How to Prepare your Photos for Print
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- Опубліковано 4 кві 2022
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Alright, so you've taken a photo you love. You go to print it out and you are devastated because it looks cra%.
Well, we all experience this and I hope this video helps you.
I'll share my workflow for preparing my images to print. My advice, tips, and techniques for ensuring the print does the photo justice!
Enjoy!
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00:01:11 - Reviewing your Image
00:02:48 - Looking for mistakes, blemishes, and distractions
00:04:28 - Shadows and blacks - screen vs. print
00:07:30 - Resizing your image
00:08:50 - Saving your image
00:09:49 - Reviewing the print
00:10:23 - What else to consider - lab, monitor, and paper
00:11:18 - What about printing on canvas
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I love turning an image into a print, it’s the final step and you learn so much from it as it’s on display 24/7 and not stuck in a folder
absolutely, no going back!
I've spent half the day looking for tips on how to set files ready for print and couldn't find the information I needed. I stumbled across your video and have learnt so much! Wish I'd found it early. Love your photos and love your videos! Thank you so much for sharing.
I feel you! Thanks for stopping by and I’m stoked to have helped you. More videos to come! ☺️🙏🏻
Thanks so much for this useful information William. I know that this video is from one year ago, but I am just now learning how to improve my printing workflow. This will come in very handy for me going forward. Thanks again.
It’s crazy how different prints look! Thanks for this! I was actually reading a photo mag the other day and specifically the blues looked insane! Maybe they should watch this 😁😁
😂🙈 cheers Fi! Yeah, magazines really suffer a lot in the print process. Definitely no comparison to fine art ink and paper.
Thank you so much for this great video. You've completely demystified the daunting process of preparing and sizing images for print. Your steps are really clear. I especially like that you give us the thought process behind your decisions. That's great teaching. Having avoided it for ages, I'm now ready to give it a go!
Thanks so much Carolyn ☺️🙏🏻
I'm getting to the point where I want to start printing my images and this was really informative. Cheers mate!
Awesome, thanks mate!
Thanks William for this video. I watched it right away on your advice regarding the brightness settings for images.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for the support mate.
Excellent Vid and advice. just as i like it. clear, concise and no annoying unnecessary info. Brill. Thanks very much.
Thanks a lot!
Very helpful video - about to take the plunge into printing some of my images - many thanks!
Great Chris, let me know how you go!
@WilliamPatinoPhotography Thank you for this video. Awesome! It's everything I've been looking for.
my pleasure, thank you :)
Nice video William, thanks.
Thanks mate :)
Thank you so much dude! Answered all my questions.
Glad I could help! Thanks :)
Very helpful. THANKS!
My pleasure, thank you :)
Awesome Will, thanks for sharing this. I have just sent some test prints to the lab and am trying different fine art papers but I wasn't aware of having to pull up the blacks so much. I got stuck on the resizing also, oh well, all test and error. Thanks again!
Thanks Mel. The results might come out fine if there isn’t too many darker tones. There’s also the potential that the lab may raise things up slightly prior to printing. Unlikely but not unheard of. Will be interested to hear how they come out :)
Nice one mate. This has clued me up to the extent I can start having a few photos printed professionally on canvas. Thanks mate.
Pleasure. Thanks mate 👊🏻
Thank you!!!! Easy to understand, super!
Glad it was helpful!
just came across this today.. very informative in easy to understand lingo.. i was aware of a lot of terms before, for eg tiff, psd, files but never knew which file to use, uou have explained it perfectly. thank you
Glad it was helpful!
Agree with your strategy 100 percent
This a very relatable vid to what I struggle with. Getting it right from computer screen to print is frustrating, most of the time it’s darker then you won’t, cheers for the pointers man
My pleasure. Thanks for the comment mate!
@@M.Montgomery for sure, especially for certain monitors. great for colour but still tricky for the brightness and translating that to papers.
Thanks so much, this is 🔥
Thanks Rach 🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thx for your help!
No problem!
Thanks for a great video
Thanks mate
Great tips!
Glad it was helpful!
Nice one Will. You have confirmed what I have found doing my own printing - re the pulling up the blacks. I use Marrutt paper (Superb) and use a profile from them but the darks were still coming out too dark, so I have started doing what you suggest. Thank you for confirming that as I thought I must be doing something wrong.
awesome!
