WYSI-NOT-WYG

Okay, I'm done freaking out about this.  A few days ago I showed you Metamorphosis. The picture was taken in my front garden in diffuse daylight. I thought it looked pretty good on the screen with the light orangish fabric (somewhat overexposed) and the sweet purple asters.  I tootled over to the print shop later that afternoon to review the final proofs (truly a just-in-time job to make the online show deadline.) I was horrified.

Those flowers - BLACK background with gaudy dark smudges.  The fabric had become a creepy yellow color.  Everything was dark and ugly.  No can print. You can read all you want about subtractive colors and additive colors that translates to the pictures that look nice on your screen usually suck when you print them. I hadn't ever seen one of mine come out quite this bad.

An amazing thing, I was going to take a picture to show how unlike the screen photo the hard copy was. I had the screen and the print in my camera viewfinder and damned it the two colors hadn't changed yet still - the print actually looking more appropriately orange and rich than the screen. Oooh, mind games.

I have since retaken photos in just about every light setting, using every camera setting, every photoshop tweak I knew, every publishing program adjustment, and I still struggled.  Maybe it's just harder with the more saturated colors.  I want the printed photo on the chart to be accurate enough in color that if someone were to order the same fabric, they wouldn't be surprised when the parcel arrives.  It might be a touch more orange than you like! Now it looks super-orange on the screen, particularly with the new backdrop, but it prints so much better than the first.

Well, the online show has officially opened - I can tell, because "interesting things" have started showing up in my inbox. I'm waiting for my printer to call that the charts are ready for pickup. I have about 2 TB of garbage photo attempts to clear off my hard drive.  I think it's time for a cup of tea.