hasn't been much to do. If you've not used a setup before be aware the monitor will seem pretty dark.

[cofe]

Lightroom 4 all up in here. Cheaper than previous editions innit.

[Johnny Brown]

Already ordered, under £60 is pretty cheap, more functionality added than the last upgrade which was £70+.

Bizarrely its £1.50 cheaper to have a boxed cd posted out than to download it. When you can download a trial for free, and use it until the cd arrives in the post....

[Paul B]

This may be useful if anybody is interested in learning lightroom in general:

There is a free Lightroom 4 Fundamentals webcast over 3 days from Thursday at Creativelive.

Their courses are normally very good quality for those that haven't seen them before.

The course will start at 5pm UK time, and normally finish around midnight. It will then be replayed a few times until the next day's live show begins.

I've watched a few of their courses, some have been good, others less so but there's usually a few good pointers at the very least.

[gingerninja]

paul b, ive got a mate in stocksbridge who has a print shop and is pretty on it when it comes to profiles and all that jazz.
he has dye sub printers and a big epson thing with a proper rip for printing.
give him a shout
http://www.valleyphotoprint.com/


ps peak are shit. i did a test and got much better prints off my hp 9180 a3 printer. only issue was i dont use it enough and one of the print heads has blocked. you can buy new ones but will sort it when i know im going to be using it. that or ill flog it if you know anyone whos after a a printer. its got an cis ink feed system with it too.

[Paul B]

Ok, I'll be trying IN-frame next week.

Along the lines of this thread Photoshop CS6 beta is now out. First impressions are that the interface is more akin to lightroom in colour and structure (which is nice).