Hello fellow photogs, amateur and professional

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

I seek some information or direction. I have some photos I think would work well printed at full size or as note cards etc. My situation is I don't understand the mechanics of setting up the jpeg to be printed. I read about CYMK and white balance and how a monitor may be calibrated incorrectly so the photo looks good at home but like crap when printed.
Any suggestions or sources of information. While I like to think I've got at least something of a handle on composition, lighting etc, when it comes to the actual 'let's print that' I feel lost.
Also, do any of you print from your home printer?
Thank you.
John

[NV Whino]

1. I need some more info

1. Are you considering printing these through a professional printer?
If yes, you have the choice of lithography, which is expensive for four color process, or digital, which is high end ink jet. In either case, your files need to be 300 pixels per inch.

2. Are you considering printing from your own printer on precut stock?
If yes, 72 pixels per inch will work. You will probably want to use a 6 or 8 color printer.

3. If you have a relatively new monitor, I wouldn't worry too much about calibrating your monitor. Older monitors can be a problem. There are apps and equipment to calibrate. Think $200 plus.

4. Don't worry about converting from RGB to CMYK. The printers, whether your own or professional convert to CMYK, and they prefer to do it themselves.

I you are going to do this, distribution and sales are the big problems. You might consider Cafe Press or the like. No out of pocket expense, but again, getting people to your site is the challenge.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

3. I guess I'd need to know what

constitutes a professional printer. I've had notecards made through Costco and they aren't bad, but I don't know what things to do to the pics to prepare them for printing. Just been getting lucky I guess. 300 pixels per inch is a printing spec right? So when I check my image data in Photoshop and it uses pixels that is an image size number and not the same as 300 per inch for printing or am I making it too complicated?

[ManiacJoe]

4. Oh, the joys of printing.

For monitors, the big problem most folks have is not the color but the brightness and contrast (both normally WAY too high). Using this page as an example:
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikon-d7100/
Just above the comments section is an A-Z scale of brightness from white to black. If your brightness and contrast are set correctly, you can see the difference between A-B an between Y-Z.

Yes, the picture size in pixels is just the picture size. The resolution (x pixels per inch) as saved to the file will be the default math done by Photoshop in the printing setup. You can change this, like "fit to paper", if you want.

Costco printing has two advantages. (1) you can download printer profiles so that Photoshop can show you what your Costco print will look like. (2) Costco printing has a "fix my colors" option during the print submission process.

[Stevenmarc]

2. Two things

A good calibration tool like Colormunki and the printer profiles from the printing service you are using

[DrDan]

5. I have a somewhat related question

I have some b&w's that I like on the monitor - however, when printed, I don't like the results.

I spoke to our local custom lab last week about this - and the high-level explanation was that color images (manipulated to b&w) printed with a color printer using a color process will not necessarily produce a good b&w print (not sure if that 3rd criteria was actually spoken - but you get the point.) He was a proponent of film for a good b&w.

So . . . how do I approach getting a b&w print from a color image?

thanks in advance.

[NV Whino]

6. Contrast usually suffers when you convert

Set your printer to print black only. Set photoShop for greyscale rather than RGB.

That said, Alfredo is the black and white master here. Send him a PM in case he doesn't see this thread.

[DrDan]

7. thanks - that helps