Very informative Will .thank you. I had some canvas printed and got a protective coating applied (as recommended) but found it was too shiny and made it look bad if you didn't look at it front on .I also heard that you can apply a protective coating to paper prints so you would not have to put it behind glass ( I do have spraypainting gear) do you know what product to use for that? another question is how do you mount onto foamboard (if it is not self adhesive?) your tutorials are refreshingly clear and informative
Interesting. I hadn’t heard of that costing before but I can imagine that being an issue with the reflection on the canvas. You’d most likely get the same glossy reflective effect on the print too, unfortunately. Thanks for the support and kind words.
By coincidence I was at a print shop last week and a student had some large black and white printing done and to her dismay they were way darker than they appeared when she edited them.
My take was maybe the monitor was not calibrated correctly, but thanks to your video, I now know it could be otherwise.
Your tip about a trial print is a good one too.
good stuff! thanks mate!
Thanks. Very educational. Do you untick the resample box in Photoshop when you make very large prints? I read somewhere that you only use resample when you make your images smaller.
Thankyou so much
Sent off my first print thankyou ☺️
So awesome! Let me know how it turns out ☺️
Hi great video. I was wondering what brightness you set you monitor too and does this affect the results of brightness in the editing process?
Thanks. Yes, it does. If the monitor is too bright, your edit will potentially be too dark. If the monitor is too dark, you may end up making the edit too bright. It is a balancing act. I like to sit around 70% approximately but keeping an eye on the histogram also helps!
also try threshold adjustment layer, slide slider all the way to one side then gradually move it the next direction till the black start to show, then take the "color sampler tool and click on a black spot, then slide the slider all the way to next side then gradually move it till the whites start to show up and use the color sampler tool again and click and put a point on the white , delete threshold adjustment layer , then open curves and it the properties panel, there are 3 eye droppers, click on the one that says sample black point , now click on the picture where you set the black point from the sample tool, then go to the sample white point eye dropper and click on the picture where you set the white point , after open levels and on the properties window where you can adjust the shadows midtones and highlights sliders, in the shadow box where it has zero, input the number 7 and on the highlights side input 247, from there you can adjust the midtones accordingly slightly ........ then print.
Hi Will, do you keep the 'embed color profile' option checked when saving? Thank you!
What color space are you using or should you use? Srgb or adobe rgb?
Many thanks. Really enjoyed this video. Do you ever use soft proofing and ICC profiles? Your video made the whole printing procedure much easier. Thanks again!
Thanks mate! Nah, this formula works fine for me. When people haven’t used a specific lab or printed much before I definitely suggest doing some small test prints first though :)
Hi Will another informative video. I have a question regarding sharpening for print. Where within your workflow do you do any sharpening for print?
Hi David. None at all, otherwise I would have included it :) cheers
Thanks brah. Printed a few images from officemax for the first time and it came out really dark than the images lol.
I got suprisingly good results from a 11x17 print for $1 compared to a $3 11x17 print with a heavier stock paper from Fedex. The cheaper one had less gloss so you could see it better but it bends and wrinkles alot easily compared to the heavy stock one.
Can I do that with a iPad Pro using photoshop as well?
Great video, thank you! I want to start printing my images but keep asking myself: what is actually real in terms of exposure and contrast? The info on boosting shadows, contrast and exposure to compensate for you monitor being backlit was a real lightbulb moment, ha ha! That also explains why my images look darker when I post to FB or IG. I am also going to try editing with my monitor at around 50% brightness, as you suggested. Thanks again!
My pleasure. Also, keep an eye on your histogram when you edit. I like to make sure here’s some bright tones getting close to the right side of the histogram (without clipping of course). And the shadows, I don’t want clipping the left side. If the data in your histogram is stopping half way then you will have a dull image even on screen. Gotta get those details to the right! In the field is nice but even more so in the edit. Check my histogram video out of more on that :)
W.P. up on your shelf to your left there's a GM lens missing it's rear cap, dust trap?
Haha, it’s broken and shattered ;) thanks though!
Which print lab do you use?
I usually use Lightroom for editing and exporting. For print I usually use jpg large format or Tiff for exporting from Lightroom. Will it be alright. I use Canon Eos R full frame 30 mp camera.
Yep that is fine. That just means you are letting the printing lab do the down or upsizing for you, which is no problem if it is a reputable lab that know what they're doing. Otherwise, you'll want to resize to the specific size via the methods I show in this video.
