For about 11 years now I have had a color-balanced PC setup and have been using high-quality inkjet photo printers.

Early on I always wondered why what I saw on the monitor never matched what came out of the printer. I soon found out that because my monitor wasn't calibrated the editing I thought I was doing to the digital photos was just making matters worse. The more I attempted to "correct" the color in a picture the worse it got coming out of the printer.

Once I found out about having a calibrated system and got my monitor set up to display perfect color, then and only then did my editing get to the point where what I see on the screen matches what comes off the printer.

I do have one caveat, though. Although the colors on the screen and from the printer DO MATCH, there is one factor that will never perfectly match. That is the brightness of the pictures. You see, a monitor emits light whereas a print reflects light, therefore the picture on the monitor will always appear to the eye as being a bit brighter.

I frequently have to shoot without flash at affairs where it is not allowed. Here are some examples taken with my D700, hand held, all at ISO 3200, the first shot with the Nikon 24-70 f2.8 and all the rest with the Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR:

http://www.photosbycommodore-don.com/2012WRTOSActivities/Lauter-Concert-Buster-Keaton/21121768_5zpQ8v#!i=1681575650&k=WvBw95G

I started in photography in Jr. High and owned a Leica IIIC while still in high school. I graduated in Jan. 1952. Back then film speeds were very slow, as low as ASA 25, and you had to learn to hold a camera very steady. What I learned back then still works today.

It costs a bit more, but this is the most fabulous monitor I've ever owned for editing photos. That is what it was specifically designed for and it even comes factory calibrated. Here is the the link to the Dell Ultrasharp U22410:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=320-8277&baynote_bnrank=3&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch

I shoot ONLY in high-quality JPEG mode, so what I upload to SMUGMUG IS MY ORIGINAL, as edited in PS and various plug-ins.

I have had a PRO account on Smugmug since 2/8/2004 now. Prior to Smugmug I was on Yahoo, until one day I went to my photo album and was shocked to find that they had drastically ruined all of my pictures by compressing them into very small JPEG's without warning me or even telling me they were planning on doing this.

At the time I started with Smugmug, I felt it was the best photo site on the Internet and I still feel that way. Over the past years they have added improvement after improvement........they just keep getting better and better.

I love the fact that I upload the full-resolution versions of my pictures to them. Their internal software auto-creates all the various sized versions you can view. It does an excellent job of this and there is very, very littlle in the way of JPEG artifacts (distortions) in any of their versions of my photos. I have over 21,000 pictures on my Smugmug website. And when someone orders prints, they are made from the full-resolution high-quality JPEG's I uploaded.

http://www.photosbycommodore-don.com

I highly recommend them.

I have a D2X and a D300 and a D700. Although the first two are DX-format and the latter is an FX-format, all three are roughly the same resolution, that is just a wee bit over 12 megapixels and produce images which are of 3 to 2 ratio of width to height, whereas your previous camera was very close to 5 to 4. A 14 X 11 print is very close to 5/4 and an 10 X 8 print is a perfect 5/4 ratio. Since your new camera produces 3/2 ratio (the same as 35mm film cameras did), if you want to get border to border prints you must crop the image to the ratio of the print you want.

I have been using PhotoShop since version 4. One of the first things I learned was to set up a bunch of crop settings in the crop tool. These settings have changed over the years as camera resolution has increased. I currently have settings for the following:

6X4 inches @ 715 ppi for horizontal images or prints
4X6 inches @ 715 ppi for vertical images or prints
6X4 inches @ 96 ppi for horizontal computer images
4X6 inches @ 96 ppi for vertical computer images
7X5 inches @ 613 ppi for horizontal images
5X7 inches @ 613 ppi for vertical images
19X13 inches @ 300 ppi for horizontal prints
13X19 inches @ 300 ppi for vertical prints
and, if I printed 14X11's the crop tool would be set at
14X11 inches @ 390 ppi (or even 400) for horizontal
11X14 inches @ 390 ppi for vertical prints

etc. and so on.

