Getting prints for your pictures

[flashhsalf]

I hope this is the right forum for this.

allright so i took some pics of someone's daughter and they'd like to get them printed.

I know absolutely nothing about getting prints done and how to go about it. They'd like to have a higher resolution picture for printing.

1. Do I give them the Raw file and have them take it to Kinko's or whatever to have them do a bit of PP and print it. I'm guessing they will be able to print the jpg with the correct color format. OR do these printing places only take jpgs?

2. I give them the JPG outputed with Adobe RGB and they take those files to somewhere and have them printed?

Are both options valid?

any suggestions on how to go about this?

[PoSaiDoN]

I was asking the same question to myself the other day, and while browsing my local Black"s store and drooling on my B-day present "SOON !!!" the XSi, i asked the sales man and he told me that the RAW file is ok to be printed if i just brought the memory card and the took care of the rest. not sure if he was competant though ..... Looked a little ...... stoned :rolleyes:

P.s HAHA my first post . I lovin this forum.

[flashhsalf]

Also how do i save the full resolution jpg file from Lightroom 2.0 beta?

Do i use Adobe RGB or Prophoto colorspace? What about the resolution?

[silvex]

Please see the print section of the great FAQ

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=296149

[Meesterjojo]

I hope this is the right forum for this.

allright so i took some pics of someone's daughter and they'd like to get them printed.

I know absolutely nothing about getting prints done and how to go about it. They'd like to have a higher resolution picture for printing.

1. Do I give them the Raw file and have them take it to Kinko's or whatever to have them do a bit of PP and print it. I'm guessing they will be able to print the jpg with the correct color format. OR do these printing places only take jpgs?

2. I give them the JPG outputed with Adobe RGB and they take those files to somewhere and have them printed?

Are both options valid?

any suggestions on how to go about this?

1) Kinko's will brutalize your photos. I'd just take them to a local (presuming you have such) camera center- like Ritz camera (I do like those funny little white rough-edge borders they do), or your areas large reprographics center. Many people assume that reprographic companies only specialize in, well, reprographics (blueprints and what-not). Not so: case in point- I work for a reprographic center and operate, amongst other printers, 2 Oce Lightjets.

2) Give whomever the photo version you like best. My local camera center "of choice" will work with my RAWs, another won't. Where I work won't handle your RAWs, but I will when I'm on duty. TIFFs are you're best choice: Process your RAW the way YOU want, then save as an Uncompressed TIFF. Jpegs are for Point n' Shooters, or quickies.

Make sure you know the printing standards for wherever you send your files to be printed- as I mentioned in another thread (now that I'm diving in) we are constrained to some degree by our hardware/software. For us Adobe RGB for photo prints is a must (sorry guys), and we will convert your files (if we don't our rip will).

[PhotosGuy]

flashhsalf, it might help if we knew where you're from? There are only a few places that really care how your prints come out. Online printing may be your best choice.

Anyone ever have print quality issues with small shops ? (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=325056)

Printing at Costco (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=421705)

[Stocky]

TIFFs are you're best choice: Process your RAW the way YOU want, then save as an Uncompressed TIFF. Jpegs are for Point n' Shooters, or quickies.

How much do you actually loose from a high quality JPG? I don't think you can actually tell the difference.

[tim]

2) Give whomever the photo version you like best. My local camera center "of choice" will work with my RAWs, another won't. Where I work won't handle your RAWs, but I will when I'm on duty. TIFFs are you're best choice: Process your RAW the way YOU want, then save as an Uncompressed TIFF. Jpegs are for Point n' Shooters, or quickies.

Geez you're big on bad advice aren't you? Both here and on the last thread I saw you post on.

TIFFs are unnecessary for printing, a Q12 JPG will look exactly the same as a TIFF when printed. This is something i've seen with my own eyes, having had test prints done to satisfy my own curiosity. TIFFs and PSDs have their place, it's keeping your edits in layers so you can re-edit later without going through the jpg save/load cycle, which introduces image degradation.

Very, very few labs will print from a RAW file. Just keeping up to date with the latest camera models is a job in itself, and it would take more time. I've never seen a lab that will print from RAWs in my country, there might be the odd one that will but i'd be surprised.

OP: there's a printing FAQ linked from the resource thread in my sig.

[Damo77]

I wouldn't trust anybody to print my raw files anyway. The whole point of shooting raw is to have control over the post-processing. If you want to shoot-and-print with nothing in between, you should shoot jpeg.

+1 to high quality jpegs for printing. Hell, even Level 8 is fine IMO.

[Tdragone]

Totally true.
TIFFs are unnecessary for printing, a Q12 JPG will look exactly the same as a TIFF when printed. This is something i've seen with my own eyes, having had test prints done to satisfy my own curiosity. TIFFs and PSDs have their place, it's keeping your edits in layers so you can re-edit later without going through the jpg save/load cycle, which introduces image degradation.

I edit in Tiff; then when done save a .jpg and delete the tiff.

I use Costco to print my large pictures; cant beat their 9.99 for 16*20 AND 20*30 + 4.99 shipping PER ORDER, not per print.

-TD

[tim]

I edit in Tiff; then when done save a .jpg and delete the tiff.

Why do you delete your TIFFs?

[LeeSC]

How much do you actually loose from a high quality JPG? I don't think you can actually tell the difference.

I agree. Unless they plan on plastering these photos on the sides of buses, no need for anything other than JPG.

Also, another important thing to consider is that if you are giving them the CD, they will be unable to read it/ look at photos if they don't have some type of RAW reader. Not to mention the fact if they take it to a Lab that doesn't accept RAWs. I don't know of any non- photographers who happen to have lightroom or ACR sitting on their desktop.

Anytime I am sending a freebie to family or friends it is always in JPG format. All you have to have is Windows 3.1 and you can see your kids pics!