Wish I had seen this before I did my first metal print, lol. Just as you say it came out way dark...maybe 2 stops or so. Some others came out okay but this one was a waterfall on an overcast foggy day in GSMNP.
I'll have to try canvas. Good points.
Sorry to hear, but at least my advice is still valid haha. Give it a try next time!
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography several years ago at this point. Knew then I needed to brighten things up but you’ve given good info on how to go about it 👍
Will how does Milky Way shots look on canvas? Thanks
Tricky mate. Depends on the iso and how much of the image is shadows.
Thanks for this video. How come my image size/dimensions are smaller when I export out of lightroom? I cannot figure out how to get the edited image to photoshop to be the same size as the original..I am worried I won't be able to print 16x20 photos as it's going from 4200x2900 down to 3500x2200. Any idea? Thanks!
When you’re exporting out of LR, check the settings there on the export page. It’s potentially set to downsize it by default.
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography Thank you, i'll give it a shot. Now that I think about it, it's likely because I am cropping the image and it's saving as a cropped, smaller version. Subscribed to the channel !
William, Thanks for tips! when you are making the adjustments to you file to account for the exposure/shadows/darkness, I noticed you did not change anything with the sharpness. Do you add any sharpening to you image for print?
Hi Dan. No, I don’t apply any sharpening to the majority of my images. I think there’s too much emphasis on this and it’s not necessary at all.
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography That's impressive. I have never heard of that method. At the moment I am only adding a small amount during import/ACR to the RAW file, but I do not add anything at the end out of fear it will be too much. This helps put my mind at ease!
@@danielguinn3906 Cheers mate. Honestly, I spent my first few years obsessing about 'sharpness' and ways to sharpen in post, then I realised that the images are more than sharp enough, sometimes too much even. I prefer a painterly, atmospheric look to my work and the emphasis should be on light, subject matter and depth. Over-sharpening can distract from that. A decent lens and solid execution in the field will produce the right results, in my opinion.
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography That's a very healthy mentality to have towards photography/sharpening in general. My worry always came at the end when trying to figure out the right amount of sharpening for the paper, metal, acrylics, canvas, etc. I will try this thought process out on my next test batch of images, maybe it will put my at ease like it has you!
@@danielguinn3906 Cheers mate! All the best :)
Great advice. I’d also be interested in what you can do to help the framing process: Border versus no border, cropping to standard sizes versus custom ratios.
Thanks John. I stick to 2:3 ratio and avoid any cropping at all. Using non standard sizes is not a problem though if you use a decent framing/printing lab. For framed prints, I typically like a couple of inches of the mat, to use as a nice border between the print and frame.
Have you ever used Bay Photo? Any lab you recommend? Thank you for this!!
Nah, I think that’s a US thing. Try Whitewall, I use them for some of my US and Europe orders :)
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography thank you!!
Unless I missed something, you didn't mention sharpening. How do you sharpen your raw file and the print ready file?
You missed nothing. I don't sharpen. No need, especially when you have decent glass, IMO. Cheers :)
From my research so far I'm seeing the majority of people saying a raw RGB color photo from DSLR camera needs converted to a CMYK color profile instead when printing to counteract the issues of photo darkening on prints. What are your thoughts on this? Toe-May-Toe , Tuh-Mah-Toe? Thank you for your different perspectives and output to the community, I'm learning and that's always good. Appreciate it
From my experience, that’ll primarily change the look of the colours. It has happened to me in the past, when using a different lab and the result in print was greatly different to screen. With the darkest tones only being in the blacks and shadows (no colour) then I can’t see that being a factor that would help with getting the brightness levels correct. Best thing to do is just run some prints with various edits/adjustments and then assess the results :)
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography Awesome, thank you very much for your timely response. That's exactly what I was thinking as well. I greatly appreciate it.
nice
Thanks
If printing a book, don't you want to export as a CMYC file from an RGB file before sending to printer? Thanks.
Depends on the printer and lab. Just need to consult with them first to see what they need.
What setting are you using on your monitor, ARGB? And what does your print shop map too?
P3.
👍👍
🤓
Based on your experience, could you please recommend the lab in NZ that you get your prints?. This will give us the confidence and trust to go with recommended lab. Thx once again for putting out such informative video.
