Lightroom Export

Maybe I am not using light room right, but I am still trying to decide if I want to use it or not (18 days left on the trial).

Lightroom is making experiment with RAW a little and I like the fact of one program to make general PP, but perhaps I need Elements (Currently Used MS Digital Image Suite).

But my question is once I have made the necessary changes to the RAW file (WB, Exposure, etc) and I like way the picture is. I want to export it to JPEG so that it can be uploaded on either my flickr site or even sent to the local store to be printed. But I am confused on the Image settings in the export window. I mostly have it set to JPEG at 100%, but the resolution is getting me what would be the best Resolution and do you Constrain Maximum size and if so do you use inches or pixels and what valued ?(this is on the right side of the image settings section). I mostly like to print 5x7 I have played around but it seems the pictures end up being bigger (file size) than the orginal.

Thanks

For my 0.02p worth always use pixels. You can then work on 300dpi as optimum for printing. You can export several versions at different resolutions if you want.. For flickr which has a max resolution limit, there is no point exporting any higher.

For me, I upload all my images full size to smugmug so I export at full resolution max quality.

The best thing to so is create preset export settings so that you can continually do the same type of export over and over. So once you get your export setup the way you want, make sure you save it in the top pull down menu.

Now, I have several different export presets that I use. For my web shots I do the following:

Change the filename to orginal filename_web.jpg.
I then select the maximum constraints as 800 pixels for both sides. This means that all shots come out at 800 pixels on the longest side.
I set my quality slider to around 80-90 for my personal shots, but 70 for my sports photos to conserve my space on Pbase. If you have unlimited storage like on SmugMug then I would go full res like Al.
I choose sRGB as my color space and ignore the ppi setting.
Finally I select what I want to do to the files when done exporting, which is usually to run a droplet for sharpening.


For prints:
I make sure that I have cropped my shot to the size I want to print (like 5x7 in your case).
I choose the output folder (I call it "Print File") and use a descriptive sub folder name.
I use the original filename.jpg here.
I set my quality to 100 and my ppi to 300, and my constraint pixels to 1500 x 2100 (this is likely redundant because I have cropped to 5x7 already and selected 300 ppi but oh well, it doesn't hurt).
Again I choose what to do on export and this time it is to run another droplet that converts the profile to my printer's profile and sharpen.

Thank you.

I think I see my problem then. I thought I needed to set the PPI higher...I had some as high as 1200 which made for a huge file (5+mb).

Mike,
Is there a way in LR to set the crop size (5x7) it seems to me I have just been drawing a box around the area I want cropped but I am not seeing the actual size - I am still learning LR so I assume I am just missing somehting. Thanks

AussiePup wrote in post #3537281
Thank you.

I think I see my problem then. I thought I needed to set the PPI higher...I had some as high as 1200 which made for a huge file (5+mb).

Mike,
Is there a way in LR to set the crop size (5x7) it seems to me I have just been drawing a box around the area I want cropped but I am not seeing the actual size - I am still learning LR so I assume I am just missing somehting. Thanks

When you select the crop tool there are some settings at the bottom of the window. There is a drop down menu where you can slect the aspect ratio. Click on it and then select 5x7. Make sure the little lock icon looks locked. If not, click on it. This will set your crop to 5x7 giving you the max size available at that aspect ratio. Click on the corner of the image and drag the cursor to get your size just right, and click the image to move it around if needed.