Printing Advice

Hello folks ..

I recently took a pic of a couple we know and their kids liked it so much they wanna print out an enlargement, and present it to them for their 25th anniversary. They have quietly asked me for the high quality JPG.

AFA that pic is concerned, after minor ACR tweaks all I did was "Save for Web" as JPG/sRGB.

How should I save the RAW as a JPG (or something else) so it turns out OK for printing? The reason I ask is that I gave a co-worker some JPGs (exported the same way) for a personal calendar which he had printed at Staples online and they turned out dark and maybe a tad over saturated. I don't want the kids to go through the same issue and waste money.

Does the print medium also matter? Should I ask them if they want to print on paper or canvas?

Regards, and thanks in advance!

Hi Freddy - very generous of you to provide the gift.

When you save something for web, the file is being saved at about 72dpi which is great for email, FB, and galleries, but it will make a poor, low rez enlargement. You want a large JPG, something at least 1MB which will make a very nice 5x7 and probably a decent 8x10. When I send out wedding work to my pro lab my files are usually 2-4MB in size as I'm having 8x10 or larger prints being produced.

Now if something is coming out in print at Staples as too dark, that is a monitor calibration problem. His monitor is set too bright, so when he post processed the image he darkened it, which made the output even darker when Staples printed it. If you want make prints on a regular basis you will want to get your own monitor calibrated. Hope this helps - Stu

alphamalex wrote in post #15304561
Hello folks ..

I recently took a pic of a couple we know and their kids liked it so much they wanna print out an enlargement, and present it to them for their 25th anniversary. They have quietly asked me for the high quality JPG.

AFA that pic is concerned, after minor ACR tweaks all I did was "Save for Web" as JPG/sRGB.

How should I save the RAW as a JPG (or something else) so it turns out OK for printing? The reason I ask is that I gave a co-worker some JPGs (exported the same way) for a personal calendar which he had printed at Staples online and they turned out dark and maybe a tad over saturated. I don't want the kids to go through the same issue and waste money.

Does the print medium also matter? Should I ask them if they want to print on paper or canvas?

Regards, and thanks in advance!

There is no way to guaranty what will print out unless you do it yourself. What you see on your monitor is not necessarily what the print will look like or even what the jpeg will look like on their computer unless you are both using high quality calibtated monitors. There is the effect and resolution of the printer used, and the issue of color management which is printer specific and takes into account the paper used. Managed print software such as in Lightroom, helps reconcile the differences between what is seen on the monitor and what will be printed utilizing their soft proofing feature. Further, printing in Lightroom also has options to brighten and sharpen the printed image which is necessary much of the time. If you have no such tools, or the people receiving the jpg have no such tools, and their printer is unknown to you, its hard to say exactly what the printed image will look like. But generally, I would make it brighter and sharper than optimal for your monitor.

I think the kids wanna do something larger than 8x10 ... I'll find out and send an appropriately sized file .. making sure that the brightness is higher than what I would deem acceptable for monitor viewing.

Thanks much for the info ... its appreciated!

alphamalex wrote in post #15307828
I think the kids wanna do something larger than 8x10 ... I'll find out and send an appropriately sized file .. making sure that the brightness is higher than what I would deem acceptable for monitor viewing.

Thanks much for the info ... its appreciated!

You're welcome Freddy - glad to help. For something quality, larger than 8x10, I'd make sure the file was full dimension (no pre-cropping) and at least 3MB or thereabouts. As far as you monitor brightness - that may be a bit tricky. I wouldn't arbitrarily start changing settings.

If you really want to calibrate your monitor the proper way, you need to invest in some calibration hardware with s/w. But I believe there are some no cost s/w alternatives that can at least put your monitor into the ballpark of how bright things should be. I would go that route.

Freddy,
I'm going to make a recommendation at which some will laugh;
I'm sure there is a Costco in Lexington, so what I'd do is save a JPG with sRGB assigned as the profile at 300x6 or 1800 pixels on the long side. Send that image to Costco and have a 4x6 print made. Select the no color correction option and have it printed on luster surface paper.

When you get it back compare it to what you see on your monitor and also just look at it to see what you think. If the color and density are about right but you thing they could be better make adjustments to your image in Photoshop and have another test print made.

If it looks good, you now have a base image with sRGB assigned.

