Calendar quality by billyboy

I’m glad I held off buying one of my night shots now! They can’t go any darker!!

Billy…I had the same problem…and I work on a calibrated 93% color monitor…
My shots were all very dark…which was very dissapointing at 1st…Rb’s response was that the printer they use for the calendars is not the same as their durst they use for the prints which I’ve found come out great…after alot of too’ing and fro’ing between myself and Rb, I was going to give up on the idea…probem was, I had 50, yes 50 orders…anyway, I decided to re-upload a brighter ( levells slightly adjusted) version of every shot that was in the calendars…thats alot of shots, although it only took a couple hours…these “brighter” shots are hidded in the non-publisehd part of my PF…just for the calendars…I guess I wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if it wasn’t for all the interest by friends and acquantences, who were keen to get a calendar off me, not wanting to let them down……Still waiting for the brighter calendards to turn up..taking a big punt here with over $1000 worth of orders…
anyway, there you go, it’s not only you, and it definately isn’t your work….
best regards, Rob.

Thanks for the feedback! Looks like RB is aware of the problem and so I`m a bit surprised they don`t warn us. I would have been happy to upload adjusted versions for my calendars if I`d have known… I won`t cry over 3 calendars, but if I`d done 50 I would have gone into deep coma. Robert, you were wise to have been cautious and I hope lots of people see this post so they are at least forewarned.

My calendars turned out quite dark too. Which is quite disappointing as I had some delivered directly to clients. My monitor is correctly calibrated and the framed and mounted prints I have previously sold have turned out great. So the calendars aren’t indicative of the quality available on RB and aren’t a great advertisement for RB and probably won’t influence clients to purchase prints.

EEk I just ordered the one I created and it has been printed here so I hope it turns out ok. When I was creating mine for the groups here the printer told me it was my calibration of my computer but I took the images to kinkos and had them printed and they matched my computer so….. I hope that the calendar I ordered that I know printed out ok here will be ok…..nice heads up except I ordered without having asked for a sample.

Same with mine! I was totally excited when they came and overall pretty impressed with the quality, but some of the images themselves were very, very dark!

Ooooh no, I’m not happy to hear this. I am waiting for 4 calendars to arrive. 3 of my own to give out, and one for myself I ordered from Naomi Frost. Bummer BB!!

Oh dear…. I hate to have a dark year in 2008!

Jeeze, I`m sorry to be the harbinger of bad news… I feel awful now! At any rate, I hope this has at least saved a couple of would-be heartaches, and maybe someone could suggest how best to approach RB about a possible remedy?

Same here BB, dark pix :(

They are a little dark, I find they work better on the white background in most cases.

uh oh…. thank God I only ordered two….

Thanx for the heads up, Billy! I think I’ll hold off on getting any calendars for my friends and family until RB fixes the problem

Has anyone told redbubble about this?

I guess I should send a link to this thread to RB and see what they say. I should emphasize that there is no problelm with the print quality of the cards or wall art, it seems that only the calendars are affected… as Robert says they told him they use a different machine. If I get any feedback, I’ll post here, so check back if you’re concerned.

It’s in the forums too

Thanks for the link Sparrow. I think the lighter pictures turn out OK, especially if they are even a little undersaturated… it’s mainly the darker ones that suffer, like most of the ones in my cat calendar. If RB honors the reprint promise, then that’s already something, but I agree with one of the forum posts that a January solution is maybe a bit late. We’ll just have to see what can be done and how soon.

G’day there Billy and for anyone reading this journal…well, I’ve just recieved my big order of calendars and I must say, they are 100% better with the slightly brighter versions…I was holding off posting a journal on this although I had discussed this with a fair few people on here..because RB were working through it, they also stated that this was an isolated occurrance and they hadn’t recieved any other complaints…this is now obviously not the case…From the buyers booth, everyone seemed happy with theirs and there were no threads or journals on here with regards to dark calendars which also made me think…is it just my photo’s..!?…
Anyway, yes, if your shots look dark, then be aware..possibly upload brighter versions as I have, you can keep them un-published just for your calendars. I know this isn’t the best solution but for me, I’m happy to send these out to the many people who have ordered and believe me when I say, I am extremely fussy..!…cheers, Rob.

I had the same issue with a couple of my shots – lost some shadows and some dark blue shots turned out almost black. Overall I was really pleased with the quality of the calendars – they are very professional…but do be careful with the dark shots.

Yep yep yep. Mine dark too. It works out ok-just. But yep if you’re making calendars lighten ’em up.

I ordered 3 calenders and received them a while ago. Most of the shots appeared underexposed but I thought perhaps it was my monitor calibration profiles or whatever so I started looking into a Spyder calibrator. I only just saw all the complaints about the calenders today so I thought I’d voice my concern as well. These are intended as Christmas gifts and they aren’t too bad and if viewed in the proper light they look pretty ok. I received the second part of my order today which was a laminated print and some cards and they look pretty much spot on to what they look like on the monitors. I used the sRGB profiles within photoshop if that makes much of a difference.

Yep – this is problem that we’re aware of and we’re working to fix it. It seems to affect those calendars that contain darker images – a lot of the shadow detail is lost. Our investigation suggests that it’s a colour conversion problem – we’re working with some very very good colour management folks to fix this – and think that it will be all sorted in the first or second week of January. If anyone has received a calendar that they don’t think is okay we’re happy to replace the calendar.

Add another “yeah, too dark” from me too.

I am going to contact RB too…my calendar arrived the other day…which we are giving my husbands’ workplace for Christmas…some of my images are a little too dark for my liking but worse is that two images got rotated 90degrees…I have one of a flame that I called ‘the diver’ and side on it looks totally stupid! I also had a sunflower shot that doesn’t look quite so stupid but I think the sky on the side of the shot looks a little weird. I have had one problem with tshirt production and had that rectified very promptly so am not really worried. Its just a timing thing now…we won’t have something in time for Christmas :(

Susan, I agree the timing thing is a bummer, and I think maybe one of the problems was that the idea of calendars was so appealing to everyone that perhaps RB brought them to the market before being able to fully test the results in an attrempt to satisfy a rapidly growing demand. I would guess that they’re going nutz too trying to sort everything out and placate lots of disappointed members. At least they are being fair in admitting the problem and offering reprints, which I think is admirable. I too need to find a couple more gifts for Xmas to replace the calandars since I would rather not send anything than send a product that misrepresents the quality of my work, or the quality of the service that RB normally excels at. We’ll just have to grin & bear it. Although I’m disappointed, it by no means changes my opinion of an otherwise amazing service to its members. I do however think it’s important that you and the others here have voiced your grievences so as to advance the urgency of correcting the problems. So many thanks for responding to this thread!

Ok good to know it wasn’t just me my husband thought so too he commented on the darknes so I went back to the monitor looked at waht I had up loaded checke calibration seemed to be ok – cards I have ordered in the past have been fine. I have given 7 out out as gifts know one commented on the darkness only I knew waht it was meant ot be like. For me they scraped in as a pass . otherwise the calenders were good front image was great no probs with that .

A couple of my pics were too dark as well (but i still gave the callendars out as gifts and they were well received by the receivers)