ICC Profiles and PSE3.0 - How to Needed?

Question

I recently bought a monitor calibrator, and I am quite satisfied that what I see on the monitor is the way I should be seeing it. I've printed a few prints with my Canon Pixma 4000, and the prints are almost exactly the same as what I see on the monitor. So, as far as using my printer, I am pretty satisfied with the workflow/color management.
As a test, I sent a photo to Adorama, and I chose to use no ICC profile or color correction. I just picked up the print from them, and it is noticeably different from my other prints and the monitor. Basically, it appears to be darker, which of course renders the colors slightly different shades and the saturation different than what I started with. It is a nice print, but not true to my original.
So, I assume the missing ingredient was the ICC Profiles I could have downloaded from them; a different one for each of their paper choices. Please help me understand when I embed this profile in my workflow, and how it works. Can I do this at all in PSE 3.0?
Does it get embeded early in the process, in which case what I see on the screen is different than if I didn't use a profile; or, is it embeded in the end of the process, and only used as a set of instructions for their printer?
I think I'm oh so close to understanding this process.

Answer 1

Steven,
Most photo labs are set up to process sRGB images, NOT Adobe RGB images. In
fact, most commercial printers either do not read embedded profiles or
ignore them.
If you are going to send an image to a commercial printer without using the
labs custom icc profiles you should be working in sRGB and send them an
sRGB image. If you do want to use the labs custom icc profiles, you must
have software that can convert the image to the selected profile. Elements
cannot do that.
I'm going to give you a link to Dry Creek Photo
(http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/using_printer_profiles.htm) that has some
pointers for using custom profiles with commercial labs. Especially read
the info at the bottom under "Example color managed editing and printing
workflow". They also have pointers to some utilities that can do the
conversion.
Dry Creek Photo creates custom profiles for commercial printers and, in
fact, lists Adorama in their profile database. Here's the entry:
a.. "Adorama Pro-Lab Inc.: 42 West 18th St., New York, NY 10011 Phone:
888-216-6400
a.. Store info: Noritsu 34-Pro, Kodak papers.
b.. Royal Glossy paper profile, June 26, 2006
c.. Endura Lustre paper profile, June 26, 2006
d.. Royal Matte paper profile, June 26, 2006
e.. Mac OS 9 format version (both profiles) See usage note.
f.. Note: This printer uses our enhanced accuracy custom profiles.
g.. Note: Adorama has multiple printers. Specify that your profiled
prints run on the Noritsu 34-Pro.
h.. For more information, please contact Adorama Pro-Lab "
Using custom profiles or not using them and using just sRGB should only make
subtle differences. Gross changes would suggest that you have something
wrong in your settings and/or calibration. You have a calibration device,
which is good, but what are your Elements color settings? While you can
never get a perfect match between monitor and print, you should be able to
get a reasonable and consistant match. It's also possible that Adorama is
doing something that's affecting the print. If you are sending an sRGB
image that views ok on your system using something other than Elements and
it comes back from Adorama significantly different, it could be on their
side.
Bob