A new service from Hermitage PS
Hermitage Photo Services, already well-established in remote printer profiling, can now offer the highest quality inkjet ("giclee") prints in sizes up to 17" x 25".
This service is primarily aimed at serious amateurs, semi-professionals and
professionals who need larger prints than they can produce in-house, or for those who recognise that their own equipment is limiting the quality of their output.
Most desktop inkjet printers can produce very acceptable "everyday" colour prints, especially if custom printer profiles are used. However, consumer-level printers, no matter how well
they are set up, will seldom do justice to the images produced by today's DSLRs
or obtainable from good 35mm or MF negatives. This is especially true of black-and-white images, where slight colour casts, and loss of shadow
detail are difficult to avoid.
At Hermitage Photo Services we have used our extensive colour management experience to set up our Epson Stylus Pro 3800 to give the best colour performance on a
few carefully selected papers. These papers, in combination with the
state-of-the-art pigment inks, offer wide colour gamut, excellent colour accuracy,
and long print life.
For B&W work, we have spent considerable time in generating custom curves for the well-respected QuadToneRIP. This specialist RIP (Raster Image Processor) is designed to extract the
ultimate monochrome quality from a printer, with high Dmax, excellent shadow detail, and unrivalled linearity. On the right paper, B&W prints produced on the Pro 3800 using QuadToneRIP, will stand comparison
with the best darkroom (silver) prints.
Why use Hermitage Photo Services for your best photo prints?
Friendly personal service, accessible by phone or e-mail.
Prints from digital files or from film (35mm or Medium Format).
While-you-wait service (by arrangement).
Images are individually assessed by an experienced photographer and Photoshop user prior to printing.
Images are printed individually - no batch printing.
Choice of quality fine art and photo papers.
Wide colour gamut from K3 pigment inks - richer colours than Fuji Crystal
Archive prints.
Longer print life than Crystal Archive - typically 70+ years for colour and 100+ years for B&W.
Accurate colour - checked regularly against standard calibration.
Genuine B&W prints with deep blacks, silky-smooth tonality, good shadow detail and no colour
casts.
Professional quality at low cost. HPS is (literally) a "cottage industry" with low overheads - hence low cost to you.
Preparing your digital image
When we receive an image file from you we will evaluate its suitability for printing at the requested size.
We will not edit or modify the image in any way unless you ask us to. If you are not sure how to get the best from your image, just send it to us and we will happily give an opinion
and do a reasonable amount of adjusting/editing. If you do this, remember that
we will be giving our interpretation of the image, which may differ from yours;
however, we will always e-mail you a low-resolution version of our edited work
before we print.
If you are working in colour, it is essential that you have a properly calibrated/profiled monitor. The colour in our prints will be faithful to the colour
in your file. This will not be the colour that you see on your monitor unless it is calibrated. For serious work, a hardware calibration using an instrument like the
Eye-One Display2 is essential.
We recommend that you work in Adobe RGB (1998) or ProPhoto RGB, from camera to final saved file. If you choose to work in sRGB you may sacrifice some colour
range. A good inkjet printer can reproduce colours outside the sRGB colour space, particularly in the
green/cyan region.
Examine your image carefully at 100% to find any blemishes, however small. Small defects can look quite large on an A2+ print!
When you are happy with the image, re-sample it if necessary to the required size and resolution. For optimum results, the resolution should be 360ppi
at the required size. If you want to
sharpen the image you should do so after you have scaled it. Be careful not to over-sharpen - avoid the bright haloes that can too easily appear.
If you would prefer, you can leave the scaling and re-sampling to us.
Before you finally commit, and save your image, you may want to soft-proof,
especially if you are ordering a print on matt paper. if possible. You can
e-mail us for the profile for the paper that you would like us to use and
verify that it is capable of reproducing your colours adequately. Some colours, like dark reds and purples, are difficult to reproduce on any
CMYK printer. Remember also that matt papers will have smaller colour gamut than gloss. Soft-proofing in Photoshop can quickly reveal any limitations, and may prompt you to choose a different paper.
(Please note that these profiles are not offered as "generic" profiles
for the Epson Pro3800. The profiles represent the performance of our printer,
using printer settings that have been carefully optimised. You will not be able
to exactly reproduce these settings and the profiles will not give optimum
results on your printer. If you are not happy with your present profiles, invest
in a custom profile from us - it's only £14.)
When you are happy with your image, save it as an 8-bit, single-layer TIFF, or as a JPEG at high quality. If your working space in Photoshop
is Adobe RGB then this profile will be embedded in your file. If your file has a different profile, such as sRGB
or ProPhoto RGB, we will honour this profile and will not convert.
Neutral B&W images can be saved as RGB or greyscale with no difference in the printed result.
Prints From Your Film
We realise that although fewer and fewer people are using film
for new work, there are still millions of images on film in personal archives.
We can produce B&W prints from negatives that will be comparable in quality to
those that ahve been "hand-printed" in the darkroom, and colour prints that
are always better than machine prints like those you would get from Boots or Jessops,
or from on-line "labs".
