People print question....

[DRebelGirl]

A client just ordered well over one hundred 4x6 prints from smugmug in lustre.
The photos were saved at 12 (maximum) thru Photoshop and then uploaded to my smugmug site (it took almost 23 hours straight to upload at maximum).
He just received the order yesterday. The landscape photos look awesome. Photos that include people's faces look terrible....very rough and blemished however. This is the case on every photo that contains a face.
Why would that happen? I know my client isn't satisfied with the "people" prints...has anyone come across this themselves?
Thanks!

[DavidTO]

A client just ordered well over one hundred 4x6 prints from smugmug in lustre.
The photos were saved at 12 (maximum) thru Photoshop and then uploaded to my smugmug site (it took almost 23 hours straight to upload at maximum).
He just received the order yesterday. The landscape photos look awesome. Photos that include people's faces look terrible....very rough and blemished however. This is the case on every photo that contains a face.
Why would that happen? I know my client isn't satisfied with the "people" prints...has anyone come across this themselves?
Thanks!

I had this problem that was oversaturated, especially in the shadows where noise became really apparent. Is that what you're seeing? It was chroma noise, mostly. I pulled back on the saturation and ran Dfine to pull back the chroma noise. Looks nice, now.

[Ben]

A client just ordered well over one hundred 4x6 prints from smugmug in lustre.
The photos were saved at 12 (maximum) thru Photoshop and then uploaded to my smugmug site (it took almost 23 hours straight to upload at maximum).
He just received the order yesterday. The landscape photos look awesome. Photos that include people's faces look terrible....very rough and blemished however. This is the case on every photo that contains a face.
Why would that happen? I know my client isn't satisfied with the "people" prints...has anyone come across this themselves?
Thanks!
Can you link us to the gallery that the pictures are in? Looking at the actual people pictures that printed poorly, we can more than likely isolate the cause.

[Khaos]

I just ordered and received these two in 5 x7 and they arrived exactly as seen here. I was very happy.


http://khaos.smugmug.com/photos/16590171-M.jpg


http://khaos.smugmug.com/photos/16544780-M.jpg

[DRebelGirl]

http://lifemoments.smugmug.com/gallery/426451

Any info you can give me so that I don't have grumpy clients would be greatly appreciated!!

[Andy]

A client just ordered well over one hundred 4x6 prints from smugmug in lustre.
The photos were saved at 12 (maximum) thru Photoshop and then uploaded to my smugmug site (it took almost 23 hours straight to upload at maximum).
He just received the order yesterday. The landscape photos look awesome. Photos that include people's faces look terrible....very rough and blemished however. This is the case on every photo that contains a face.
Why would that happen? I know my client isn't satisfied with the "people" prints...has anyone come across this themselves?
Thanks!

did they choose add'l processing at the shopping cart (color, tanning salon, etc?)?

[DRebelGirl]

did they choose add'l processing at the shopping cart (color, tanning salon, etc?)?The client said they did no further processing at shopping cart. He said he
ordered them exactly as they were in the gallery.

[DRebelGirl]

I'm really stumped with this problem so I'm BUMPing it up just in case
someone can help me.
Thanks!

[Baldy]

Hey DRebelGirl,

Sorry it took me so long to jump in!

The good news is your shots are beautiful. Lots of good raw material there.

First, on the compression, I know that no one wants to take a risk with quality and the safe thing to do is save at jpeg 12. But the good news there is no verified case I've heard of where anyone could tell the difference between a 10 and a 12, but 10s are half the size. There have been contests on the subject but still 10s are standing as not visibly different.

There are some people who claim they have seen enlargements where they could distinguish 9 from 10, but I've never seen one verified. The moral of the story is 10 is super safe and will take that 23 hour upload to 11.

In many hundreds of thousands of prints printed, we've never seen or heard of jpeg compression being a factor in a returned print.

It always comes down to skin tone or sharpness.

So on to your shots. Sharpness is great for landscapes but people don't like sharp photos of their own skin if the light doesn't flatter. Here's the actual, unmodified pixels for one of your shots (great shot):

http://cmac.smugmug.com/photos/17762751-L.jpg

Unfortunately, the fill-flash caused a reflection on her forehead, cheeks and nose, causing imperfections to stand out. Since the shot is pretty sharp, you can see them loud and clear.

Is that the kind of roughness your customer is speaking of?

All the best,
Baldy

[delux]

:rofl I just ordered and received these two in 5 x7 and they arrived exactly as seen here. I was very happy. those are very good photos you have got on here


http://khaos.smugmug.com/photos/16590171-M.jpg


http://khaos.smugmug.com/photos/16544780-M.jpg