[dtra]

hi all

i've got a picture that i want to print to 24"x36"
what settings should i export to? is the 10mp even enough to print to that size?, i can drop down to 20"x30" i guess
dpi (resolution)?
tiff obviously
colour space?
bit depth?

my monitor isn't calibrated, but it's a black and white photo anyway, so it shouldn't matter?

one more thing, the sample printouts they had in the store where printed on blocks, does anyone have an opinion on this versus framing?
i don't really mind either way, but i can see pros and cons of each

thanks
dave

[ftpaddict]

What do you mean by exporting? Suspecting you're talking about Photoshop; here's my 2 cents worth:

10mp is more than enough for a billboard sign if you're good.
dpi doesn't have that much to do with it, but make it 300, just in case.
tiff obviously
AdobeRGB, if wherever you're printing it supports it
16-bit please.

It should matter if your monitor is or is not calibrated. You'll be surprised how dull your pictures print out, when your monitor displayed a very contrasty, sharp image.


Can't say much about blocks vs. framing. Someone will surely be able to help you with that.

[dtra]

thanks
using lightroom, i'll have to find out if they support adobeRGB
hmmm, i'll have to see if i can see my picture on a calibrated monitor as well then

[little laker]

It's a fair amount of expense to print a poster, so please do yourself a favor and calibrate your monitor first.

I've printed off several poster sized images shot with my K100D, and they still looked great

[dtra]

is the spyder 2 express good enough for basic hobbyist use
i'm not looking to sell anything, and i doubt anyone would want to buy anything form me
or will it not make any difference?
i've seen people mention the huey pro, but i was looking at the site of a local distributor, and they stopped selling it because they had a lot of returns

dave

[PDL]

Check out the printing service as much as possible.
Get a monitor calibrator and calibrate your monitor - before doing anything else. (I am using a Huey Pro - but the Color Munki ColorMunki - ColorMunki Design looks very interesting - but pricey)

I printed an image off of my *ist Ds to 20x30 using Costco. The printer is on the other side of the country, no printer drivers and understands only sRGB. The image was initially processed in Lightroom 1.2 or 1.3 and resized using MS Digital Image Suite 2006. It is sitting in my living room (family room to the wife) waiting to go back to her office once the new one is completed. (Her group is playing musical floors at the moment - she will not get back into the same building for a few more weeks).

The picture came out fine thank you very much. Very few online printing outfits have printer profiles published. Costco has printer profiles for some of their in-house printers, but it varies by site - and they only print up to 12x18 in house. The 20x30 prints are done in Maryland - so it takes me a week to get the big ones back. They also only accept JPEG's, no TIFF's and no adobeRGB. Also - be sure to tell the printer to NOT use the printers default - or it will change everything you have done in PP to "auto" (read stupid).

Currently I am using Lightroom beta 2 - it allows for print to JPEG's (not exporting) so you can controll the output size and let Lightroom do all the work.

The Elitist - formerly known as PDL

[dtra]

thanks for the info, though i am in australia
most of what you said is still relevant
i think i'll drop into a local shop to get the photo printed rather than hope for the best with an online place especially when i'm not 100% sure of what i'm doing

dave

[davemdsn]

For B&W you won't need 16 bit. 8 bit is 16 million shades of gray, which should be plenty. I would get your monitor calibrated. Color isn't the only thing that can be off if you don't calibrate. If the gamma, contrast or brightness is off your B&W image can shift quite a bit when printed.

[andc]

For B&W you won't need 16 bit. 8 bit is 16 million shades of gray, which should be plenty.

8-bit is 256 levels of grey.

andy
www.digital-coffee.co.uk

[davemdsn]

Sorry, forgot you loose the addition of the other two channels. I hate math and miss film.

[dtra]

thanks for the tips guys

if i export with the adobergb colour space, and the place i print at doesn't support the adobergb colour space, will that result in a worse picture, or have no effect?

dave

[OniFactor]

if you want your black and white picture to look decent, do NOT convert it to anything other than RGB. simply use the desaturate command. if you use grayscale, the printer will make everything way too dark

[dtra]

one more problem
i've got the spyder2express and calibrated the monitor (it was a little confusing, saying to turn off all lights, but also saying to use your normal lighting conditions to calibrate)
i turned out the lights (it was night time), it seemed fine
the problem i'm having is that my pictures don't look the same in lightroom compared to other applications

eg. firefox, i've got a b+w that looks much darker than how it looks in lightroom
while some pictures with lots of green, look over saturated outside lightroom
the output appears to be the problem (not the calibration)

i'm just exporting at 100 JPEG or tiff uncompressed

can anyone help me with this one?
dave

[ghelary]

Web browsers generaly does a mess of colors for any kind of images. That causes hudge headaches to web designers.

Now Firefox 3 have a new feature : managing ICC profiles, the thing is, it is not activated by default. My how to comes from this French site.

From firefox 3, enter in the URL tab : about:config, filter on the term gfx, then on line gfx.color.management.enabled, change it to true.

Go on , and check if the color is ok.

Did it fix your problem ?

Guillaume

[dtra]

oh hey, thanks
i had it set to my macbook monitor profile (which is calibrated by my eye), looks better now
set the colour management in the gimp too, and that looks right too

cool, thanks all
dave