How to prepare photos for printing?
Mar 10, 2018 13:36:06 #
katastrofa wrote:
My wife wants to appeal to my vanity and make a "tableau" of the best (read: the few decent ones) bird and insect photos I made. I know nothing about preparing photos for printing. How to proceed? What is a minimal image size in pixels required to make a passable print?
1) Do not adjust images unless you work on a calibrated and profiled monitor capable of at least 100% sRGB color space or 80% Adobe RGB color space.
2) Pixel dimensions required for passable prints vary, depending on the size of the print! (These values are coming from the original file, without interpolation!)
5x7 and smaller: 300 PPI (1500 x 2100)
8x10: 250 PPI (2000x2500)
11x14: 200 PPI (2200x2800)
16x20: 180 PPI (2880x3600)
20x30: 160 PPI (3200x4800)
40x30: 110 PPI (4400x3300)
As the print gets larger, the INPUT resolution can be reduced, because our eyes see less detail at a distance. That is why a 55" (diagonal) 1920x1080 HDTV image looks really sharp at eight feet away!
Of course, you do need to RESIZE the image through interpolation to the lab's printing resolution. Do that in Photoshop, Affinity Photo, On1 Resize, or other post-processing software.
Mar 10, 2018 16:04:54 #
katastrofa wrote:
I refuse to believe there are no professional print shops in the UK.
I don't believe it either. If you were to use your computer to do a web search for your area, you may be well satisfied with the available choices. And if you can upload your images to their website to make an order, it is also possible they will have a function that shows if your image will fit on a certain size paper without cropping, and whether the image at that enlargement will be poor, good, or excellent quality!
Mar 10, 2018 17:56:08 #
philz wrote:
I think you guys went off topic. I use a local Co... (show quote)
If your prints are darker than your monitor, you are not calibrating and custom profiling your monitor correctly!
Read your monitor calibration kit manual. It should give you proper aim points for black level, white level, gamma, color temperature... Get them right, and your prints will match your screen when you use the printer profile as a proofing profile during image adjustment.
Mar 10, 2018 18:59:58 #
philz
Loc: Rockaway Township NJ
burkphoto wrote:
If your prints are darker than your monitor, you are not calibrating and custom profiling your monitor correctly!
Read your monitor calibration kit manual. It should give you proper aim points for black level, white level, gamma, color temperature... Get them right, and your prints will match your screen when you use the printer profile as a proofing profile during image adjustment.
Read your monitor calibration kit manual. It should give you proper aim points for black level, white level, gamma, color temperature... Get them right, and your prints will match your screen when you use the printer profile as a proofing profile during image adjustment.
What I am referring to is the way the print will look without soft proofing and subsequent brightening in the version sent to the printer.
Mar 10, 2018 19:49:37 #
The whole point of soft proofing is to adjust the image in reference to the printer, so what you see on the monitor is what you get on paper.
Mar 10, 2018 20:15:37 #
davyboy
Loc: Anoka Mn.
katastrofa wrote:
My wife wants to appeal to my vanity and make a "tableau" of the best (read: the few decent ones) bird and insect photos I made. I know nothing about preparing photos for printing. How to proceed? What is a minimal image size in pixels required to make a passable print?
Have I got good news for you if you want to print sizes like 8x10 or 11x14 just send it over to Costco no big fussy deal oh ya you can thank me in da mornin 😏
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