A simple swipe with the selected crop tool and your problem is solved. My printer prints borderless prints. If yours does not you might want to deduct 1/2 inch from all the dimensions above allowing for a 1/4 inch white border around the picture and be sure to make certain the the "centered" choice is selected in your printer driver. I hope this answers your question for you. You may send me a private message if you need to know more.

I have one of the earlier 70-200's with VR. It has a wee bit of light fall-off in the corners, but that is easily corrected in PS or automatically in DXO. The lens is sharp as a tack and I love it. As a guest I have photographed four weddings during the service using the natural light in the churches. While the pro photographers were taking no pictures, since flash was not allowed during the service, I was "shooting away" from the choir balcony in the back of the church.

I specialize in photos of antique and classic wooden boats. The 70-200 VR is my lens of choice for taking action photos out on the water. The best such photo I ever got was with this lens mounted on my then new D-700 and taking advantage of that bodies superb high-iso ability.

Here's one of the wedding pictures and the boats picture.

This was converted into a watercolor in PS. I printed it at 13 X 19 and they have it matted and framed and hanging on their living room wall. Yes, she's a redhead!


This was the cover photo of the Lyman Boat Owners Association (LBOA) 2010 Calendar. This was on the Niagara River. D700, ISO 1600, 1/1600th Second at F16

Some years ago I learned that opening a JPEG to edit and then saving it, opening, editing and re-saving, etc. very quickly degrades a digital photo. Opening and closing a photo to view it does not degrade it.

In my opinion, TIFF's and raw images tale up way too much space. I never overwrite a jpeg, I just create other versions of it. For example, let's say that the original is DSC_0195.jpg. When I edit it in PS I would save it as DSC_0195F.jpg . If I want a lower-resolution version, I would again open DSC_0195, edit it and do a "save for the web" version named DSC_0195S.jpg . Most pictures only have two version, the original plus the F version. But I also have some photos which have more than four versions. Three or four jpegs take up no more space than 1 TIFF or RAW. Plus I always have the original photo, unaltered and un-edited to fall back on for other uses. That is because I NEVER re-saved it as a JPEG, just closed it. I even have other names, such as DSC_0195-8-5X11@600PPI.jpg, etc. or DSC_0195 6X4@96PPI.jpg. This way, even the edited ones are only second generations taken directly from the originals.

Jim's excellent explanation above was pretty correct except for one thing. The "original VGA" 640 X 480 pixel monitors had a screen resolution of 72 pixels per inch. As monitors got higher resolutions, super VGA at 800 X 600 PPI and 1024 X 768. resolution became about 96 pixels per inch on just about all. If you size a photo to say 6 X 4 inches at 72 PPI resolution and actually measure it on your monitor screen, you will find that it measures less than 6 X 4 inches unless you happen to be using an old VGA monitor. I doubt there are many around anymore. The larger LCD monitors such as the 1920 X 1200 pixel of the calibrated monitor on which I edit my photos in Photoshop CS5 actually has a screen resolution of 124 pixels per inch.

I never overwrite the out-of-camera original pictures, so I often have numerous versions of the same photo done at different resolutions. I use the crop tools in PS to downsize the high-resolution originals for viewing on a monitor or in an email. I have preset various crop sizes to accommodate this: for example, going back to that 6 X 4 inch example above, it would have been created with one swipe of the crop tool set to 6 X 4 inches at 96 PPI. Actually, this is NOT cropping the picture as the entire picture is swiped, but is reducing its pixel count from the original 715 PPI to 96 PPI. I then save the cropped and re-sized picture with a different file name, including the size and resolution, then close the original from which it was created. For example, the original might be DSC_0010.jpg. After editing it to a final version at the original resolution, it would be saved as DSC_0010F.jpg, an 11 X 14 cropped version for printing would be DSC_0010-11X14@300ppi.jpg and an internet version would be DSC_0010S.jpg. The "s" designation means small size, or 96 PPI version.

In my opinion, Photoshop does a very good job of interpolation when downsizing an image to screen resolutions for use on the Internet or in email. When going larger than the original pixels for prints, and because I insist on never going less than 300 Pixels Per Inch resolution in prints, I have used Genuine Fractals and now OnOne Software's Perfect Resize for many years. It does a super job.