When you know what size they want the final print to be have Photoshop generate a JPG that is 300pixels be inch on the long side. i.e. for a 16x20 it would be 20x300 or 6000 pixels. If Photoshop has to upres that's OK select the option that it recommends for upresing.

Save that image as sRGB with sRGB assigned. Since it has the same color parameters as the test print you sent to Costco, most any consumer or professional lab will make an acceptable print. If it were me, and they are ok with luster surface, I'd send it to the same Costco. If they want canvas, use Costco for that as well. And, many Costco photo centers have Epson Inkjet printers and a limited selection of papers available so check those out as well depending on the print size.

Other good options are Adorama Pix, Mpix, both have a variety of paper options and will make prints from a file prepared as described above that is indistinguishable from the test print make at Costco.

dmward wrote in post #15308102
Freddy,
I'm going to make a recommendation at which some will laugh;
I'm sure there is a Costco in Lexington, so what I'd do is save a JPG with sRGB assigned as the profile at 300x6 or 1800 pixels on the long side. Send that image to Costco and have a 4x6 print made. Select the no color correction option and have it printed on luster surface paper.

When you get it back compare it to what you see on your monitor and also just look at it to see what you think. If the color and density are about right but you thing they could be better make adjustments to your image in Photoshop and have another test print made.

If it looks good, you now have a base image with sRGB assigned.

When you know what size they want the final print to be have Photoshop generate a JPG that is 300pixels be inch on the long side. i.e. for a 16x20 it would be 20x300 or 6000 pixels. If Photoshop has to upres that's OK select the option that it recommends for upresing.

Save that image as sRGB with sRGB assigned. Since it has the same color parameters as the test print you sent to Costco, most any consumer or professional lab will make an acceptable print. If it were me, and they are ok with luster surface, I'd send it to the same Costco. If they want canvas, use Costco for that as well. And, many Costco photo centers have Epson Inkjet printers and a limited selection of papers available so check those out as well depending on the print size.

Other good options are Adorama Pix, Mpix, both have a variety of paper options and will make prints from a file prepared as described above that is indistinguishable from the test print make at Costco.

David - this is nothing to laugh at and actually an excellent suggestion. I wish I'd thought of it. With this plan the OP is actually making a 4x6 "test strip" to check for printing exposure and WB. We used to do this all the time back in our wet darkroom days . And the recommended printing facilities will do fine for the purpose of the print. - Stu

sapearl wrote in post #15308368
David - this is nothing to laugh at and actually an excellent suggestion. I wish I'd thought of it. With this plan the OP is actually making a 4x6 "test strip" to check for printing exposure and WB. We used to do this all the time back in our wet darkroom days . And the recommended printing facilities will do fine for the purpose of the print. - Stu

Exactly. What I've found, using a calibrated monitor and Lightroom, is that I can send an image to several different labs for specific paper surfaces, or even press printed products, as well as print on several favorite papers on my Epson 3880 and all the prints look the same within reason.

This even goes so far as being able to prepare "guide" prints of art on my 3880 that can be used to judge catalogs printed on off-set presses. Those images are exported as TIFF with a default CMYK profile but easily adapted to the printer's specific requirements in their pre-press process.

As you say Stu, really just the digital version of what we did for clients shooting transparency film in the old days.

Man, this is why I love POTN

Roger that & thanks gents!!!!

alphamalex wrote in post #15308664
Man, this is why I love POTN

Roger that & thanks gents!!!!

Here is a test print I just built from some of my portfolio images.
I made an 11x14 and an 8x10 version. Each "printed" from the Lightroom print module with sRGB as the color space, relative rendering intent. The image is exported at 300 pixels per inch which seems to be the preferred resolution for most labs.

This is the screen image I generated the same way for reference when the prints come back from the printer.

These discussions motivated me to update my test image using LR V4 with the 2012 Process engine.

My objective in selecting these images is to provide a variety of situations that can be evaluated. For those who are too polite to ask; the moon really was in that position when the fireworks started. And this is a composite with a specific moon shoot replacing the moon behind the fireworks.
Headshot in top row is of a model in the studio with about 5 moonlights. Portrait in the second row is one of my brides -- window light with bounced speedlite fill. They are intended to provide skin tone examples. The image lower left if from a book published to celebrate a country club centenary and is the color as corrected in Lightroom and photoshop for the printer as a guide print. The other corner images are from projects and are intended to test subtle color and tonal transitions. The image of the house is from a real estate project and is intended to test ability to handle mid-tone contrast gradients and colors.