No worries. For NZ, check out the Photo Gallery in Dunedin. Or you can use the lab I typically use in Australia which is Photomart. I’ve used them for almost ten years. You can order online with them and they also handle the packaging and shipping. The overall pricing is competitive and typically cheaper than producing here in NZ. But for anything I want made to display locally, I use the Dunedin guys.
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography Thanks a lot for taking time to share such valuable information. Will definitely reach out to them.
Hello, I'm looking to sell my photos on Etsy. I'm not going to be printing out the prints, Etsy works with a 3rd party that does the printing. So I'm wondering, how should I save my pictures for the website? Because I know people will want all different sizes. Thank you.
Hey! I’m assuming they’ll be doing all the resizing for you, so they will just need a high res. Don’t downsize the file at all, just save as jpeg and upload. You can also see if they accept TIFF files, which has more data than the jpeg.
A bit surprise you didnt mention ICC profile. Don’t you use any?
I find most labs here have very small image file sizes for their printing services, rendering them useless. A 16 bit tiff @ A2 resize/150DPI is typically ~400mb and well above the file size limit on offer. Even as a JPG it's a fail...very frustrating.
I note that you didn't change the ICC colour profile. I presume that the lab you use does that for you?
I have had the problem in the past when getting say and 8x10 printed. It comes back to me 8x10 but with parts of the image cropped off. I want to assure that if I want and image a certain size it will come back to me that size without cropping.
The problem is most likely that your cameras sensor is 3:2 but an 8x10 is a different ratio altogether, so as a result the image must be cropped in someway to fit 8x10. In Photoshop, select the crop tool and up the top you can choose the ratio for cropping. If you insist on having an 8x10, make the crop yourself in PS before sending off to print. But for best results you’ll want to print at the same ratio as your cameras sensor. 12x8 for example, which is a 3:2 ratio.
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography Ok. Now I understand it. I have always had problems with that. My sensor is 3:2 so all I have to do is make the enlargemts with the same ratio. Thank you so much. I just started following you and I'm looking forward to seeing more of you videos.
Very informative. Firstly, I use Lightroom Classic and my problem is how to resize an image to fit a specific frame. The image dimension is 6000 x 4000 pixels and I want to fit this image into an Ikea frame with mount 50 cm ( 19.685 inches) width x 70 cm ( 27.559 inches) height. also allowing a bit to overlap the mount. Your comments would be appreciated.
Thanks Michael. Unfortunately you’ve encountered a common problem, in regards to ratios and standard frame sizes. The camera sensor and image of yours is a 2:3 ratio (which is also what all my images are) however the frame you have is a different ratio at 5:7. The only option you have is to crop your image, using the crop tool set to 5:7 ratio. But you will then have to cut off some of the edge of your image, which isn’t ideal. Alternatively you can create a 5:7 ratio canvas in Photoshop and then drop your 2:3 image onto that. So you will have some uneven border around your image. Lastly, you could get a custom frame made, which is what I usually do using the printing lab. Hope that helps!
@@WilliamPatinoPhotography
Thanks for your advice. Your offer for presets . Can one uses them in Lightroom classic
When raising the levels aren’t you concerned about clipping the whites?
Because I’m generally raising the dark tones the most I’m not overly concerned about the whites, but the histogram can be referenced to make sure.
The problem for me with canvas is it makes the work look cheap and nasty. Nice matt and frame will always make the image as a package look better in my opinion.
I think framing the canvas definitely helps with that, but I understand what you mean.
what guts me is the cost of framing just recently went and got one framed and it was 800.00 since the last one i got framed was 500.00 the cost of similar has gone through the roof......and before you say you can do cheaper...spent money on professionally getting printed and heaps of time taking and editing said photos ...why would you use cheap frames that dont look good.....I would luv to get more printed as thats relativily cheap...but framing is expensive
I ran into the same issue when using a frame shop to mount and frame my photos. Very expensive! I decided to learn how to do all of it myself. There was an initial investment in tools and materials, but much less expensive if you matt and/or frame several photos. There are many good online shops that offer high end matts and frames with glass cut to your specifications.
Thank you for the information. But the music in the background is really taking over. Muzak is so tiring
Thanks. It's something I have toned down on more recent videos. This one is a little older. Cheers!
I’ve never once printed anything.
You should!