On-screen proofing - please help me get my head around Aperture color!

Question

The context: I recently sent some files for printing to an online lab, and found the prints looking very dull and "muddy" compared with what I'd seen on the screen of my iMac 24".
Looking for what I'd done wrong, I experimented with "on-screen proofing", but I was surprised to find that using a big variety of proofing profiles, the "proof" display looked hardly any different from the "raw" display. I even checked that it was working at all by using a b&w profile!
Next I calibrated my monitor using a Spyder2Express. This isn't the most full-featured tool, and I calibrated the monitor to gamma-2.2, white point "native". Now the screen looks a lot duller.
Going into Aperture I again find the same thing with "soft proofing" - changing the colour profile makes hardly any difference. What also surprised me was that using my original screen profile "iMac", the display doesn't look like it did before I calibrated the monitor (if you see what I mean ..)
Obviously there are some tricks I'm missing here. If someone could set me straight, or mention some resources for this specific question, I'd be very grateful!

Answer 1

as a photographer I know the frustration you suffer from , very well.
Once upon a time photographers went to the "darkroom". there they cutted stripes out of photopaper, exposed them in diffrent lengh to the light under the filmp rojektor.Then developed them and compared to decide, how finaly to expose and develope the Image.
To get a good print out of your picture I have some sugestion.
A ) try until it fits :
if you want to go on with the onlinelab, take the picture you got and change the settings in Aperture according to what you think is not right.
f.exemp.: +10% contrast, -50 % Booster, +20% saturation. then "save as" and
name the file xxxxx_v1.jpg . Next version you increase all changes values for another 10 %. then send the pictures to the lab and see what comes close to your expectations.
B ) change the fotolab :
you will get a beter result if you decide your nice pictures are worth some more cent. You choose a recommendet digital fotolab. One benefit willl be, they´ll tell you how to set your color managment so it fits best to their printer.
next you bring one picture file to them to print. next you make the correction you want to come close to what you want. so here we are what Micheal suggestet.
C ) do it yourself :
get your own good printer like Epson 2400....
Please don belive that a cheap printer does the same like the one mentioned above.
here you will spend more money than on way A+B, but in the end you´ll have prints wich look like you want, on the fineart paper you want them and they will last very long time.
D) the professional way wich may include also B+C:
You want or need professional quality and have the money to spend on it.
Sorry, but no Apple Monitor comes close to a hardware calibratet Monitor. Maybe they are semi-professional. I dont say this to insult Apple, ore somebody else, but i say this to sway out the illusion, " if I just spend more money on the calibration tool and software, I´ll have better prints". It´s just not possible, because the monitor cant show what is there. A Apple CRT monitor is far better in this. I you want to have a flatscreen TFT monitor to bring good results you have to choose one that is able to be hardware calibratet and has a higher lookup table (EIZO, LaCie, QuatoGrafics......)
I use use one professional EIZO CG21" and one semi-prof. EIZO FlexScanL985EX(21") and the diffrence is importand betwee the two.
But i need only one to be Print Proof ready.
Before i was always afraid when i gave the picture file to my client, because of what my pictures look like once it is printet. Now the outcome is right or differs only very little from what I saw on the screen.
my calibratiob tool is EYE ONE.
I write in such lenght, because in the beginning I thought I could get arround to by prof. hard-and software. I lost a lot of time and money in that way. so now i know
Cameras I use: D200, D5
G5 dual 2.3/4,5 gigRam/ATI 9600 128MB-PB G4 12"   Mac OS X (10.4.2)   EIZO CG 21"+EIZO L985ex 21"
G5 dual 2.3/4,5 gigRam/ATI 9600 128MB-PB G4 12"   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   EIZO CG 21"+EIZO L985ex 21"