This is the way of doing a lot print test runs
Print using CSx.x
But you've got to do a few small sized photos (say 4 x 6) test runs with different settings in the print dialogue box (CTRL + P if you Windows)
Do this until you think the prints come out right. There is no fast way to do this, but don't let your printer do the colour management

But as some people have mentioned, don't use the "Save for Web" version

sapearl wrote in post #15304588
When you save something for web, the file is being saved at about 72dpi which is great for email, FB, and galleries, but it will make a poor, low rez enlargement.

Bollocks.

ppi is entirely irrelevant here. It's merely a calculation aid. All that matters is file size in pixels.
http://www.scantips.co​m/no72dpi.html

All that's different in "save for web" compared to "save as" a jpg, is that it

1. gives you a preview of what an image might look like in various types of browsers/color management used
   
2. gives you the option to save a file at a certain file size (in kB)
   
3. can strip all metadata from the file for minimal file size
   
4. has a different user interface
   
5. offers some other file types besides jpg and "animation" options.
   

sapearl wrote in post #15304588
You want a large JPG, something at least 1MB which will make a very nice 5x7 and probably a decent 8x10.

Filesize of a jpg in MB depends on a lot of things, filesize in pixels only being one of them…

sapearl wrote in post #15304588
Now if something is coming out in print at Staples as too dark, that is a monitor calibration problem. His monitor is set too bright, so when he post processed the image he darkened it, which made the output even darker when Staples printed it. If you want make prints on a regular basis you will want to get your own monitor calibrated.

Good advice.

alphamalex wrote in post #15304561
How should I save the RAW as a JPG (or something else) so it turns out OK for printing?

Save as a jpg, not too low quality (In the "Save as" dialog about 8-10, in the "Save for Web" (if for whatever reason I cannot fathom you prefer that) about 80% or so.
You want the file to have about 240 to 300 pixels for every inch of paper, so 1200x1800 for a 4x6 or about 2400x3000 for an 8x10". Note that I did not mention any ppi setting, because it is irrelevant.
Just to avoid confusion, you might ant to set 300ppi. Also saves you fromhaviong to do the math
Use sRGB unless both you and the lab understand color management.

alphamalex wrote in post #15304561
The reason I ask is that I gave a co-worker some JPGs (exported the same way) for a personal calendar which he had printed at Staples online and they turned out dark and maybe a tad over saturated.

He should calibrate his screen. And so should you.
Using a calibrator is the most accurate way, but you can workaround a bit (as dmward mentions)

alphamalex wrote in post #15304561
Does the print medium also matter? Should I ask them if they want to print on paper or canvas?

Generally speaking, some subjects are better suited for a specific print medium then others.
Also, sharpening tends to be different for different media. However, I suspect that the lab will take care of that aspect.

René Damkot wrote in post #15311832
Bollocks.

ppi is entirely irrelevant here. It's merely a calculation aid. All that matters is file size in pixels.......

Bollocks..........hmmm​, is that lossless or compressed . I should have clarified as I left out some information for that advice.

I put up a lot of web galleries with images that are saved to web, but I do so by typically constraining the largest dimension to 800 pixels, with a maximum files size of around 100K. These generally make crappy print images and I warn my clients of that. I advise them they are suitable for email, FB, that sort of thing, but will make very disappointing enlargements.

sapearl wrote in post #15313318
Bollocks..........hmmm​, is that lossless or compressed . I should have clarified as I left out some information for that advice.

Heh! So many people get confused with the whole ppi/dpi "thing", I think we do need to be clear as to what we are telling people even though it may seem to be "dumbing things down"!

And that's all you can do! People will still do whatever they want, but as we know trying to get a "nice" 8x10 print from a Web-sized image, well, it's not something you'd want to pay for!

tonylong wrote in post #15313532
Heh! So many people get confused with the whole ppi/dpi "thing", I think we do need to be clear as to what we are telling people even though it may seem to be "dumbing things down"!

And that's all you can do! People will still do whatever they want, but as we know trying to get a "nice" 8x10 print from a Web-sized image, well, it's not something you'd want to pay for!

I hear what you're saying Tony............ Thanks.