Since you have a D700 (as do I), I'd take the 24-70 F2.8. Wide enough for some great outdoor and indoor shots and fast enough for the indoor ones, especially at high ISO without flash. If you don't have a 24-70 you might consider renting one for a few weeks. After using it, you may not want to part with it!

You have two very good Nikon lenses, both of which will work very well on a full-frame digital just as they are working on your 35mm film body now. Get yourself a D700. It is one very good camera. I would suggest not even considering a DX body with those lenses as they would go to waste. I have been using Nikon digitals since acquiring a D1X when they first came out in the summer of 2001. I still have three, two of which are DX bodies (the D2X and D300) plus the D700. The D700 is the best of the lot!

If in doubt, perhaps you should rent one for a short while so that you can use it with your lenses and get some first-hand experience with it. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

The home page of my website has a short bio on it, plus a list of my equipment.

http://photosbycommodore-don.com

I have taken several thousand pictures with the Nikon 14-24 f2.8 on my D700. It is a fantastic lens and sees an angle of view of 114 degrees at 14 mm. Here's a 14mm shot with that lens on a D700.

Portage Lakes Antique and Classic Boat Show 6/25/2011

My "travelin' light" camera is my D300 with the 18-270 Tamron on it, plus I usually throw the Nikon 12-24 in the bag just in case I need something wider than 27 mm equivalent. I use wide angle a lot!

When using my D700, it has the Nikon 24-70 f2.8 on it, plus I carry the 14-24 f2.8 in the bag along with the lesser-used 70-200 VR f2.8.

I'm an event photographer. Zooms allow me to get a wide view of an event or area of it and then to almost instantaneously zoom in to get detail of a smaller area of action. There is just no way I could function with one single focal length lens, or even just one zoom, although the 18-270 comes close. Now, if its optical quality just equaled what I get with the D700 and its lenses, that would be super!

I have both DX Nikons and the FX D700. On the D700 I use the 24-70 F2.8 which sees an angle of view of 84 degrees....oretty wide angle. It takes screw-on filters.

I also have the 14-24 F2.8 which does not take filters. However, it is a superb and fun lens which sees an angle of view of 114 degrees and IS NOT A FISHEYE! I use mine a lot as I specialize in photos of antique and classic boats and take many of my pictures at boat shows. I'm often right on top of the subjects and can't back up unless I want to go swimming, something the cameras don't like!

You can see a lot of pictures taken with both of those lenses on my Website on SmugMug. They host my URL:
www.photosbycommodore-don.com

About 10 years ago, a friend of mine took pictures from the exact same spot, one in summer and the other in winter. Both were of a beautiful small lake in North-Central Ohio and were taken with a 2 MP Kodak camera. They were lovely shots and she wanted 20 X 30 inch prints so that she could have them matted and framed and hanging on her living room wall.

She took the digital images on a CD to a camera store. As soon as they discovered what the file sizes were they refused to do anything with them, telling her she would not be happy with the results.

She then contacted me to see if I could help her. I asked her if she had the original files as they had come out of the camera on the memory card. I had previously instructed her to always keep the original files unaltered or unedited because of JPEG degradation from multiple openings and saves in ones photo editing software. She had saved the originals and emailed them to me. I opened the pictures in Photoshop then saved them in Genuine Fractals Format (Now OnOne Software's Perfect Resize). I then reopened them as GF's and the software asked for the size I wanted. I selected just 30" wide and keep the original proportions. When opened in PS I cropped the pictures to the 3/2 ratio that the print wood be and then saved them as TIF's. I burned the huge TIF's onto a CD and took it to her. She than took it back to the photography store and had 30 X 20 inch prints made. She then took the prints to a custom framing shop, had them matted and framed in lovely cherry wood frames and hung them on her living room wall.

Nobody seeing those two lovely pictures would ever guess that they came from a 2 MP camera.

So here's another testimonial for Perfect Resize, formerly Genuiine Fractals.