colour cast in final prints

[shpfoto]

Hi anyone...
I am a professional photographer and have been using the S2 since March. It has taken some time to get used to however I am making quite sucessful progress.
My problem lies in the final prints. I am getting prints back from lab which have serious colour cast. Skin tones appear very green or yellow cast. I have also had a problem with the reds sometimes faces appear purple.For me this is quite serious as it is very important to perfect and enhance skin tones.
Has anyone else had this problem?
Also any tip on white balance especially in the studio would be very helpful.
I am using my camera with the metz for weddings mostly on cloudy white balance as auto tends to be quite cold.
Look forwrd to hearing from someone that can help me out here.
Siobhan
Eire
:mad:

[Eddie the Gnat]

Are you confident that your lab is doing good, consistent work? If they're cutting any corners with calibration or chemistry then you'll always get disappionting results. From your post it certainly sounds as if the problem lies there. I assume that you are using a reasonably well calibrated monitor, on which your images look fine? Personally I have been using auto WB almost exclusively and my prints have been coming back with perfect colour, but most of my shots are taken indoors under mixed lighting so I don't have any useful tips on that subject.

Regards,

Eddie :)

[jeffinkansas]

This sounds like it is a color management issue. Either your monitor is not profiled or you are not using the correct profile for your printer in photoshop

[laue]

Using a well calibrated monitor is very important, as if you adjust the color of your photo base on a non-calibrated monitor, then the color would be totally off.
If you don't do much color correction for your S2 Photos, then it may has to do with your camera, as there a quite a few number of S2 camera out there, that are not properly calibrated. (They tend to have a green/yellow casts on all photos) Unless you use custom White Balance.
If the color is done correctly with a good calibrated monitor, but the results are still off color. Then it would most likely be the lab being the problem.
Many traditional Labs that are good with films/negatives printing, are not good with digital. The film base printing machines normally work well with the popular negatives films, as they are calibrated to work with them. Also, I have been told that the more films they go through the machine with custom color correction, the better the machine can do for the next prints with it's auto color corrections. When it comes to digital prints, some machine uses system which is sort of like auto color/level with your photoshop. However, if you use the auto color/level feature with your photoshop often enough, you would probably find it works ok, but not great.

Just my 2 cents

Eddy L.

[MarcelF]

Sioban,
you may wantt o try this lab with a digital picture from someone else. ( friend ...)
That will tell you if the issue is with lab or your setup.

Regards

Marcel

[MarcelF]

Sioban,
you may want to try this lab with a digital picture from someone else. ( friend ...)
That will tell you if the issue is with lab or your setup.

Regards

Marcel