We do this by scanning your film at high resolution, and removing any blemishes caused by dust and scratches. We can then either make a straight print or
we can manipulate the image to give any effect that you want. If you already have a print, even a 6" x 4" machine print, we can match the appearance
if required. For B&W prints our digital post-processing experience allows us to use all of the standard darkroom techniques like dodging and burning-in
and local contrast adjustments to get the ultimate from your negative.
We can produce any print size from A4 (8" x 12") to A2 (16" x 24") from a good 35mm or MF
negative. We're not claiming the we can "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear", but we can extract
all the quality and detail from your negatives.
Of course, producing a great print from a negative takes more time than printing a digital file, so the cost will be higher. But, the results will be far better than any
machine print from any "lab". Contact us to talk about your requirements
and to get an estimate.
Paper Availability and Print Pricing
Our current range of papers is deliberately limited to a very small number that we know and
like, but we are happy to include others if there is sufficient demand. If your
favourite paper is not here, let us know.
| Availability |
| Paper Type |
Weight
g/m2 |
Max Size |
Comments |
|
HARMAN
by Hahnemühle
Gloss Baryta |
320 |
17"x25" |
Heavy,
acid-free
fibre-base paper with baryta layer for superb image sharpness. Looks and
feels like a traditional air-died darkroom gloss paper. Perfect for B&W
prints, giving bright whites and deep blacks with a Dmax of
2,4. Our favourite paper, especially for B&W.
Awarded
"Best Fine Art Inkjet Paper" in the 2011 TIPA Awards. |
<
|
HARMAN CRYSTALJET ELITE Luster |
260 |
A2 |
A very
affordable RC paper which has the look and feel of a traditional lustre
photo paper. Gives the wide colour gamut expected from a photo paper,
with minimal gloss differential. |
|
HARMAN
by Hahnemühle
Matt Cotton Smooth |
300 |
A2 |
Heavy,
bright white, 100% cotton paper with a very smooth surface. Good colour
gamut and Dmax make this ideal for colour or B&W, while the
smooth surface holds detail extremely well. |
Prices given below are for single prints from one image. If you require multiple
copies, discounts apply. Please contact us for details.
A4 prints and proofs are shipped in board-backed envelopes.
Larger sizes
are shipped in triangular cardboard tubes with an effective diameter of 125mm
(5”).
|
|
Pricing by Print Size |
|
Paper Type |
Price £ |
|
|
A4 |
A3 |
A3+ |
A2 |
17"x25" |
|
HARMAN
by Hahnemühle Gloss Baryta |
4.50 |
7.00 |
8.00 |
12.00 |
14.00 |
|
HARMAN CRYSTALJET ELITE Luster |
4.00 |
6.50 |
7.50 |
11.00 |
- |
|
HARMAN
by Hahnemühle Matt Cotton Smooth |
5.00 |
7.50 |
8.50 |
12.50 |
- |
|
Postage & Packing |
2.00 |
3.00 |
3.00 |
4.00 |
4.00 |
| Proof Prints (inc P&P) |
- |
All sizes/papers 4.00 |
|
Special Introductory Offer!
We would like you to see our print
quality for yourself, with your image. So, we are offering a proof
print on the paper of your choice for only £2.50 including
P&P. Just send us your full-size image file, with your preferred
payment method, and we will produce a proof as described below and
dispatch it to you by First Class mail.
You have no obligation to buy a full-size print; however, if, after
you have seen the proof, you decide to order the full-size print, we
will deduct £2.50 from the cost of the that print. That means you
get the proof print free!
E-mail or call if you want more information about this offer.
N.B. This offer is limited to one
proof print per customer.
|
Proof Prints
You may like to see a proof before you commit to a large (expensive!) print. We offer
A4 proofs printed on the paper you have selected
for the final print.
Proofs contain two images. The first is a reduced version of your full image to allow you to assess the overall tonality and colour rendering. The second is a section of your
image printed at actual size, to allow you to assess overall sharpness and rendering of detail.
The example below shows a proof for an image to be printed 12" x 24".
Getting Your Images To Us
In Person
The most direct way to get your files to us is to bring them to us in person!
We are in Worthing, West Sussex, and we are always pleased to see customers
in our modest premises. If you would like to come to us please phone or
e-mail to arrange a mutually convenient time. We can usually offer a while-you-wait service for personal callers if required.
On Disk
You may send you image(s) on CD/DVD as JPEG or TIFF files. There is,
obviously, no practical limit to the file size that you can send in this way. Be
sure to include a completed Print Order Form, which you can find on our
downloads page.
We do not normally return disks to you. When sending files on disk, you can
enclose a cheque for the correct amount, or we can calculate the total cost and
send you a PayPal invoice. The invoice can be paid using any major credit or
debit card through PayPal's secure site.
By E-mail
If your image file is less than 8MB, you can send it as an e-mail attachment
to our normal contact address. You should include all of the information
required on the Print Order Form, either as an attachment, or in the body of the
e-mail. When sending files by e-mail, PayPal is the only payment option.
Direct Upload
We do not currently have an FTP facility for direct upload of image files.
However, you can use a service such as YouSendIt to make files available to us.
A free YouSendIt acount will allow you to upload files up to 100MB in size. If you use this
facility bear in mind that file upload speed is much lower than download speed;
a 25MB image file will typically take 8-9 minutes on a broadband connection.
|
